The worst-case scenario haunted the back of Jadda Buckley’s mind.

The conference season had just begun. The Cyclones were counting on a healthy Buckley to aid them in their pursuit of a Big 12 title. Buckley was on the same page, but, to her dismay, her body was not.

Buckley developed a stress injury in her foot while starting the first seven games for Iowa State — re-aggravating the injury in an 84-86 loss at Texas Christian on Jan. 21. After the initial injury, Buckley rested for four days before getting back onto the floor, but this time, more drastic measures were taken.

Head coach Bill Fennelly and athletic trainer Denise O’Mara sat their second-year guard down, Buckley still clinging to hope for good news. But she knew what was coming.

“We have to look at the bigger picture here,” Fennelly said to a dejected Buckley. “We have to look at your future.”

And just like that, Buckley’s sophomore season ended. The thought of a season away from the court hurt much more than the pain in her right foot.

***

Young Jadda Buckley rushed around her living room, trying to beat the clock., dipping and diving around obstacles in a race against herself.

Buckley had built these obstacle courses around her house in Mason City, Iowa, with the goal of continually beating her previous records, as monitored on a stopwatch. Running the stopwatch were Buckley’s parents, Darren and Mary, who relayed the results to their daughter after every attempt.

Most of the time, Jadda was not satisfied.

“We started lying about the [time],” Mary said. “We just had to make up a number that would satisfy her. She just was never satisfied, so we knew she was going to play some sport.” 

Buckley carried that motivation into her early days on the basketball court.

She began as a soccer player, never leaving the house without her oversized water jug on her arm. It was the summer of 2006, and the 11-year-old Buckley was ready to take the next step in her soccer career. Her parents found an Olympic development camp in Des Moines, so, on the day of tryouts, Jadda and her mom headed south on I-35 for Des Moines.

On that same day, Jadda’s best friend, Maya, was trying out for the All Iowa Attack, the local AAU team, in Ames. Maya and her father, who coached, had suggested that Jadda try out. Sure enough, on the way to Des Moines, the Buckleys decided to exit the freeway in Ames, and Jadda ended up making the team. The trip to Des Moines was quickly canceled as Jadda’s mind had already shifted away from soccer.

“It’s really like a fluke thing,” Jadda said. “I was not a basketball player whatsoever.”

The orange ball quickly replaced the black-and-white one. The trips to Ames became more frequent, sometimes five or six days a week. Regardless of any potential hindrances, Jadda found her way to the gym.

“It didn’t matter if she wasn’t feeling good,” Mary said. “It didn’t matter if she had a lot of homework. It didn’t matter if her body was sore. She was just very dedicated.”

The dedication led to a career at Mason City High School — where Jadda notched four all-conference and two all-state selections — and eventually to Iowa State, where she earned a unanimous selection to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team in 2014.

***

It was that same dedicated player who sat with Fennelly and O’Mara, numb with frustration and anger. This time around, her circumstances did prevent her from playing the sport she loved, a really she initially wasn’t able to accept.

“It sucked,” Buckley said. “I was pissed off. I was full of anger. I instantly called my mom and cried to her. It took me a while to adjust.”

The transition away from the court did not come easy for Buckley. Never before had an injury kept her off the court for an extended period of time. Lexi Albrecht, who had been Buckley’s teammate since AAU ball in fifth grade, said Buckley was the player who “always played through injuries.”

In her second year, Buckley had assumed a large role for the Cyclones, and she was desperate to contribute in any way she could. For Buckley, that way had always been playing hard, putting up points for her team on the court. That was no longer an option, and Buckley felt helpless.

“She was obviously very upset,” Albrecht said. “She cares so much about the team, so her sitting out from anything was just devastating. The whole time, she just felt like she was letting everyone down.”

As Buckley had done many times on the court —such as notching 25 points on 61.5 percent shooting against Iowa in the final game she started in 2014 — her teammates, coaches and family members came alongside her in support. Whether it was a brief, “keep your head up” from Fennelly or words of encouragement from her teammates, the people surrounding Buckley reassured her that she wasn’t letting anyone down.

Perhaps Buckley’s biggest encourager and supporter was her mother. Through listening to her daughter vent after receiving the news to taking her shopping after a “bad” doctor’s appointment, Mary Buckley did what she could to alleviate the pain that the process brought Jadda.

Mary Buckley did give Jadda time to vent and process the news, but the anger and frustration had to end at some point. As Mary Buckley realized, this was a teachable time for Jadda, and complaining was not conducive to learning.

“You’ve got 24 hours to be mad about this,” Mary Buckley said to Jadda after her conversation with Fennelly and O’Mara. “Then you need to think of how you’re going to be a good teammate, how you’re going to be a leader and how you’re going to be a positive role model while you’re injured.”

Slowly but surely, Buckley’s mindset began to shift. She became aware of the bigger picture, realizing that her health, even beyond basketball, was more important than trying to play through this injury. Although she had always worked her body to its limits, Buckley now had a greater concern for her health, recognizing that “basketball ends for everyone.”

Buckley’s perspective on the sideline began to shift, as well. She gained the on-court perspective of a guard within Fennelly’s system. Now, she began to see the court from Fennelly’s perspective.

“When you’re playing, you kind of have blinders on you because you’re just seeing what you see on the court,” Buckley said. “Coach is always saying, ‘Look for this option’ or ‘Pass to this girl,’ and I never could fully comprehend [that]. So I [could sit] back and hear what [Fennelly] was saying to Nikki [Moody] at the time, and I could look at it and be like, ‘Oh, I finally do see that your option that you’re telling us is actually open.’”

By viewing the game “from a more mental perspective,” as Fennelly put it, Buckley used this period away from the court, this break in the action, as an opportunity to prepare.

Buckley knew she would return to the court — in November 2015 — as a part of a young ISU team with underclassmen outnumbering upperclassmen. She would enter her third year to run the floor, with a larger leadership role placed on her shoulders.

The time to begin leading, as Buckley came to realize, was not after her foot was healthy again. The time to lead was right then during her time on the sideline. Even though she didn’t put on that ISU jersey every day, her teammates were still looking for a leader.

“This year, she had to take over the team,” Fennelly said. “If you’re selfish and worried about yourself, all these kids that are back [from last season] aren’t going to follow you. [She had to] establish herself moving forward, so that this year, her transition to her current role [would be] pretty easy.”

Buckley accepted her role and invested in her teammates from the sideline. She used the opportunity to improve the mental aspects of her game to better prepare her for the upcoming season, all while being able to see the bigger picture beyond her current situation.

Through the time away from the court, through all the missed games and time in therapy, through the good and bad doctor appointments and changes in perspective, Jadda remained Jadda. She was still the gym rat she had always been, and she still couldn’t wait to step onto the court once again.

“When you have something taken away from you, you view things differently,” Fennelly said. “I think she’s been smarter. She doesn’t do things to put herself at risk [anymore]. On that wall [in Sukup practice facility], there are a lot of really good guards on that list. Someday, she wants to have her picture up there, and I don’t think there’s any reason why she shouldn’t.”