One day a year to count blessings seems insufficient, especially for those who could be inventorying their woes instead.
Here are four college athletes with local connections who have earned their gratitude the hard way, through trial and error.
Sometimes it’s necessary to dig a little deeper to find a reason to give thanks. But the work seems worth it. There is nothing quite like surviving hardship to make a person appreciate all good things, large and small.
DEON HILL, Georgia Tech football
Thankful for: A happy belly, full of greens.
When Hill underwent surgery this spring to remove a segment of intestine and alleviate the symptoms of Crohn’s Disease, he was faced with multiple pressing predicaments.
Chief among them: Could the A-back recover sufficiently to squeeze any meaningful football from his senior season?
Well, yes. Hill’s touchdown reception with 23 seconds left was the difference against Georgia Southern. He has touchdown runs against Virginia, Pitt and Miami. Hill ranks eighth among Tech’s crowded cadre of runners, with 134 yards. He has another 138 yards and a touchdown as a receiver.
“I had never gone through any operations before. I’m having trouble moving around afterward thinking, man, is this ever going to wear off? Am I really going to get over this?” Hill said.
“I got a praying family and teammates who kept me up. They had belief in me and, shoot, I started to believe in myself as well.”
Would he, during holidays to come, be able to thoroughly enjoy the bounty of the table? Crohn’s is a chronic inflammation of the intestinal tract. At its worst, it laid Hill low with severe cramps. He lost nearly 20 pounds dealing with the condition.
Since his surgery, he’s been able to pretty much eat anything, with impunity. When asked the single dish that causes him the greatest happiness now that his digestive system is cooperating, Hill answers quickly. His mother’s collard greens, no contest.
Hill graduates next month, and has a job in sales on hold. The young man with the problem gut will represent the snack-food giant that traffics in such goodies as Oreos, Cheez-Its and Nutter Butters. And, thankfully, there’s no reason he can’t sample what he sells.
“There are tons of people out there struggling with Crohn’s, and I want everybody to know there’s light at the end of the tunnel, believe that,” he said.
“I’ve heard from quite a few people with Crohn’s, and it’s a blessing. It’s a testimony. I’m very thankful for that. I trust in God and all he does for me.”
KRISTA DONALD, Georgia basketball
Thankful for: Coming a long way from Lake, Miss.
Two autumns ago Georgia women’s basketball coach Andy Landers called the tough-love timeout.
His sophomore forward was lost at sea. As well as being limited on the court by persistent knee problems, Donald was on the brink of academic collapse. Raised in tiny Lake, Miss. (population 319) and given to a streak of stubbornness, she was both ill-prepared and unwilling to face the compounding challenges.
So Landers just told her to go away. Don’t even think about basketball. Get yourself right with the curriculum. See you at the end of the semester, and we’ll go from there.
Initially resentful and rebellious, Donald looks back on that episode now as a salvation. Would she be here now, months from graduating, contemplating a grad-school path in forensic science, had Landers not laid down that suspension? “No,” she said without hesitation. “The path I was on was a path of destruction, even though I didn’t know it. I definitely would have been back home now.”
“I had to reprogram myself, basically.”
Since tearing the posterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in high school — which initially went undiagnosed — Donald has had to play and practice around the damage (averaging 5.8 points and 4.5 rebounds entering her senior season). Surgery to clean up the knee has alleviated some of the swelling, but not all the pain.
One of the undisputed highlights of her playing career came this summer during a team trip to Italy. Donald toured in a constant state of amazement.
“I’ve exposed my inner nerd-ness,” she said with a laugh.
The kid from little Lake, Miss., has traveled far, both in miles and in attitude. Hasn’t always been easy, but in the end, Donald has found ample reason to be grateful for the trip.
“At first you’re like a baby and take baby steps and as you grow and mature, you realize: ‘Wow, this is me now,’” she said.
DEIDRA BOHANNON, Georgia State volleyball
Thankful for: A mother's smile at the match.
Whenever her daughter has a home match, Marilyn Bohannon takes an inventory. How’s the strength today? And the wind? If satisfied with the results, she’ll chance the trip intown from her home in Newnan.
And every time she makes it, her daughter is served a reminder. “It’s a miracle,” Deidra said.
Marilyn has for years confronted a failing heart. At her worst, suffering a heart attack and a stroke in 2012 while Deidra was a senior at Greater Atlanta Christian, Marilyn bordered death. After a slow recovery, doctors implanted a pacemaker and a defibrillator, which improved the efficiency of a heart that was functioning at just a small fraction of capacity.
The leader this season in points and kills, Deidra had committed to the Panthers when facing the 2012 scare. For a time she questioned the sense of continuing to play.
“I wondered was this all worth it?” she said. “There was a possibility my mom wouldn’t get to see me play in college. You work, go to the club practices, keep your GPA up and all the long hours in the gym — it was hard to wrap my head around that possibility (that Marilyn wouldn’t be there to see her play).”
A “reformed” basketball player, Deidre stayed with volleyball, the sport she fell in love with late in high school. And the long hours she spent around the hospital with her mother hardly were wasted, for while there she found a purpose. She’s studying now to become a respiratory therapist.
“Being around the medical team, it was a different feeling. I knew I had to do something to help,” she said.
Since she was young, it had been just Deidre, her mother and her older brother. But she has learned that there were others out there, too, who have gilded her life.
“I’m thankful for all the people who have been in my life that helped guide me,” Deidre said. “If it wasn’t for my mom, I wouldn’t be here. If it wasn’t for the guidance along the way — mentors, coaches, professors — I wouldn’t be in this position that I’m truly enjoying.”
NATHAN HARSH, Kennesaw State baseball
Thankful for: Putting distance between himself and tragedy.
When the spring and another baseball season arrive, Harsh will take the mound with a four-word message written beneath the bill of his cap.
“Fearfully and wonderfully made.”
That’s from Psalm 139 and speaks to the divine complexities of the human body. It’s from a verse her mother often quoted to Kim Kilgore.
Kilgore was the best friend of Harsh’s girlfriend, and by extension a good friend of his. Only 21, she was murdered outside her Kennesaw apartment in October 2013. A trial for the accused shooter is tentatively set for Feb. 9.
Both Harsh and his girlfriend, Shannon Stone, another KSU student, witnessed the shooting. Unable to talk about the details of that night until the trial is complete, Harsh nonetheless recounts the emotional aftershocks.
“Me and my girlfriend leaned on each other. There were plenty of long nights. I went to the sports-psych person, went to the counseling center that KSU provided. I just kind of turned to God to help me through it,” he said.
“It was extra rough on (Stone). She had to deal with the whole traumatic side as well as find a new apartment, move all her stuff out, help Kim’s mom go through her stuff.” Last week Stone and a dozen others who knew Kilgore got together for a “Friends-Giving” meal, in which they reminisced about their late buddy and celebrated the friendships that have survived.
The season that followed Kilgore’s death was a special one for the Owls, as they made a surprising run to a NCAA super regional. A big pitcher (6-foot-6) with a big arm, the senior Harsh was used as starter and reliever.
Harsh once more will go in tandem with that piece of a psalm — and thus a piece of his friend — into this season, thankful for the strength it provides.
He and Stone became even closer following the murder, Harsh said. And knowing too well the brittleness of life, he is more grateful for it daily, not just on Thanksgiving.
“I started realizing what’s right, realizing I have to go after what I wanted rather than just living life being carefree. And if anything came out of it, the relationships I had became stronger,” Harsh said.
This story has been modified.
