THE COMEBACK KID
Warman softball player Payton Allan was named Softball Saskatchewan’s female athlete of the year, despite undergoing a major surgery to rebuild her shoulder. “She’s one of the most determined student-athletes we’ve ever had,” her instructor says.
When Payton Allan was 16 years old, she regarded her right shoulder with a certain sense of dread.
It was wrecked, needed a surgical rebuild. Then, rehab — long, arduous rehab, interrupting her elite-athlete status, and throwing question marks all over her future as a softball player.
Allan couldn’t lift her right arm over her head after the surgery. She couldn’t hoist anything heavier than a soup can. Her mother washed her hair — “Every teenager’s dream,” quips Allan, who is now 18, and well recovered.
Allan, who hails from Warman, was named Softball Saskatchewan’s female athlete of the year this past weekend. Her rebuilt shoulder was no barrier as she earned first-team all-star infielder honours at this summer’s U-19 Canadian women’s softball championship in Kitchener, where she also won the batting crown with a tournament-high .571 average.
Softball Saskatchewan gave her that award at a ceremony in Regina, and she cried a bit during her acceptance speech as she reflected on the past few years. That span included 18 months away from competitive ball.
“Like any athlete, when you hear you can’t play, it hits you like a ton of bricks,” Allan said this week. “It’s the thing you love the most, and when it’s taken away from you, when you can’t do it anymore, it’s heartbreaking. I don’t know how else to explain it — it gets sucked out of you. It’s like your identity, almost, and then you need to rebuild your perspective.”
Before Allan underwent surgery to repair her torn labrum and rotator cuff, several schools south of the border had been calling her name, sending out notes of interest. That attention stopped, completely, after the surgery and during the months of hard rehab. But now, after this breakout at nationals, those expressions of interest have returned.
Allan’s range of options suddenly has opened wide — another small victory in a long string of them.
She remembers that feeling during early rehab, trying to find something light enough to lift, and settling on soup cans. She recalls how good it was to hoist a milk carton out of the fridge three or four months in.
At the Tommy Douglas Softball Academy, where she went to high school, they would fire grounders at her. She would field those balls, but because she couldn’t throw, she would place them in a bucket. “Payton’s bucket,” they called it. Those around her weren’t sure at first if she’d be able to play competitive ball again, and they focused on getting her quality of life back. Forget throwing a ball, they reasoned. How about carrying books to school, or lugging grocery bags?
But softball was never far away. It coloured much of what Allan did as she brought that arm back to life.
She missed those 18 months of competitive ball, then eased back into it. By the time her Twin City Angels (consisting largely of players from Martensville and Warman) got to provincials this past summer, her endurance had increased greatly. They won, and then at nationals, she felt better than any time since the surgery. She played full time and hit up a storm — including a home run — with limited physical repercussions.
The arm’s not the same, she said. It feels different, sometimes. She’s moved to second base, after building up her reputation as a catcher and shortstop.
“At the beginning, it felt like it wasn’t my own arm, to be honest,” Allan said. “I’m thankful I can play again, but it does not feel the same and it’s never going to.”
That hasn’t stopped her from playing at the elite level she rose to before the injury. All things considered, it hasn’t slowed her up much.
“What she had to go through .... ” said Tommy Douglas Softball Academy instructor Trevor Ethier, who worked closely with Allan as she rebuilt her game. “She’s one of the most self-driven, determined student-athletes we’ve ever had come through our program here.”
That shoulder injury was a slow-developing thing. Allan noticed pains here and there — “little nags,” she calls it — while playing both volleyball and softball. In 2016, her team didn’t win provincials, but she got picked up by the Saskatoon Phantoms for nationals. She was named the first-team all-star shortstop, but on the plane back from Montreal, she told her dad that her arm felt “funny.”
From there came the X-rays, the appointments, a misdiagnosis that pointed to the elbow instead of the shoulder. At a softball camp in Florida, they gave her an MRI, and the family got a phone call in the afternoon.
“Get her off the field,” they said. “Her shoulder’s holding on by a thread.”
Back in Saskatoon, Dr. Cole Beavis rebuilt her labrum and rotator cuff, gave her a chance to get back in the game, and she embarked on rehab with serious passion.
“When you love something so much, you just crave it,” she said.
“You want it so much more. When it’s taken away from you, you realize how much you miss it. My focus was just on getting back.”
And now Allan has some awards to prove she did indeed get back, and collegiate softball teams south of the border are interested once again. She’s living in Manitoba, studying at the University of Winnipeg, and pondering her next step.
That next step, she knows, will include softball. A couple of years ago, she wasn’t so sure.
Allan “returned to the field in spectacular fashion,” they said this weekend while giving her the Saskatchewan female athlete of the year award. She’s proud she’s pulled it off, and just as proud of the people who stood beside her: Her family, Ethier and co-instructor Don Bates, the Angels’ coaching staff and players.
“I recognize that I could not have done it on my own,” she said.
And now snow’s on the ground. Outdoor fields are freezing over. Allan waits for spring and a new season with that fixed-up shoulder. During one recent Christmas she wanted nothing but a softball rebounder to aid with training, and that’s what her parents got her, because they know how much the game means to her.
“I love the whole thing,” she said, and you can see how happy she is to be back. “There’s nothing I don’t love about it.”
It’s the thing you love the most, and when it’s taken away from you, when you can’t do it any more, it’s heartbreaking.