For six weeks following surgery, she was on crutches and in a brace. Stueckle, the teams athletic trainer, developed a program of non-weight-bearing exercises to keep Powells upper body in shape and build a foundation for the rehabilitation of her kneeincluding stretching her leg muscles and increasing her knees range of motion, and setting a volleyball while sitting on a box. And then, when Powell was able to start putting weight on her leg, Stueckle introduced new, challenging exercises, like standing on an unstable surface with her left leg and working on her sets.

I had lost a ton of muscle in my quad, calf and hamstring. So the silliest little exercises like leg raises would absolutely gas me. It was a lot of lonely work, Powell says. But she wasnt truly alone. Every day before practice, and often multiple times a day, she would meet with Stueckle for her ever-evolving rehabilitation. She also had periodic check-ins with OKane and Hagen, who confirmed her knee was improving as expected.

When a resurgence of COVID-19 pushed the 2020 season to January 2021 and the NCAA granted athletes an extra year of eligibility, Powell had renewed hope and a clear recovery target. Still, she endured her share of low moments, including recurring pain in her knee due to a suture. Hagen had OKane evaluate the area using ultrasound and inject it with a steroid to decrease inflammation, which solved the problem. Later, Powell went through a two-week slump in which she didnt feel like she was making any progress, but Stueckle continued to reassure her that she was on the right path. A big aspect of rehab is educating and collaborating with my athletes, Stueckle says. A lot of it is, first and foremost, having that relationship with athletes, building that trust.

Jenn has been there with me since day one, says Powell, who, like the rest of the team, has seen Stueckle in the training room for preventive maintenance and minor injuries since she was a freshman. She did such a great job handling both the physical and emotional side of my recovery.

When Powell returned home to Arkansas for winter break in 2020, Stueckle provided her and her personal trainer with a rehab program. And in January, when Powell was back in Seattle, Hagen had her run through a litany of tests and a thorough knee examand told her she was physically ready to play. It was just up to Powell to decide if she was mentally ready.

For athletes, the mental hurdle in recovering from an injury is often the hardest, says Hagen. UW Medicine doctors sometimes refer athletes to team psychologists, who help them process everything from the academic and personal struggles to intense pressure and career-ending injuries. That holistic care wasnt always the case, says OKane, speaking of sports medicine practices in general, not specifically at the UW. It used to be a race to see how fast surgeons could get athletes back out there after injuries like ACL tears.

In the early 2000s, UW Athletics formalized a partnership with UW Medicine to provide team physician services. To avoid any potential conflict of interest, says OKane, the doctors have the final say in whether an athlete is ready to play: Its written into our contract. Today, this type of autonomous health care is a guiding NCAA principle, and while some institutions have found it challenging to achieve, its fundamental to the relationship between UW Athletics and UW Medicine.

In her final season, Powell reached 162 career aces, setting a school record and prompting the Seattle Times to call her the Queen of Aces.

Coaches and players are often the gas, and were the brakes, OKane says. Theyre the ones who are pushing a little bit, and were the ones who are holding back a little bit. Its a really tight connection at the UW, but the final say about play, not play, is with the physician.

Fortunately for Powell, her recovery had gone smoothly, and Hagen and OKanes reassurance was all she needed mentally. We dont see a reason to hold you back, Hagen told Powell in that final appointment. Powell didnt either.

Over the next few months, she helped lead the Huskies to a conference championship and to the Final Four for the first time since 2013. Ella May went from sitting on a box in the fall to first-team All-American in the spring, Stueckle says.

But Powell wasnt done. Just months later, she and the Huskies were back again, winning their second-straight Pac-12 title and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. Powell was named Pac-12 setter of the year both seasons, cementing her spot as a Husky great.

While OKane and his team see more than 700 student-athletes for their primary-care needs, and Hagens team treats them for musculoskeletal injuries, thats just part of their caseloads. The rest are patients from the community. (Other specialists at the center, including physiatrists and physical therapists, also treat UW athletes and community patients alike. And a number of UW sports medicine clinics in the greater Seattle area extends that community reach even further.)

UW Medicine as a research powerhouse applies just as much to someone like Powell as it does to anyone else. Theres nothing about Ella May that resembles most of the other people in the world, says OKane. But the way you approach her is carried over to the way that you approach other folks.

Those other folks could include a young soccer player or a senior who hikes. And regardless of who the patient is, the same tools are available, from technologically advanced surgery to nonsurgical treatments like ultrasound-guided procedures, nerve pain reduction techniques and platelet-rich plasma injections to help inflamed tendons and joints. Whether the treatments and technologies are new or have been used for decades, UW Medicine relies on its wealth of research and expertise to ensure they remain safe and effective.

In 2015, Dr. John Drezner, a UW Athletics team physician and director of the UW Medicine Center for Sports Cardiology, was a leader in a Seattle meeting of international experts who used new research to standardize the interpretation of electrocardiograms in athletes. Known as the Seattle criteria, it is today used by doctors around the world to improve the screening of amateur and professional athletes and identify potentially life-threatening cardiovascular abnormalities before they strike on the court or on the field. There is a lot of community trickle-down from UW Medicines research, says OKane.

Dr. John OKane examines a student-athletes knee.

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UW sports medicine helps one athlete make her comeback - University of Washington Magazine