Former ND hoops star given a hand on Veterans Day

With thousands of people giving her a standing ovation during Tuesday's Bulls game at the United Center, Danielle Green-Byrd felt a bit overwhelmed.

And it's not easy to crack this woman.

She's had to develop an iron-clad exterior. Her life, after all, has been shaped by one tough circumstance after another.

"I don't like to say tough because I know people have gone through tougher," said Green-Byrd, who grew up in the projects in Chicago. "But it's definitely been challenging, a very challenging road."

It all started when she was 7 and her mother became heavily addicted to crack cocaine. From there, there were other challenges - serious at the time, but that now seem almost minor compared to what happened to her nearly five years ago.

Green-Byrd joined the military in 2002 after graduating from Notre Dame, where she played basketball and, despite a series of major injuries, finished her career as one of the top 20 scorers of all time.

One day in May 2004, she was pulling security on the roof of an Iraqi police station in Baghdad when two rockets whizzed past her. As she attempted to return fire, she was hit by an RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade.

Green-Byrd didn't know it at the time, but the grenade had blown off her left arm and left a nine-inch gash on her left leg.

"They thought they were going to have to amputate my leg, too," said the 31-year-old Green-Byrd, who was 27 at the time. "I'll never forget that day. My sergeant came up to ask if I was OK and his eyes just got really wide and he ran for help. I was flown right away to a hospital."

A couple of sergeants from her unit returned to the rooftop later so that they could retrieve her wedding ring from her left hand, which was also the same hand Green-Byrd used to make jumpers and layups for the Irish.

She was left-handed.

"Of course, I never wanted to lose my hand, but I don't regret joining the service at all," said Green-Byrd, who now wears a cosmetic prosthesis on her left arm. "I wanted to serve my country."

It was for her service, and her personal sacrifice, that Green-Byrd was honored at the Bulls game. It was Veterans Day.

"It's been four-and-a-half years now, so I guess you could say it's getting easier," Green-Byrd said of dealing with her trauma. "I spent eight months (in military hospitals and rehabilitation centers) and when you're in there, you're kind of in a bubble because everyone is like you. You worry about going outside and dealing with the stares and the questions.

"But over the years, I've found that talking about what happened is almost therapeutic for me. It helps to talk about how I feel about it and how I've kind of risen to the occasion."

That's been a theme for Green-Byrd. She's been pulling herself up by her bootstraps her whole life.

Despite getting little guidance and support from her mother, Green-Byrd somehow stayed on track during her teen years long enough to parlay her skills at basketball into a scholarship to her dream school.

"I grew up watching a lot of sports on TV, and the Notre Dame football team was always on," Green-Byrd said. "I thought, 'Wow, that must be a pretty special place. I want to go there.' "

But at Notre Dame, Green-Byrd got off to a slow start, thanks to a couple of injuries, including a torn Achilles' tendon. That, and a bit of culture shock, made her first two years there less than ideal.

"I'm pretty sure Coach (Muffet) McGraw wouldn't have minded getting rid of me," Green-Byrd said. "I just had a really hard time there at first. But she kept giving me chances and it paid off."

Upon graduating from Notre Dame, Green-Byrd was ready to live out her other dream.

"Besides watching sports on TV when I was growing up, I also watched a lot of 'GI Joe.' I was a big fan of that show," Green-Byrd chuckled. "I decided when I was pretty young that I wanted to earn a scholarship and go to Notre Dame, but that if I couldn't do that, I was going to go into the service.

"Funny thing is, even when I got a scholarship, the desire to join the military never left my spirit."

Now Green-Byrd's desire is to help kids by being a good role model. She is a sports coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools and is working toward a master's degree that will allow her to become a school principal someday.

"When this whole thing happened with my hand, thoughts of suicide would come into my head," Green-Byrd said. "But as quickly as they came, they left. I realized I still have something to offer. I think what I've faced in my life is something I can take and mold and share with other people and hopefully inspire the next generation of kids."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com 407512Danielle Green-Byrd