Back in the game: Wheaton College’s Annie Tate overcomes health scares, resumes stellar career

Last summer, Annie Tate picked up the phone and made a call she once thought was impossible.

It was a call Kent Madsen never expected to receive.

“I called up coach Madsen and said, 'Hey, can I come back?'” Tate said. “He's been along for the whole ride. He's been amazing. He was like, ‘I don't know what this is going to look like but yeah, we'd love to have you back.'”

A talented basketball player coming out St. Charles North High School, Tate mostly sat on the bench as a Wheaton College freshman in 2019-20 on a Thunder team that went 20-8 and won the CCIW title.

That changed the following season.

While leading Wheaton College in scoring (19.3 points per game) and rebounding (8.2), Tate earned honorable mention All-American honors. In a season shortened by COVID-19, the Thunder went 11-1 and repeated as CCIW champions.

The sky was seemingly the limit for the affable guard/forward over the next two seasons, but that's when a series of health issues seriously threatened to ground Tate's career while it was just taking off.

“What she's gone through, most kids would have just said it's pretty clear I should be done playing,” Madsen said.

Again leading Wheaton College in scoring and rebounding 10 games into her junior year, Tate shook off a leg injury until she could no longer bear the pain.

“I'm a chronic ankle sprainer,” she said. “I tweaked it at the beginning of the season but didn't think anything of it. Then I started having a shooting pain through my foot and leg and it got progressively worse. I had a bunch of nerve damage in my foot and ankle so I needed season-ending surgery.”

It was a disappointing end to her year, but Tate still had a bright future with the Thunder and was optimistic heading into the 2022-23 season after being cleared to return late in the summer following a lengthy, painful recovery.

The next dark health cloud rolled in a week before the season was scheduled to start.

During practice, leg cramps came first. Blood circulation issues caused Tate's lips to turn blue. Then, while doing some running drills, she felt light-headed and fainted.

“I've had a large spinal tumor in my back since I was a little girl,” Tate said. “The doctors found it had grown and was constricting the arteries to my legs and decreasing blood flow.”

Two surgeries reduced 75 percent of the spinal tumor and because they were minimally invasive, Tate was able to get back on the court again last season.

Cue up the next dark cloud.

“This is where it gets more complicated,” Tate said.

A week before the season was scheduled to tip off, she noticed something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

“I started having really sharp pains in the upper right quadrant of my chest,” Tate said. “I was struggling to breathe. I thought I strained a muscle from working out or something but it got increasingly worse. Went to the emergency room and they found I had multiple blood clots in my lungs.”

In a flash, basketball was no longer on Tate's mind.

“The doctor looked at me and said, 'You know, you're really lucky to be alive. It's not going to be an easy road from here,'” she said.

It was a long, miserable road and it started with blood thinners for six months. When Tate completed that treatment, she discovered what caused the blood clots.

“They found out I have a genetic mutation and I clot in high-risk situations,” she said. “The fact that I had surgery (for the spinal tumor), especially two surgeries in such a small amount of time, that's what caused it.”

Missing most of the 2021-22 season with the foot and ankle injury was difficult for Tate to deal with. That wasn't the case after the blood clotting scare.

“I was knocked on my butt,” she said. “I couldn't do anything and I was forced to accept it. Honestly, I was just grateful to be alive. I felt much more at peace.”

The long recovery from the pulmonary embolism was difficult, but Tate did not do it alone.

“Honestly, what got me through was my support system,” she said. “My friends and family just came around me and supported me and cried with me and held me. My poor mom, I give her so many heart attacks. She was rooting the whole time I wanted to go back on the court, my dad, too.”

Cleared to play in August, Tate decided she wanted to give it one more shot and that's when she called Madsen.

“I'm a little bit crazy,” she said with a laugh. “I told myself, 'Hey, this would be fun to try to play again. I should make that my goal and if I set a goal, I'm going to get it.'”

Said Madsen: “When you've coached as long as I have (14 years at Wheaton College), you know how much a player loves the game, has put in the time to constantly make themselves better. All the sudden, that's kind of stripped away. When you see the resilience, the fortitude, because injuries are lonely and it's really all on you to get back, it's a very lonely process but it obviously builds a tremendous amount of character in people.

“The greatest blessing was the day she finally got to step back on the court and know she had arrived back to where she wanted to be.”

Not only is she back, Tate is leading the Thunder in scoring (18.6) and rebounding (7.2) this season.

Apologies for burying the lede, but she is also in the Division III record books after making 28 free throws in a Jan. 13 win over Elmhurst University.

“I still can't wrap my head around it completely, 28 free throws is a little absurd,” Tate said with the ever present laugh. “But hey, I'll take it. Lots of fun. Pretty cool. I didn't really know it was happening when it happened. My style of play, I draw a lot of fouls so I've worked hard on my free throws to try to convert.”