April 9, 2009

By Larry Watts
Contributor, BigTen.org

The last thing Brittany Weil remembered was throwing a drop ball. Then she dropped.

"I must have seen the ball coming (off the bat) because I had just enough reaction time to turn my head," the University of Iowa senior says of the incident that stopped nearly everyone's heart during a preseason softball workout two years ago.

The Hawkeyes' pitching ace was immediately rushed to the hospital, where X-rays would reveal she had suffered two skull fractures and a brain bruise.

"I don't recall the first 30 minutes we were at the hospital," she says. "They kept rushing me around in a wheelchair. They had me do an eye test and all I said were numbers. Throughout the night I did neuro tests, hearing tests and Cat scans.

"I know the coaches were all scared because they kept asking me questions and my answer for everything was Thursday. Even when they asked me my name."

It wasn't until a later visit from a doctor when the seriousness of the situation was revealed. That is when the Garden Grove, Calif. native found out if the ball had struck her a quarter of an inch lower on her temple, she would probably have been dead.

"That wasn't very encouraging to hear at the time," Weil now says with a nervous laugh. "For me, it didn't seem life threatening because I knew I was all right. But I couldn't express myself clearly."

The injuries temporarily left her with severe speech problems. Sentences she wrote didn't make any sense. She recognized objects but couldn't identify them verbally.

"I would see a doctor's stethoscope, but I couldn't say what it was," she says. "At first, it was funny. But as I got back into school, it became very frustrating. My essays weren't making any sense."

The worst part, aside from the piercing headaches, of her early stay in the hospital was not being able to communicate with her family back in California. Fortunately, coaches and teammates were on hand to field phone calls.

"When I did talk to them, I know I scared them because I wasn't making any sense," she says

Her mother finally arrived a few days later and Weil was later released under her 24-hour care. The threat of seizures always loomed.

Weil's education was put on hold for three weeks. While her teammates were attending classes, she was going to speech therapy. Her homework would consist of writing sentences.

"The professors that semester were really good about extending deadlines and letting me catch up in my work," she says. "I was getting great help from the tutors and the support staff in the athletic department."

Coaches and teammates also worked with her on flash cards so she could identify pictures and numbers.

"Trying to figure out what words were was hard for me to say," she says. "If the word had two syllables, it was hard to put them together."

Weil would miss the first 24 games of the softball season. She was determined to come back that spring and refused to take a redshirt season.

"Everyone kept asking me if I was going to take the redshirt, but if I waited an entire year, there would have been more apprehension and second-guessing on my part when I finally got back on the mound," she says. "I just didn't want to deal with that.

"And I felt like I owed it to my teammates, especially Amanda (Zust). That was her freshman year and I didn't want the burden of all the pitching to fall on her shoulders."

Without Weil, who was a third team All-Big Ten selection and her team's most valuable player as a freshman, the Hawkeyes struggled to a 14-10 start. Her 34 complete games and 296 innings as a freshman both ranked second for a single season in Iowa softball history.

As her recovery period grew longer, she says she became a constant thorn in the side of head coach Gayle Blevins. "I kept asking her, 'When can I pitch? When can I pitch?' and she would always say, 'Not now Brittany. Not now."'

Finally, more than five weeks after the blow to the head, Weil returned to the circle against Colorado State. Donning a black-padded headband, which has now become her trademark, she chalked up 12 strikeouts. In her next outing, she collected a career-high 15 strikeouts during a 4-0 victory over Brigham Young. Again selected third team All-Big Ten, she finished the season 18-8 and led the team in wins, ERA (1.69), complete games (20), shutouts (9), innings pitched (174) and strikeouts (174).

"Getting back out there was a process I had to go through," she says. "I kept telling myself, 'You'll be OK. You'll be OK."'

Had she taken the redshirt season, Weil would probably own every pitching record in Iowa history. As it is, the powerful right-hander became the school's strikeout queen last weekend and now has 955 for her career. The three-time team MVP is second in innings pitched (916.1), third in complete games (101) and appearances (165), fifth in shutouts (34) and fifth in wins (88).

"I don't regret not taking that redshirt season; it's exciting to have the strikeout record," she says. "It gives me a lot of confidence in what I'm doing. Every time I go out on the field, I am thankful I am able to throw and compete again."

A communications major, Weil is eventually hoping to obtain a teaching certificate and get into coaching.

"I came here for four yours and what I know most is softball," she says. "I've been playing this sport for 12 years, so I might as well go into coaching."

But Weil's plans to pursue a coaching career will be temporarily put on hold since she was the seventh choice overall by the Akron Racers in the 2009 National Pro Fastpitch draft. She intends to sign with the Racers after her senior season is completed.

"It's going to be a good experience for me," she says. "I've talked to a couple of people to get their take on things in the league and I'm going to see how it goes."

Weil says the injury she suffered two years ago has been a life-changing experience.

"I don't take anything for granted anymore," she says. "I appreciate people in my life at the moment and have got rid of people who were leading me in a direction I shouldn't be going. You really find out who your true friends are in these circumstances.

"A lot of athletes take it for granted that they are able to go out every day and compete, never thinking about people who can't do that. We complain about getting up every morning to go lift weights and there are many people who wish they could do that but can't. There are only so many Division I athletes in my sport and I'm fortunate to be one of them."