Following her junior year of basketball at Crothersville High School, Addy Cole said she thought about playing basketball at the next level.
However, while playing in an AAU basketball game July 20, 2020, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, she tore the ACL and MCL in her left knee, leaving her future in basketball up in the air.
Through hard work, she was able to get back on the floor for the Tigers’ final eight games of this past season.
Last week, she saw her dream of playing college basketball become a reality when she signed a letter of intent to play at Earlham College in Richmond.
“I just felt like they had a great environment with their team, and I just like how the coach was, and I just felt like everything there felt right,” she said.
Cole said when she talked to Earlham head coach Shanna Thompson on her visit, that’s when she decided she wanted to play in college.
“When I was there, everything just clicked, and I knew I should be there,” said Cole, who wants to become a biology teacher and will major in education at Earlham.
Tigers coach Kevin Hensley said he thinks Earlham is a good choice for Cole.
“I think she’ll do well there because she’s an inside-out player. We had to use her a lot inside more than outside,” he said. “She’ll get to expand her game there because they’ll have some bigs, and I know she’ll be able to slide out there to that 3-point line and do a lot more shooting out there.”
Following surgery, Cole had to make weekly trips to Carmel to meet with a trainer to rehabilitate her knee. She missed volleyball and the first half of the basketball season (missing 10 games), and she returned to action Jan. 14 against Henryville.
Cole scored 12 points against Henryville, and she scored in double figures in six of the eight games with high games of 23 against South Central and 19 against Columbus Christian. She averaged 12 points per game for the eight games.
“I felt like my first game, I was fine. It didn’t take me long (to get in the flow), but some games that were more fast-paced, it took me a little bit because I wasn’t used to fast pace,” she said.
“I just really enjoyed that I didn’t have to worry about who I was (playing at CHS),” she said. “I could be who I wanted to be. It doesn’t matter who you are, everybody is so close no matter what. Crothersville is an amazing school.”
She averaged 10 points in her five Southern Athletic Conference games and earned all-conference honors.
Cole said she was proud to have received that honor.
“It definitely meant a lot,” she said.
Hensley said it was a big accomplishment.
“It just goes to show that the other coaches thought a lot of her and knew that she would have changed our game if we would have had her all year,” he said.
During the team’s awards program, Cole received the 3-point and mental attitude awards. As a junior, she received the mental attitude and rebounding awards.
Hensley said Cole was a big help to the team in being able to play under the basket and also go outside to shoot a 3-pointer.
“The other teams did know Addy already. Some teams asked us why she didn’t play the first half of the season. They didn’t know that she had gotten hurt last summer,” he said. “When we did get her back, then those teams started keying on her, and that opened up some other girls on our team, like Kennadi (Lakins) and Grace (Wilson). She made teams come to her and opened our other game up.
“She fit right back into where she was, maybe not as 100 percent, her wind wasn’t there yet, she was still not in top shape and she couldn’t go as hard as she wanted to,” he said. “Other than that, she is just a player and a good kid, too.”
Cole said she loves the adrenaline she gets from basketball.
“It’s like a stress reliever for me,” she said. “I just have such a big passion for it, and if I’m really stressed out, that is what I want to do.”