RamWire: For Brady, it is Finally Showtime
Senior is back, better than ever, after injury
Mike Brohard
The coach is antsy.
Part of it, to be sure, is the approaching season. Ryun Williams can’t wait, because there’s a new vibe around his team and it feels tremendous.
Just as much in the mixture is to hear the words through the hyped tones of John Seyer, the public-address announcer at Colorado State women’s basketball games. Man, has Williams longed to hear him slide out that introduction.
At forward …..
“That’s’ goosebumps stuff, that’s what it is,” Williams said.
The Rams’ eighth-year mentor says he’s never had a player work so hard in the offseason.
Andrea Brady was coming off a junior campaign – her first with the Rams after a two-year stint at Salt Lake Community College – where she was the team’s third leading scorer (7.5 points per) and paced them on the boards (6.2). It was an impressive introduction to Fort Collins, but not quite enough for Brady herself.
That season, Williams said, you could point to one spot on the floor and Brady would be a rock star. Parts of her game, however, limited her to backup vocals.
She just knew she could do more. More importantly, she felt the team could be more, so she went to work.
“My first year here as a transfer, you get comfortable. But after a year, you see things,” Brady said. “You know what to expect in the league, and that confidence of you know what to prepare for. I think we lacked some leadership my first year here, which happened last year off the bench. I wanted to set that tone and get people excited to compete. The extra year was that much more time to build that culture here. If anything, that’s what I wanted to work on. Personally, my confidence and my consistency on the court, and overall, pushing the culture in the right direction.”
She was going to get one more crack at it, and she was determined to do it right. There was skill work. She was going to a better ball distributor from the post and help facilitate the offense. She was going to be more physical when she went up in the paint. Her ball handling was due for an upgrade.
More importantly, she was going to be a better teammate. She was going to lead, and she was going to be the example of how things should be done.
To Williams, it was glorious. What he saw was a player who was going to be able to do it all. Lead a break, trail in transition. She could always rebound, but her defense was pressing, her offense progressing.
“The time she put in, the improvement she made, and she was performing at such a high level … We were really excited about the growth, really excited about her senior year,” Williams said. “Then, yeah, to get that bomb, I felt just awful.”
“The fact we have a healthy Annie Brady in a year we really need a healthy Annie Brady, and I think she’s excited to play with the new talent. I think it worked out just fine.”CSU head coach Ryun Williams
… a 6-foot-1 senior …
The agreement was in place all along. Brady would come to Colorado State and spend the first two years on the basketball team. Then, with her final year of eligibility, she would join Tom Hilbert’s volleyball program.
That was the deal. Brady was going to keep her part of the bargain – she looked forward to doing both – but she wasn’t going to go into volleyball cold for one year. That’s not how the seventh of seven children is taught to approach life. You work. You prepare. You are on top of things.
In what was scheduled as her final off-season workout with the volleyball team in August of 2018, Brady tore her ACL.
There would be no basketball. There wouldn’t be anything but a calendar of rehabilitation, days to be crossed off with a marker.
One by one.
“I was disappointed, because I felt I let the basketball team down for a second, just getting hurt playing volleyball,” Brady said. “The trainers were really good with me, told me accidents happen. I was disappointed, but they were really assuring they would take care of me, and they put all their resources they have into me, and I feel really grateful to be here. If that was going to happen, I’m glad I was here, because I felt I had the best staff possible.”
The idea of being perfectly prepared for her senior year, only to see it washed away on a volleyball court, was not something Brady was going to let deter her. She’d done it before, so she’d do it again.
No, she’d do it even better.
The nature of Annie Bauman’s job as the associate head athletic trainer is to help athletes return from the depths they are feeling, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally.
Bauman was feeling a bit of it herself.
“She‘s just a special young woman,” Bauman said. “She brings a light to that team, just with her energy and her attitude every day. She’s just a cool kid. Working with her has been a delight in any capacity.”
Brady did what was scheduled. As a competitor, she was going to push it, but Bauman noted she also had a smart pupil, one who understood pushing too far could mean a step back.
What came out in those sessions was sheer determination. Bauman knows there were hard days, good days, bad days, and she watched Brady approach each wave of emotions and all the tasks presented with poise and positivity. Some days Brady would feel good, others she came in sore. Each day, however, Brady was ready and progressing to the lines presented in front of her.
Get there, not beyond.
Because she didn’t want to have to watch from the bench any more than required, but even that time proved fruitful to her.
“I think it’s funny. You watch coach, and he does tell you to do something, and then, ‘oh, he gets frustrated after he says it about five times and people still don’t do it,’” Brady said. “If anything, you learn to be coachable. Now, if coach says something once, it’s, ‘OK, I’ve done that once and I need to fix it right away. I shouldn’t make him to tell me two or three times to fix something. Just watching, I think you see a lot of the competitiveness and effort is really visible from the sideline. After sitting out, you never want to know you’re playing lazy.”
As for Williams, the face he makes?
“He gets really red,” and saying so and picturing it makes her laugh.
… from Salt Lake City, Utah …
There would be no more volleyball. Brady was going to get her senior season on the basketball court, which was the main part of the deal.
Williams and Brady have both seen the silver lining under a dire circumstance. She could have been a healthy basketball player in the 2018-19 season, but it might not have made a grander difference in the overall 8-22 scheme as it played out. She would have provided positives, most definitely. She would have been a strong leader, assuredly. Still, the Rams weren’t completely built at the time to take full advantage of the work she put in to her offseason.
“You’re exactly right. Last year, it is what it is,” Williams said. “The fact we have a healthy Annie Brady in a year we really need a healthy Annie Brady, and I think she’s excited to play with the new talent. I think it worked out just fine.”
She could be part of the No. 14 volleyball team right now, one which is already loaded. She could have played, but she wouldn’t have played a key role with a roster dominated with seniors and juniors with resumes are filled with all-conference accolades.
Let’s be honest, Hilbert’s volleyball team is doing just fine without Brady, who is more than amped to be part of this basketball roster.
“Watching the season last year, I think that this year we have a really special squad, people coming off the bench,” Brady said. “I’m excited to be able to play with them specifically. It’s kinda how it happened. It’s OK I’m not playing volleyball any more. I’m excited this year for this group, the coaching staff and the support staff.”
… No. 32, Annnniiieee Brady …
That’s the moment. That’s when she’ll rise off the bench with the crowd in full uproar, waiting for the ball to be tipped for the first time. It’s a new season to them, a rebirth for her.
Sitting there, waiting for your name, Brady says she thinks. She feels the butterflies – the good kind – and rises off the chair as if catapulted.
“It gives me goosebumps now. Moby is a really special place to play, and we have a lot of support,” Brady said. “My parents will be in town, my family. I’m excited to have them back in the gym. It is special, having my family. When I see them up in the stands, it’s a reminder that I’m really grateful to be here. Everybody in the stands and on the court helped me to get here.”
Just look at Brady, and you’ll know the work never stopped. Williams wants her to be the first off the bus, jokingly saying it should be in a cut-off shirt. She’s physically fit, and she may just intimidate on arrival alone.
He wants to see her rise off the floor and snare a missed shot, then rifle off a pass to key a break. Because of the work she put in to improve, and then because she had to do it again.
“Not only overcome it, but she kicked it’s tail,” Williams said. “She dominated that thing.”
So go ahead, John Seyer. Stretch out the consonants and vowels all you want. This is a moment in time, two years in the making.
Finally, it’s game time.