By Jimmy Robertson
Over the course of the past 351 days, Emily Gray developed a gameday ritual, which required going to the store, buying a big bag of Skittles, and then eating them with teammates Holly Rose Weber and Sydney Ash.
In other words, gamedays for these injured standouts on the Virginia Tech women's soccer team consisted of following the rainbow and tasting the rainbow – while mixing in a little cheering for their teammates in the process.
Gray, though, will be required to do much more than eat Skittles and cheer on her teammates Saturday night when Virginia Tech takes on rival Virginia in Charlottesville in a match that marks the first Virginia Tech athletics event since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all sports in mid-March. Medically cleared and hopefully fully recovered from last fall's torn ACL – she hasn't tested herself in a match since the injury – Gray needs to bring her natural abilities as a scoring threat to a Tech team that faces an unrelenting schedule to start this season.
The Hokies open with three road matches – Virginia, Clemson and North Carolina – followed by a rematch against Virginia and a home match against always difficult Florida State. Those four teams went a combined 70-16-7 last fall.
But after nearly a year away from competition, Gray welcomes any challenge.
"I'm looking forward to just getting to play again, getting to compete, and putting the VT jersey on," she said. "Regardless of my situation, I haven't played in 10 months and the rest of the country hasn't played in four plus months either. We were also in our spring season, so some people didn't play any spring games. In that sense, everyone just wants to step foot on the field, get to play the game, because that's what we're here to do … I think for the season, especially for us ending on a sour note last year [a 1-0 first-round loss to Xavier in the NCAA Championship], we're eager to get revenge on that and bounce back."
For that to happen, the junior from Sewell, New Jersey probably needs to play an integral role. Gray has started every game in which she has played in her career and she led the team with three game-winning goals before her 2019 campaign came to an excruciating end when she tore her ACL – perhaps not coincidentally against UVA and in Charlottesville. Saturday night, she returns to the scene of her worst nightmare, when she battled with former club teammate Phoebe McClernon and heard the dreaded "pop." She knew immediately that she was about to embark on a nine-month vacation from soccer.
The injury served as a double whammy, too, as it knocked her out of U20 national team tryouts and ultimately out of the U.S. team's qualifiers in January and February. Gray had been among a pool of players being considered for the U.S. team slated to participate in the U20 World Cup in Costa Rica and Panama in August, though the pandemic resulted in that event's cancelation.
"My goal was to have a really good season and show why I should be part of the rosters," Gray said. "In doing so, the ACC games were going to be incredibly important because most of my competition played in the ACC or PAC-12. I wanted to prove that I was of the same level or better … That was disappointing because I was very motivated coming into that UVA game specifically and going into ACC play. We had a really good team, and I wanted to make a run at the tournament again, especially for our seniors.
"I remember being on the field when I tore it, screaming in pain, knowing that I'm going to be out for nine months. No World Cup. Everything that I had been working for last summer to have a really good season – and I was having a really good season – just came crashing down."
Fortunately, some external motivation and internal fortitude enabled her to get back to this point. The motivation originally came from her mother, Laurie, who refused to let her oldest child sulk. Tech's sports medical team scheduled Gray's surgery, and once that happened, Laurie Gray delivered a rather stern message to her daughter.
"Get all the tears out now," she said. "As soon as you get surgery, it's back to work."
Her teammates also rallied around her. Kelsey Irwin, the program's heart and soul for the past five years, tore her ACL as a freshman and shared a quote that often motivated her during her rehab – "It's far better starting over than never starting again."
Also, Carli Lloyd, a two-time Olympic gold medalist as a member of the U.S. national team and one of Gray's idols, included a quote with one of her Instagram posts, and it resonated with Gray. The quote: "The best part about your story is that the next page is blank and you get to write it."
After her surgery, Gray competed with Ash and Weber, both of whom had torn their ACLs, during rehab sessions, each trying to go a little farther than the other during individual exercise sessions. Gray grew to love the weight room as well – something she never had enjoyed – and she grew stronger, especially in her upper body.
At head coach Chugger Adair's behest, she spent some time exploring her future career options. A sports media and analytics major, she worked as a commentator for the ACC Network's broadcasting of Tech men's soccer matches last fall – she plans on calling more games this season, too – and saw the game from a different perspective. She started to grow and mature into a well-rounded person and hopefully into an even better soccer player.
In the spring, the sports medicine staff allowed Gray to do some light work on the pitch.
"Chugger had me, Holly, and Sydney be the wall in a passing drill," Gray said. "We were just taking a touch and passing, but it was the best day ever. I was barely moving because I wasn't allowed to go side to side. If a ball passed me, I wasn't allowed to get it. It was still so fun because I was with the team again. I was with the ball.
"When you get injured and you're not traveling in the fall, you're on the sidelines, [and] it sucks. You feel so disconnected from everything. I went from fully immersed in a team to literally nothing, and that was hard. But I had teammates who were so supportive and helped me."
Gray wrapped up her rehab over the summer at her New Jersey home, checking in regularly with the sports medicine staff and with Brandon Dillard, the team's strength and conditioning coach. She received clearance from the sports medicine staff to begin full training in mid-June, roughly eight months after her Oct. 8 surgery.
She last played in a game on Sept. 26 – nearly a full year ago. There may be some rust Saturday night, but she feels confident in her preparations.
"My fitness is right where it was before, and I'm really happy with where I'm at," she said.
Her excitement level, and that of the Hokies, continues to build. In early August, the season looked to be in jeopardy. Now, in a matter of hours, the Hokies return to the pitch.
On Sept. 25, Tech plays its home opener against Virginia – almost exactly one year from the day of Gray's injury. On this day, she'll be making a trade, jumping to Enter Sandman instead of eating Skittles because, as she says, "I'm dorky like that."
After a year away from doing what she loves, hours spent in grueling rehab, and time spent reflecting on both what happened and her future, she certainly deserves a little fun.
"You think this is what your journey is going to be like [a straight line], but it's absolutely nothing like that," she said. "It's always a jumbled mess, and you have to overcome so many things to get where you want to be. I think that it's just a part of my story that I'll look back on when my career is over and think, 'Dang, you got through that. That's pretty cool.'"