In the inaugural game of the 2014 Bradley men’s soccer season, the Braves took on San Jose State in a game that lasted 109 minutes and 41 seconds.
Factor in the thunderstorm delay that lasted two and half hours, and the Braves didn’t finish until 12:30 a.m.
Both teams left the field soggy and exhaused after playing in the rain, with some players even playing all 109 minutes and 41 seconds of the game, after a 3-2 Bradley double overtime win.
However, that night, J.T. Kotowski made a season long impact. He only played two minutes.
“I was going to body a guy for a ball and I kind of braced myself for it,” Kotowski said. “Right when I planted I just felt the pop and went down. I knew [I tore my anterior cruciate ligament] immediately when it happened.”
That was it. His season began and then it was over, all in one rainy blur of pain that flushed away months of offseason preparation.
“It was a pretty sharp pain,” Kotowski said. “You just feel like a pull in your knee and you know it’s not good.”
Kotowski’s fall immediately morphed from four months of playing soccer to months of rehabilitation. However, this wasn’t the senior from Keller, Texas’ first time dealing with an ACL injury, as he tore the same ligament prior to the 2013 season.
The anterior cruciate ligament is one of four main ligaments found in the knee. It provides the knee with a stabilizing force that essentially holds the knee together.
However, the difference between the ACL and the three other ligaments is that it is the thickest and strongest ligament, which makes it the most devastating to tear.
That fact makes it even more grueling when paired with Kotowski’s past, as he tore the same ACL ligament twice, which is cause for most athletes to retire.
“The first time, it’s more shocking,” Kotowski said. “It’s revealing. There’s a lot you take for granted, especially your health.”
Kotowski said his injuries also gave him a different perspective on the sport of soccer and what it means to him personally.
“I might not be at Bradley if it weren’t for soccer,” Kotowski said. “One of those things is taken away from you, and it’s very humbling. You’ve got to step as a person and realize that there’s more than just playing a game.”
The rehabilitation process following ACL surgery is one that lasts a year at the most, and according to Kotowski, it took about two weeks before he could even walk again.
“You’re not jogging at all until like week eight,” Kotowski said. “It was weird teaching myself how to run again twice.”
After he began jogging, Kotowski said after six months he was finally able to start running and going through soccer drills.
As taxing as the rehabilitation process is, Kotowski said it was made easier by those around him.
“I had the best support group I can even ask for,” Kotowski said. “My parents, the coaching staff, the trainers and then my best friends and my teammates. It’s been great. I couldn’t ask for anything more from them.”
After undergoing two ACL surgeries, Kotowski said he still has a fear that he might suffer the same injury again, but he’s found a way to hide that fear for a few hours.
“I know sometimes I’ll go down and everyone, including the coaches, you can hear the air kind of deflate,” Kotowski said. “It gets scary sometimes. You don’t want to go through it again, but I haven’t been thinking about it much when I’ve been playing. I don’t think about my knee until after.”
Now, in his final year, Kotowski is back on the field after two years and considers himself one of the leaders on the team.
However, Kotowski was a leader prior to his senior year, as his time on the sidelines allowed him to help out in different ways.
“The last couple years, I’ve been helping out charting, looking at set pieces, stuff like that for the coaching staff,” he said. “Even from the sidelines [I was] directing a little bit. Now the biggest thing is enforcing the types of things we need to do on and off the field.”
Although Kotowski has gone from helping from the sidelines to shutting down midfielders on the pitch, he hasn’t missed a beat in his transition.
Early in September, Kotowski was named to the College Soccer News National Team of the Week, which honor the top Division I soccer performers.
He was the first Bradley player named to the team since Wojciech Wojcik earned the honor in 2013.
Now, seven games into the season, Kotowski’s final season is in full-swing, but his eyes aren’t set on weekly awards and achievements.
In fact, Kotowski has an all-or-nothing mentality.
“We need to make an NCAA tournament,” Kotowski said. “No matter how we do it, if it’s through the MVC or putting a string of wins together to get an at large bid… Anything less is a failed season.”
