Badali makes big decision at Lewis
After two years and a lot of plot turns, former Macs standout to begin her 4 years of eligibility
I had a good laugh during a recent conversation with former Mother McAuley girls basketball standout Jenna Badali.
We were talking about what it’s going to feel like playing in her freshman season this fall at Lewis.
Yes, you read that right. Her freshman season.
OK, she won’t be called a freshman. Quite frankly, I’m not sure what she will be called. But here are the facts.
Badali, a 2020 McAuley graduate, has been at Lewis as a student for two years. She played one shortened season but gets it back because of the NCAA’s COVID-19 exemption. She redshirted this past season.
That means she still has four seasons of eligibility. To me, it’s starting over.
“I am excited,” Badali said, laughing. “It’s also scary I have four more years of being a college athlete. But that’s OK. I’ll take it one day at a time.
“I don’t want to grow up yet anyway.”
Badali, who said she is feeling better these days, hopes to be back on the court by this summer. I’m just glad I asked her when I did.
Goodness knows what she might have said if I had asked her in November. Or December. Or January. Or even February.
When she had a stress fracture. And then COVID-19. And then mononucleosis, with some heart rate irregularity thrown into the mix.
Goodness. What an ordeal. It started in November with such great expectations. Badali, a 5-foot-6 guard, was coming off a shortened 2020-21 season as the Freshman of the Year in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
She felt just fine during the Flyers’ first four games but then started to experience pain in her right foot when she walked or jumped. She played in two more games before going in for an X-ray.
The diagnosis was a stress fracture, which required up to six weeks of rest.
Badali went home for the holidays. On Christmas Eve, she became ill and went for a COVID19 test. It was positive.
“It was bad for about three days,” Badali said. “I was in my bed for a lot of it. But then I felt better.”
On Dec. 30, she became sick again. On Jan. 1, she went to a clinic. This time, the diagnosis was strep throat.
A week later, she was still extremely sick and returned to the doctor. The diagnosis was mononucleosis. Badali was told she needed 4-6 more weeks of rest.
I think I would rather box Mike Tyson in his prime than go
through all of that.
Badali met with Lewis coach Matt Nelson to discuss how to handle the situation.
“By the time I would have been back, we were trying to see how many games I’d have and if it would even be worth it,” Badali said.
“We had to consider if I would be the same, if I’d be able to come back healthy after not running for three months.”
Nelson left the decision up to her.
“She debated back and forth about it,” Nelson said. “We were kind of timing it out and finally I told her straight up, ‘Jenna, if you decide to play, I’m going to be really excited. If you decide not to play, I’m going to be really excited because we get you for another year.’
“I wanted her to know it was her decision.”
Badali chose to get the year back and come back 100% healthy for 100% of an extra season.
“I was really happy about that,” Nelson said. “With any great competitor, I know Jenna would want to come back to where she was at last season. I think it was a really smart decision.”
When she could, Badali watched basketball from the bench for probably the first time in her career.
It’s hard to imagine her sitting and watching. But she didn’t let the time go to waste.
“It was a totally different perspective,” Badali said. “When you’re in the heat of the moment as a player, you do things you think are the right moves. But when you’re sitting down watching it, you’re like, ‘Why did they do that? Why did I do that?’
“I feel like in the long run it’s going to benefit me. I want to be a coach when I’m older, so it was definitely a good experience to see how the coaches do things, how they run things.”
Before that, Jenna Badali has four more years to play — and so much knowledge going in.
This should be fun.