At the beginning of last year’s women’s soccer season, redshirt sophomore forward Sierra Cook was ready to make an impact.
“I was scoring goals,” Cook said. “I was really excited to start my sophomore season.”
But then she was told that she had to sit out for just a few weeks due to a broken bone in her foot.
Cook took a short break from training, just as doctors recommended, and then began practicing again.
But soon it became apparent that the break wasn’t healing.
“They told me I’d be out for three to four weeks, which turned into four to six weeks, then six to eight weeks,” Cook said. “It just kept getting pushed back further and further.”
For the next few months, Cook kept going back for X-rays and even an MRI, but the break in her fourth metatarsal showed no sign of healing.
“I’d be in crutches and in a boot, then just the boot, then a tennis shoe, and then it would start hurting again and I’d be back in the boot, and then back in crutches,” Cook said. “Every time I felt like it started getting better again, I would run on it and it would start hurting.”
By the end of November 2009, the Sun Devils’ season was over, Christmas break was approaching, and the injury still had not healed.
Cook started playing soccer growing up in Silverdale, Wash. Her parents, both athletes themselves, put all 10 of their children in club soccer and Cook soon decided the sport was something she wanted to keep doing.
“I played for a club that wasn’t exactly the greatest, and so I figured I’d end up playing at a small school,” Cook said. “I never even dreamed of playing in the Pac-10.”
Even when Cook came to ASU, she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“I was kind of hesitant,” Cook said. “[I] didn’t really expect to play that much as a freshman.”
But in the preseason leading up to the 2008 season, ASU coach Kevin Boyd saw enough to have her start the season opener against Northern Arizona as a true freshman.
“We saw some power and we saw an ability to get to goal,” Boyd said. “But she needed a lot of work tactically, trying to understand how to move at this level, the speed of the game.”
Cook worked all season on improving her game, but things didn’t start to click until the spring of 2009. Cook finally felt comfortable on the field.
That’s when her injury forced her to the bench.
“It was really disappointing to just sit there and not even know when I could be back playing,” Cook said.
Boyd saw how excited Cook was to play and also saw her disappointment at the injury.
“Having to sit out is one of the worst things you have to do,” Boyd said. “She was very eager to get out and show what she can do.”
Like the year before, Cook spent all this spring working — this time on recovery. She ran when her foot didn’t hurt, and when it did, she watched practice and soaked up as much as she could.
“She came back a lot better than she was when she got hurt,” Boyd said. “She learned when she was out, and that’s not usual.”
Slowly, her injury bothered her less and less, and she was able to play for a club team over the summer.
Cook said her foot rarely bothers her now. However, the fracture will never fully heal, making the injury an endless one.
“I just try to put it in the back of my mind and let it go, because there’s nothing that’s going to fix it,” Cook said.
This season, Cook already has two goals and one assist in the first four games for the No. 25 Sun Devils.
“She’s scoring goals,” Boyd said. “She’s becoming not only a viable forward but a very dangerous one that in my opinion is going to be quite good in the years to come.”
Reach the reporter at egrasser@asu.edu
