Airport's Julia Mills overcomes drunk driver crash to be Player of Year

Holly Mills sat in the bleachers at Adrian High School with tears trickling down her face.

Through the haze of emotion, Holly kept an anxious focus on her daughter, Julia, who was playing in Airport's season-opening volleyball tournament. Every jump, every hard cut, every dive made Holly wince in fear.

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Five months earlier, Julia was struck head on by a drunk driver while heading home from dinner with her parents. Holly and her husband, Dave, had driven separately but were on the scene just moments later.

Julia limped away from the accident – grateful to be alive, but facing a summer of mental anguish, physical therapy and a life put on hold.

With her senior year ahead, Julia had hoped to finish her high school career strong and sign with a Division I university. After the accident, she suddenly was uncertain when, if ever, she would play again. Certainly, nobody expect her to be ready for the Airport's season opener.

So, it was with tears of joy that Holly watched her daughter on the court that day in late August.

"I honestly cried off and on in the stands for most of the day," Holly said. "I was worried when she first got on the court making sure her ankle would hold up and everything would be okay, but it was obvious once she was out there for a short period of time that there was nothing to worry about.

"It was a lot of happy tears."

Julia proved that she was more than ready to return. She recorded 22 kills and 32 digs to lead Airport to a 2-1-1 tournament record despite being medically cleared to play just days earlier.

She only grew stronger from there.

The multi-talented athlete played nearly every position on the court this season for the Jets and excelled at each one. She finished at 443 total kills with a remarkable .351 hitting percentage. She added 457 digs, 142 assists and served over 97 percent with 34 aces. For all of her success this season, Julia was selected as the Monroe County Region Volleyball Player of the Year by The Monroe News sports staff

Before the accident, Julia shaped her life around volleyball.

She started playing the sport in the fourth grade, expanded to club leagues two years later and then became a four-year varsity starter at Airport. Since her sophomore year, she has played at an elite level for her club, Team Detroit. Growing up with a volleyball in her hands Julia sacrificed holidays, school dances, slumber parties and more to pursue her passion.

"I felt like volleyball was always the main thing I was doing instead of hanging out with family or going to friends' houses," Julia said. "I missed out on a lot."

Injuries did not slow Julia down. She played through multiple bumps and bruises during her career. Before her junior year, Julia rolled her right ankle but played through the pain. She reaggravated the injury during club but improved through physical therapy and was cleared to resume full activity.

Julia's final checkup was scheduled for March 29, 2021, but just three days before, everything in her life changed.

The accident

On the night of March 26, Julia met with her parents and two of their friends at a restaurant in Carleton. Julia drove separately to meet the group and was the first back on the road when everybody said their goodbyes around 10 p.m.

She was just 5 minutes from the Mills' home. It was a short drive down Grafton Road – a two-lane street where suburb meets and country, coaxing drivers to exceed the posted 45 miles per hour limit.

The car coming opposite Julia certainly was going much faster.

"I noticed a car in the other lane," she said. "They swerved off the shoulder and then swerved back onto the road. I thought maybe they were just messing with their radio. Then they swerved into my lane before we got close. I thought maybe they were pulling into a driveway. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but I started slowing down."

The oncoming car again corrected itself, but only briefly.

As Julia neared, the driver again swerved into her lane – too late now to avoid the inevitable.

"I thought to myself, 'There's no way this is happening,' " Julia recalled. "I just kept saying, 'Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!' over and over again."

Julia turned her own car toward the ditch in an attempt to avoid the inevitable and instinctively raised her arm to cover her face and closed her eyes at the moment of impact.

"Everything happened slow, but it happened so fast," she said. "I thought she would see me and swerve out of the way, but she didn't see me at all. I was off the road before she hit me and she still did. She was going to hit me either way. It was about where and how she would hit me."

Julia's car slammed into the ditch while the other driver bounced back into the road and up a driveway before colliding with a parked car. In a moment of eerie silence, Julia sat frozen in fear.

"I was afraid to open my eyes," she said. "I had no idea. I was in shock. Then I opened my eyes and I was okay. I opened my door and I was just standing on the road freaking out."

Passersby stopped to help and her parents were not far behind.

Holly and her husband noted the accident ahead of them on the road and only hoped their daughter wasn't involved.

"Sure enough when we pulled up, it was her car smashed in a ditch," Holly said. "Honestly, my heart just stopped. It skipped a beat and dropped into my stomach. It was just a horrible, horrible feeling."

Holly was out of the car before her husband even had the chance to shift into park. At first, they only saw the accident. It was another moment before realizing that Julia already was out of her car.

"It was a relief to see her standing there," she said. "It was a blessing we were behind her and got on the scene so quickly. It was hard pulling up on it, but we were able to assess things and comfort her. ... I'm glad we weren't the car directly behind her. I don't know how I would've functioned seeing a car cross the center lane at 55 miles per hour and head straight for her and not be able to do anything about it."

The airbags on Julia's car did not deploy, but she escaped with relatively minor injuries. She hit her head, had whiplash down her back and had broken multiple bones in her right foot – the same foot she had just cleared through physical therapy.

"At first, I was very angry," Julia said. "And I felt very defeated. I was in a very low place after the accident. I had just been cleared Wednesday to play volleyball and Friday was the day I got it. At first, I had a 'why me' mentality. Why did this have to happen to me?"

The aftermath

The following weeks and months were not easy. Julia needed surgery to repair her foot. The surgery required artificial ligaments, an artificial brace and stem cell injections to add strength and accelerate healing. Julia was in a cast for the next month, followed by a walking boot and more physical therapy.

She made a court appearance through Zoom in August to read a victim impact statement. The driver who caused the accident also escaped without major injury but had a blood-alcohol content of .224.

"I told her (in court) that accidents happen, but that wasn't an accident," Julia said. "It was a choice she made, and her action didn't just have consequences to her, they also had consequences to me. But I didn't want her to go to prison because people do bad things in life and they can work through them and get better and learn. With everything she said and her lawyer said, she had worked after the accident to better herself and she was going down a good path."

Holly was proud of the way her daughter handled the situation and shared her statement at just 17 years old.

"She wrote the whole thing. She practiced it," Holly said. "She wanted that woman to hear how her decisions affected somebody besides her. She did a good job. She got very emotional at first when she started reading it and had to stop to compose herself, but she did a good job."

The consequences for Julia's future were drastic. She forced herself to reach out to all the college programs that had shown her interest. She had grown particularly close with the coaches at Central Michigan University and had started envisioning herself in Mount Pleasant.

"I had to let the colleges that reached out to me know," Julia said. "For a while I thought, 'What if I just don't say anything and I'm good by the time high school or club season rolls around?' But I needed to be honest with them. There were concerns and they needed to know."

Julia's college hopes seemed to fade overnight as recruiters shied away.

"I mean, I get it," Julia said. "College teams are brining somebody on, investing in them, giving them money. They were afraid to give a position to a girl who just had surgery and had previous injuries."

Julia turned her attention away from college. Instead, she focused on recovery and getting ready for the start of the high school season in August. Her doctors implored her to take it slow.

"Yeah, I don't do that very well," Julia joked. "I tend to go 100 percent. Whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it 100 percent. ... I'm very stubborn."

At first, Julia stayed in bed and welcomed the company of her family and friends. She convinced herself to enjoy the rest for as long as possible. That lasted about a week.

"I was on crutches for a long time, but I scooted my way downstairs where we have weights," she said. "I would just crawl around to different weights, sit on my butt and do different arm and core exercises just to keep my body moving and keep my body as healthy as I could. I knew if I wanted to play, I had to do the most I could to stay strong."

Sometimes she tried to do too much. Holly was forced to lock the basement door while she and her husband were at work after Julia was caught trying to do burpees in her cast.

"She has a tendency to go hard," Holly said. "She just pushes through too much. ... Thankfully, we had an amazing doctor and he got to know her pretty well. I honestly think he kept her in her cast longer than he planned instead of putting her in a boot because he knew she would overdo it if given the opportunity."

Cleared to return

Airport coach Kim Windham kept in close contact throughout the summer and helped Julia stay involved.

"She came to all our workouts," Windham said. "We lift and do a lot of things in the spring. She showed up in her cast and worked on her arm strength, sit-ups, anything she could do. Her work ethic is just incredible. She was determined to get back on the court."

The team always hoped to have Julia back but were forced to prepare without her involved. The Jets played in a summer league at Siena Heights University and in all their scrimmages without Julia on the court.

"We were preparing for what it was going to be like without her, if that was to happen," Windham said. "I really didn't want to think about it. Things seem to work themselves out and I wasn't going to think the worst."

She was cleared to play just the week before the start of the season. Working herself back into the system was difficult at first – both physically and mentally.

"I felt like they had meshed so well together during the summer and I didn't want to be something that changed that," Julia said. "I had some doubts in my head: 'What if they were doing better before I was here?' I talked to Coach Windham and she said it was going to take time. It wasn't just going to all come back on the first day."

Julia was not held back when she took the court at Adrian in Airport's season opener. She played all six rotations and handled a mix of duties for the Jets. Her role expanded as the season went on. A natural setter, Julia also serve received through all six rotations and played right side to take advantage of her blocking and hitting abilities. By the end of the season, she also saw regular time in the middle.

"She didn't care what I asked of her or what position I put her in," Windham said. "Her versatility is so amazing. ... I don't know if I've ever coached a player in all my years as a head coach or assistant coach who could impact the game in all three positions: defensively, setting and hitting. There's never been a player in Monroe County that can do all the things she can do."

Julia trusted that Windham would put her in the best positions for the team to succeed.

"I was willing to do anything that would put us in a position to win," she said. "If that was playing middle, passing, setting, then I was happy. ... I really like playing everything. I like being able to pass some, set some, hit some."

Julia's growth as a hitter was the biggest key to Airport's success this season.

"Hitting is a great strength of hers," Windham said. "It's not like she's some big 6-foot girl, but her knowledge of the game and how to place things is so incredible and that's what we really focused on this season. It's not necessarily about hitting the hardest ball, but about finding the holes and how to score."

Moving on

The most important lesson that Julia learned this season was how to slow down.

Before the accident, life was all about volleyball. That all changed the moment she opened her eyes inside a smashed car in a ditch.

"It was hard, but I feel like now I've really come to realize that there's more to life than just volleyball," Julia said. "The accident could've been different. My priorities have changed more to spending and enjoying time with family and friends and going out to experience new things. That's really important."

Julia also learned that there can be a greater meaning found behind even bad events.

"I realized there's nothing I can do to change what happened to me," she said. "I just have to learn to do what I can with the situation I'm in. I have to trust God's plan and know that everything happens for a reason."

These lessons helped Julia move on from her dream of playing Division I volleyball, even if that goal is still not completely out of the equation. After successfully navigating the high school season without setback, Julia hopes that her final club season this winter will help her find new opportunities.

While most university teams already have completed their recruiting for next year, Julia still hopes that something will open up for her future. The club season often draws a greater focus from college programs than the high school season.

But even in the absence of new opportunity, Julia can look back on her senior year with a smile.

"It was more about proving to myself that I was still able to do it," Julia said. "In past seasons, I played a lot for other people, trying to make other people happy. This season, I focused on how this could be my last season playing volleyball. I'm lucky to even be here, to be alive. I'm happy."

After everything that has happened over the past year, Holly has no doubt her daughter's future is bright. Julia's ability to regroup and refocus after the accident was an inspiration, she said.

But while the experience helped Julia blossom into a determined young woman, Holly will never forget the relief of seeing her little girl alive and safe in her own bed.

"That night after she went to sleep, I kept waking up in the middle of the night, standing beside her bed, touching her head and checking on her," Holly said. "I kept thinking that I could've been having a very different night. Instead of watching her sleep, I could've been making a lot of really difficult phone calls. Things could've happened very differently. ...

"I don't know what the plan is for her now, but I feel confident that whatever is meant to be is going to happen for her. Wherever she ends up, she'll be successful."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Airport's Julia Mills overcomes drunk driver crash to be Player of Year