ROAD TO RECOVERY: Emily Hawryschuk’s embrace of research, conversation guided her recovery process
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mily Hawryschuk dodged into a double team in the team’s routine sevens drill during practice. She planned to go toward goal, but when stepping toward midfield, her right knee caved and buckled.
Days later, team doctors confirmed Hawryschuk’s torn ACL, ending what was supposed to be her “Heisman year.” SU lost an All-American, its three-time scoring leader and Inside Lacrosse’s second-best collegiate lacrosse player less than a month into the 2021 season.
Hawryschuk’s injury spoiled her planned fifth year after COVID-19 halted the season prior. She played one game, scoring four goals in a 18-6 win over Loyola Maryland. Without Hawryschuk in the lineup, the Orange turned to Emma Ward and Meaghan Tyrrell, but Syracuse eventually fell to Boston College in the national championship game. During her recovery period, Hawryschuk focused on research, conversation and coming back from the injury ahead of schedule.
Now, Hawryschuk enters this season with a chance to break SU’s all-time goals record and bring the Orange their first national championship.
“She went to Syracuse to try to win a national championship, so she’ll take advantage of every minute she gets on that field to try to accomplish that,” said Hawryschuk’s mother, Melissa.
Hawryschuk said she never considered leaving Syracuse after the injury. Even in the days between the injury and the diagnosis, she prioritized her next steps with then-head coach Gary Gait.
“I knew that after all of this — at that point it was four and half years, almost five — I didn’t want everything to end on a practice field,” Hawryschuk said.
Since Hawryschuk couldn’t drive at first, Melissa drove Hawryschuk back and forth almost daily between Syracuse and the family’s hometown of Victor, New York, just so Hawryschuk wouldn’t miss a practice — a nearly three-hour round trip. Hawryschuk scheduled surgery so it didn’t significantly interfere with practices, Melissa said, allowing her to support her teammates’ pursuit of reaching the national championship.
While sidelined, Hawryschuk embraced a new coaching role, watching Gait operate as she learned how to contribute off the field. “The amount of learning that I took away from that was a ton,” Hawryschuk said.
It started with Hawryschuk saying “good job” as players walked off, but with more mobility and confidence, she worked with the draw team, a position she started in from 2018-20.
“Emily is an absolute genius,” said Kerrie Brown, Hawryschuk’s former travel team coach. “Having that whole year kind of swept up from under your feet, then utilizing it to make your intelligent game better, you’re only going to come back smarter.”
Hawryschuk’s recovery began almost immediately after surgery on March 16 since doctors wanted her to apply pressure to her knee to get more acclimated, said her father, Nick. Hawryschuk worked her quadriceps, hamstring and kneecap by completing 20-minute routines of flexes and stretches every few hours.
She was a “rule-follower,” never slacking off during recovery to ensure she’d recover on-schedule, Nick and Melissa said.
“She was following her protocol 110% to a tee,” Nick said. “If the doctor says that you should not be able to do X, Y or Z until June, then she’ll do it in June. Not (in) May, not (in) July, it’s going to happen in June.”
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Once Hawryschuk was able to jog, she went to Victor Senior High School with Nick, who recorded her jogging on the turf to make sure she planted her foot correctly and had the correct walking pattern. Once cleared to run, the pair returned and recorded videos to monitor Hawryschuk’s acceleration pace.
The physical recovery was combined with a mental one, consisting of monotonous, lonely exercise routines. “It wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies,” Brown said. “There were some hard conversations about toughening up.”
In one of those conversations with Brown, Hawryschuk was focusing too much on comparisons to other players like Boston College’s Charlotte North, who won the Tewaaraton Award last year, Brown said.
“I was like ‘OK, Cut the bullsh*t,’” Brown said to Hawryschuk. “If you’re coming back, you need to stop comparing yourself to others. You need to stop comparing yourself to things in the past. ”
To understand the injury better, Hawryschuk researched and spoke with trainers, physicians and athletes who had experienced knee injuries. She consistently spoke and met with SU athletic trainer Kathleen Chaney, wanting to understand the injury’s origin since she couldn’t fathom how she even tore the ligament at first.
“She tried to ground herself in knowledge to try to help her through that injury,” Melissa said.
Outside Syracuse, Hawryschuk resourced Lizzie Colson, a former Maryland lacrosse star who tore her ACL in 2019. Hawryschuk and Colson had played together at a national team camp a few years back, so it was a “full-circle” moment for the two to support each other during their respective recoveries.
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Colson reached out a few days after Hawryschuk’s injury and checked in monthly to make sure Hawryschuk reached her milestones. “Whether it’s lifting her legs five more times than she did before or running, I was there for all of them and everything in between,” Colson said.
Within the SU program, former attack Morgan Alexander — who’s had six knee surgeries during her career — gave Hawryschuk pointers. One time, Hawryschuk was in pain doing flexions, an exercise where you take a towel, pull your ankle and bend the knee. Alexander said she suggested a trick to reduce the pain, which worked, surprising Hawryschuk.
Former SU defender Lila Nazarian, who has torn both ACLs, created “The Guide to Cheatcode 2.0” one night for Hawryschuk instead of doing homework. The small index-card booklet highlighted milestones of the eight-month recovery with quotes, basically a “SparkNotes for the recovery,” Nazarian said. She left it in Hawryschuk’s game day locker.
“I had little quotes of things that I knew resonated with her to kind of set her mindset for that month like you’re building a house, you’re building a foundation,” Nazarian said.
One of the quotes Nazarian included was, “In the midst of an ordinary training day, I try to remind myself that I am preparing for the extraordinary,” from Olympic marathon runner Shalane Flanagan.
Sometimes, Nazarian stopped by the training room to be with Hawryschuk, with the two not necessarily speaking. For Nazarian, it was about alleviating the loneliness of the training room as Hawryschuk did her exercise reps.
In addition to Hawryschuk, Vanessa Costantino and Megan Carney both tore their ACLs last season. Hawryschuk became a resource for others, especially Costantino. She shared her experience with high school and college-aged girls who had also gone through the injury.
“We spent so many hours together in the training room,” Costantino said. “We knew when to push each other and when to kind of back off and just be someone to listen to, someone to just vent to.”
Costantino admired Hawryschuk’s mentality toward recovery and how she never cried during physical therapy sessions.
And then, on Sept. 10, Hawryschuk’s surgeon cleared her for a full-return, roughly six months after the surgery, achieving her goal of being ahead of schedule.
This season is likely Hawryschuk’s last shot of winning a national championship. With the injury, recovery and the Tournament losses now behind her and the Orange, Syracuse provides new head coach Kayla Treanor with one of its best-ever teams — with an attack unit returning Hawryschuk at its forefront.
“She did it physically on the field, mentally on the sideline, and now you get both back on the field,” Brown said. “For Kayla (Treanor), it’s almost like a dream player.”
Photo courtesy of SU Athletics