LZ grad Solverson's career took painful detour

Six years, two surgeries, two majors and 27 teammates ago, Johanna Solverson enrolled at the University of Iowa.

Talk about maxing out your college experience.

It's been a long road for Solverson, a former star at Lake Zurich High School who started 81 of 94 basketball games during her first three years at Iowa before her career went absolutely haywire.

During the summer of 2005, before what was supposed to be her senior year, she was playing in your run-of-the-mill pickup game and went up for your run-of-the-mill layup when she felt a not-so-run-of-the-mill sensation.

"My knee felt like it was on fire," said Solverson, a 6-foot-2 forward. "It swelled up right away."

Solverson had torn her right anterior cruciate ligament.

She sat out the 2005-06 season and jumped headfirst into her rehab.

"The rehab was hard because you didn't want to push yourself too hard," Solverson said. "You didn't know if you were going to irritate it more or hurt it more. It went slow at first, but I stuck with it and toward the end of the (school) year, I was ready to come back.

"I felt great, I felt strong. I felt like I was stronger than I was before. I felt like I was better than I was before. My confidence was higher than it ever was. Probably just because I had overcome that surgery."

Little did she know she would have to overcome one more.

It was the summer of 2006, and Solverson was just weeks removed from having successfully completed her rehab.

Again, she was playing in a pickup game.

And again, she was involved in a routine play.

And again …

"I had a breakaway and I was trying to split two girls going to the basket and I just stepped and felt my knee shift," Solverson said. "I pretty much knew something had happened."

Same knee, same ACL tear.

"It just blows your mind, really," Solverson said.

Solverson spent the rest of the summer rehabbing. Her options were to try to play that winter as a fifth-year senior even though she wouldn't be 100 percent by the time the season started, or she could sit out the season and appeal the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility.

If the NCAA said no, she'd be done. Forever.

"It was hard because I took the chance of not being able to wear my jersey again," Solverson said. "But with the odds (85 percent) that (Iowa administrators) gave me, I was pretty confident I was going to get it."

But did she even really want a sixth year?

"At first, I wasn't really into coming back for a sixth year," Solverson said. "I had already graduated and I didn't know what else I could do school-wise … and I'm not a really big fan of school. (Laughs)

"But I didn't want my career to end that way either."

So around the holidays, Solverson, her coaches and the administrators at Iowa submitted letters of appeal, as well as all of her medical records, to the NCAA. And then they waited.

In May 2007, Solverson learned that the NCAA granted her a sixth year, which she has since put to good use.

Solverson has started 14 of 19 games this season and is averaging 7.4 points per game (9.6 in Big Ten play).

"We're just so happy for Jo. We've really enjoyed having her on the court again," Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. "When I first heard that she had hurt her knee again, my heart just sank for her. It ached. No athlete should have to suffer that much. To have to go through the surgery and the rehab and the whole thing with wearing the brace and then to have to turn around and do it all over again, that's really not fair.

"But she's been a trooper through the whole thing. She's never complained, never been like, 'Oh, woe is me.' She's been an example to our whole team with her work ethic. It just shows you what kind of perseverance she has and how much she loves wearing an Iowa uniform."

Suddenly, after six years, Solverson's days of wearing Hawkeye black and gold are numbered. She'll leave Iowa City in May with a double major in health and sports studies as well as sociology.

She'll also leave having played with 27 different teammates, some of whom on this year's team refer to her as "Grandma."

"It's going to be weird to finally leave, but I think I'm ready to move on. I think I've been here long enough," chuckled Solverson, who would like to keep playing in the WNBA or overseas if her body obliges. "I know I made a good choice. Every time I get one of those spurts where I feel like I'm back, that's a great feeling.

"And it's been a great experience to prove to myself and to other people that after all the surgeries I've been through that I've been able to stick it out and keep playing."

Eerie injuries: It's almost uncanny how Johanna Solverson's career wound up being so similar to that of former Barrington star Lindsay Richards.

Richards and Solverson were in the same recruiting class at Iowa and had come from the same AAU team (Illinois Hustle).

Richards missed the majority of her freshman season with an ACL tear in her right knee. She started 29 games at point guard as a sophomore and then never played again.

She blew out the same knee before her junior year and then did the same thing prior to her comeback as a senior. With three ACL tears in four years, doctors encouraged Richards to retire, which she did.

"The doctors told her she had to think about the future," Solverson said. "She's working in Chicago for a management company now. She's doing what she wants to do, and I'm happy for her since basketball really didn't work out for her.

"Knowing what she went through and knowing that she kept fighting each time until she was told to stop really helped me get through my rehab."