Doctors told TexasVolleyball's asjiaoneal it was too dangerous to play volleyball. So the Longhorns' star and daughter of former NBA player Jermaine O'Neal chose open-heart surgery — twice — to play the game she loves.
, was at the peak of his 18-season NBA career. In 2002, two years after Asjia was born, O'Neal was named the league's most improved player, charming fans with his outgoing personality and tantalizing promise with the Indiana Pacers. He took Asjia with him to most every game, and by the time she walked and talked, she was on TV, in her father's arms, celebrating his career with him.
Basketball aside, Asjia was like her father in most every way. A day before competing in her fourth-grade spelling bee championship, Asjia ran around their Miami house, performing one-handed cartwheels. Jermaine stopped her and said,"Asjia, you need to settle down and study for the spelling bee if you're going to have any chance of winning it." Midway through a cartwheel, Asjia said,"Dad, I'm going to win it.
Just as she began to feel like this might be her sport, she received some shocking news during a cardiology appointment in Boston: Her mitral valve leak had gotten worse in the past year. The intensity of her volleyball training was the likely cause, her doctors told her parents. "My daughter ... has a chance to be one of the best volleyball players in the country," Jermaine O'Neal told theat the time."College coaches are already calling about her. She has a leaky valve that's making her heart work too hard. ... I'm positive everything will go well.
To Asjia, it's all a blur now."I was so young. I remember recovering so quickly and going out there and playing and feeling great." Asjia O'Neal, who stands 6-foot-3, has impressed coaches and frustrated opponents with her uncanny anticipation, hand-eye coordination and fluid movement. very wrong. I don't know if I can do this," Asjia said to Mesha on the phone after one of her first spring practice sessions during her redshirt freshman year at Texas in 2019.
"She never wanted to accept that her heart [condition] prevented her from doing certain things that other people could easily do," Mesha said. It was on that last day of spring training that O'Neal's doctor told her that she shouldn't play volleyball anymore. The previous tests hadn't picked up on her deteriorating condition.
"I had no idea, because it was the same protocol -- some days I would feel bad, some days I would feel better," said Asjia, who had a .413 hitting percentage and averaged 1.48 kills per set through the first 19 matches of that 2019 season."But I thought this might just be the reality of me playing sports."
"Athletes, when they are exercising, they convert their cardiac output -- as we call it -- or circulation, they multiply that by at least five times, sometimes more. So instead of the heart pumping at five liters a minute, [it] would be pumping at 20 liters a minute for an athlete," said Dr. Hani Najm, who performed O'Neal's surgery."[Asjia] was not able to perform because her heart was not able to [sustain] at that level.
A month after Texas' season ended, O'Neal walked into Cleveland Clinic in a green dressing gown, ready to have her heart cut open -- again.ON THE MORNING "I know her lifestyle and her career, and if I replaced her valve with a prosthetic one, she would have to commit to subsequent surgeries," Najm said."I also didn't want her to have to take blood thinners [as an athlete].""I felt that I had produced a good piece of art that is going to last long," he said."She will never know how bad she felt until she feels as good as she's going to feel now.
On the second day, she slowly sat up and walked a few steps with support. The third day, she could walk farther. And on the fourth day, she could make one round, with her aid. The doctors signed her discharge papers.O'Neal is a career .390 hitter at Texas, and she was averaging 1.92 kills per set this season entering the NCAA tournament. into the air, but the set by Jhenna Gabriel is tight. She nudges the ball over the net, and the referee blows the whistle. A violation is called.
Asjia's mother, Mesha, sitting in the bleachers behind the Oklahoma side of the court, says,"She looks upset." While watching O'Neal on the volleyball court, it is easy to forget that just 22 months ago, she could not sit up, let alone elevate her entire body to make a kill. For six weeks after her surgery, she was home in Dallas, slowly building up her strength. Shortly after she was cleared to return to the gym, the coronavirus pandemic shut down sports. She returned home, working with Koehler remotely to rebuild the soft tissue in her chest.
Skylar Fields, left, and O'Neal were two of five Longhorns named to the All-Big 12 volleyball first team. Teammate Logan Eggleston was named the conference's player of the year. a year ago. She didn't miss a game in 2020, returning to action eight months after surgery and finishing the season with 222 kills and 113 blocks.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Yelp Is Doing More to Help Winterize Restaurants Than the State of TexasYelp is doing more to help winterize restaurants than the state of Texas
Read more »
Texas Restricts Medication Abortion, Escalating War On Reproductive RightsMonths after the state enacted a six-week abortion ban, another bill went into effect largely cutting off Texans' remaining access to abortion care.
Read more »
Federal judge blocks Texas social media lawA federal judge blocked a law that was set to take effect Thursday in Texas that would have prohibited large social media platforms from censoring users based on their viewpoints.
Read more »
Mo Amer Is All Contradictions in Mohammed in TexasMo Amer, a very likable comedian from Houston, serves up a whole series of conflicting attitudes in his latest Netflix special, Mohammed in Texas. Read our review.
Read more »
Judge Blocks Texas Social Media Law That Would Have Let Banned Users Sue WebsitesU.S. District Judge Robert Pitman pointed out that social media companies are privately owned platforms with their own First Amendment rights.
Read more »
Tesla officially moves headquarters from California to Texas | AP NewsTesla says it has officially moved its corporate headquarters from Silicon Valley to a large factory under construction outside of Austin, Texas. CEO Elon Musk had said that the movie was coming at the company's annual meeting in October.
Read more »