Maybe she’s incredibly stubborn. Maybe she’s incredibly loyal.
Or maybe she’s not even remotely superstitious.
Whatever the reason, Jenna Markoff will hang on to her No. 13 basketball jersey despite a run of luck so bad Las Vegas wouldn’t believe it.
Since May 1999, the 6-foot-1-inch Regina Dominican junior has endured three knee injuries and three operations. She currently is working through her third rehabilitation program with her father, Rich, a strength and conditioning coach who has a variety of torture devices in the basement of their north suburban home.
Markoff is one of the top players in the Chicago area when she is healthy enough to play, but she has appeared in just nine Regina games since her freshman year. Still, she won’t give up on the number her mother, Corrine, wore as a volleyball player at Lourdes and DePaul.
“I like the number,” Markoff said recently after finishing a rehab session. “I’ve teased my mom about it, but I’m staying with it, though I would like to blame it on the number and make it easier with why.”
Markoff had never been seriously hurt from the time she began playing basketball in 6th grade through a freshman season in which she averaged 13 points and eight rebounds a game.
Two months after that season ended, she tore cartilage in her left knee and missed Regina’s summer program. Markoff returned for the start of last season and averaged 13 points and seven rebounds through her team’s first seven games.
But in Game 8 against Westinghouse on Dec. 6, 1999, she turned to run down the court and tore cartilage and the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. It was a season-ending injury with a lengthy rehabilitation period, and Markoff was disconsolate.
“It was hard to hear it was an ACL,” she said, “especially because I had worked so hard to come back and then found out I had to sit down again.”
Markoff considers herself a team player and a team leader, so she attended Regina’s games, kept statistics and tried to hide her disappointment.
“She wouldn’t let anyone else know because she felt that would be a sign of weakness,” her father said. “She’d do everything she could with the team, but when she got home sometimes we’d talk, and there might be some tears.
“Jenna was really disappointed she couldn’t play. She felt she had let her teammates down.”
About the only thing that made her feel better was her rehab program. She was back on the court last July and by autumn was playing better than ever.
“I felt like 150 percent–in my leg, my body and my confidence,” she said.
That lasted less than a game. Midway through the third quarter of Regina’s season opener Nov. 17 at East Aurora, Markoff took two dribbles from the top of the key, came to a jump stop and crashed to the floor with a throbbing pain in her right knee.
Some Regina parents, aware of her injury history, were sobbing. Markoff, meanwhile, fought a losing battle to maintain her composure.
“When she initially hurt it, you could hear the terror in her voice when she was screaming,” senior guard Jill Krause said. “Everyone’s face dropped. We didn’t want to believe it was the ACL again.”
The next day, Markoff got the crushing news that it indeed was a torn ACL. One of her first thoughts was that she would be back for her senior season, but Rich Markoff wondered if that was such a good idea.
“We were waiting for the result [of a test],” he said, “and I said, `Jenna, this is the second [torn ACL]. Do you still want to play? Maybe this is not meant to be for you.’
“She looked at me like I was nuts and said, `I’m never quitting.’ “
She instead got home at 3 p.m. from the doctor’s office and left for a Regina game at 5. Markoff had promised coach Bob Goldberg she wouldn’t miss a game this season, and while she had meant she’d be playing in them, she was determined to keep her word as best she could.
“Her spirits were a lot better than mine,” Goldberg said. “And again, this was going to be the third surgery in 18 months for a 16-year-old.
“But she hasn’t missed a game, and her focus, her determination and her spirit never missed a beat. She couldn’t wait to have surgery so she’d be ready to play.”
Markoff again has had some down moments she has tried to keep hidden. She is finding her second ACL rehab to be easier than her first one, though, partly because she knows what to expect and partly because with no cartilage damage this time, she’s progressing more quickly.
About eight weeks after surgery, she shoots on her own at practice. She will begin running in two or three weeks and expects to be 100 percent by July, in time to impress college coaches during the recruiting evaluation period.
Markoff displays a fierce work ethic in rehab, even more so in the grueling upper-body conditioning her dad puts her through than in the less rigorous work she does to strengthen her right knee.
What seems to drive her is a love for basketball and a hatred of losing. Rich Markoff, whose ribs she once cracked in a one-on-one basketball game, believes his daughter has stayed in the sport partly because quitting would be tantamount to losing.
Goldberg credits Markoff’s determination for helping Regina to a successful season, even though she has barely played. Regina (17-10) put together a miraculous run in the GCAC Red playoffs before falling to St. Ignatius 58-43 on Saturday in the title game.
“She is the heart and soul of the team,” he said. “It’s just the way she handles herself, her desire to be good at what she does, her competitiveness, her never-give-up type spirit.
“I think that rolls over to the rest of the team.”
Krause confirmed that Markoff has set an example for her teammates.
“She’s outgoing and extremely funny,” Krause said. “She’s just a great all-around person and probably one of the most determined people I’ve ever met.”
Markoff is determined to help lead Regina to a state championship next season and get a scholarship with a Division I college basketball program.
“That, of course, is after I get back on the court,” she said, laughing.
It has been staying there that has been no laughing matter, but the odds finally seem to be in her favor.
Many more females than males get ACL injuries, and those who tear one ACL seem somewhat prone to tear the other. The number of times an athlete has torn an ACL in the same knee twice, however, is extremely small.
“I feel like there’s nothing else,” Markoff said regarding possible future injury. “There’s no more knees, no more legs.”
She has lost half her high school basketball career already. What she has gained, Markoff said, is a deeper respect for patience and basketball.
“I appreciate the game more than I did before,” she said, “and I think I want it more than most players because I have not played as much.”
She also has learned not to question fate.
“Things happen for a reason,” she said. “I just have to let it play out.”
———-
Send e-mail to Barry Temkin at BarTem@aol.com
