How Clarkston's Cayla Cogan overcame knee injury to continue fabulous volleyball career
Clarkston’s volleyball team was hosting Bloomfield Hills for first place in the OAA Red when a Clarkston player set the ball for teammate Cayla Cogan.
The set appeared to be too high above the net, but Cogan took a step and went to the upper reaches of the gym, swung her powerful right arm and sent the ball sailing across the net and smashing onto the court.
You wanted to look twice at the floor because the sheer force of her swing might have left an indentation.
That is a fairly routine play for Cogan, a 5-foot-10 senior who has committed to George Washington, but it was precisely a play like that ended Clarkston’s state championship hopes in the Division 1 quarterfinals last year.
Clarkston was a point away from ending Birmingham Marian’s season when tragedy struck.
“I went up to go swing for the last ball, and I tore my ACL and my meniscus when I jumped,” Cogan said. “We ended up losing the set and lost in the fifth set.
“It was devastating.”
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Marian went on to win the state championship while Cogan went on to surgery and an intense rehabilitation program that has allowed her to return this fall to her all-state form; she's a finalist for the Miss Volleyball award.
While Cogan is now in a good place mentally, that was not the case following her injury and subsequent Dec. 2 surgery.
“I came out of that game just questioning myself,” she said. “It was in the worst moment that it could have happened with how close we were to winning that game. I left there questioning myself and asking why it happened. It was such an awful moment for it to happen.”
That was the closest Cogan came to a pity party.
Can you spot me, Dad?
She attacked her rehab with a vengeance and has emerged a stronger, more dedicated athlete, leading Clarkston to the OAA Red title.
The Wolves (22-2) are ranked No. 3 in Division 1, and Cogan is closing in on 1,000 kills in her three-year varsity career.
“I have a weight room in my house so I focused on my upper body strength, so I was doing that when I couldn’t do anything with my leg,” she said. “I tried to focus on all the little things that I wasn’t so strong in before the injury and I focused on making those better while I was giving my leg time to heal.”
She improved her bench press from 110 pounds to 133 in the span of two months, but that wasn’t all. Cogan tried to use everything possible to make herself stronger.
“Even the crutches helped me, too,” she said. “They built up my triceps strength. I notice that a lot.”
There is a weight room in the Cogan house because her father, Chris, was a linebacker at Kent State from 1996-2000 and wanted to stay in shape.
Little did he know eventually he would not be the primary occupant of that room.
“There’d be nights she’d come in and go: ‘Hey, we’ve got to go work out,’ and she’d drag me down there,” he said. “She took it upon herself to make sure she’s doing physical workouts, even before the injury.”
'You are volleyball blood'
Cogan’s introduction to volleyball is one for the books.
It came via a former member of the Polish national volleyball team, a would-be 1984 Olympian, if not for the boycott by Eastern Europe nations; he later defected to the United States.
Several years ago, Kris Zywicki attended a neighborhood party near the Cogan home. She was in the sixth grade at the time and in a casual conversation he asked her what sports she was going to play. She mentioned basketball and soccer, but wasn’t committed to anything, really.
Zywicki, 6-6, stood up and asked the kids at the party to jump to try to hit his hand. Cogan was the only one able to do it.
He was dumbfounded when he saw her jump.
“You are volleyball blood,” he told her. “You have to do it.”
He took Cogan to the side and showed her some basic volleyball moves and she was a willing participant. She soaked it all in like a sponge.
“I showed her how to posture yourself for passing, how to do spike approach, how to jump,” he said. “She basically picked it up by first time seeing it. She had this natural ability and mentally she was capturing everything.
“She was excited. The fire in her was something that really struck me. It was impressive.”
After that little demonstration, Zywicki pleaded with Cogan to give volleyball a shot.
“You need to try volleyball,” he told her. “If you like it or not, that’s going to be something you will determine with time, but try it.”
After her father took her to a volleyball open gym-type situation at nearby Everest Academy, Cogan loved it and wanted more.
She heard about volleyball clubs and soon thereafter signed up for one and her love for the sport flourished.
Each year, she improved by leaps and bounds; since then, she has had a brilliant career at Clarkston.
“She’s an explosive athlete,” Clarkston coach Ali Smith said. “She jumps so well, and that’s been something that’s been nice to see after the injury. She had an incredible vertical before the injury and everybody questioned, can she get it back? She’s jumping very well.”
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The summer before her junior season, her vertical jump was measured at 10 feet, 1 inch. She is now touching the basketball rim — you could say she has regained her leaping ability.
The rest of her game has come a long way from when she was cleared to play again on Aug. 17.
“Honestly, I’m not sure if she’s where she was mid-November last year, but she’s pretty stinkin’ close,” Smith said. “She’s been pretty courageous in her comeback to play again and to get to where she was prior. She’s trying to prepare for college, too. She has been very committed, honestly, from Day 1.”
Playing for a higher purpose
Cogan’s focus was to return to the court as soon as possible and she has made impressive progress in a short period of time.
But her main inspiration had nothing to do with volleyball. It had everything to do with her sister, Carly, 13, who was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago.
Watching her sister battle made a dramatic impression on Cogan.
“When I was recovering from my injury, she has been a huge motivation for me to want to get better,” Cogan said. “It was a reminder to me that it’s not the hardest thing that a person has to go through. She’s very strong with all of it, going through all of her chemo appointments and surgeries and she’s taking it so well, it kind of gives me that reminder that anything is possible and if you fight for it you can get through it.
“I feel a lot of my recovery process was for her.”
Carly is in the seventh grade and is back to school this fall for the first time in two years.
During the second semester of the previous school year, Carly had company.
“I went virtual for a semester so I could be there for her,” Cogan said. “So I could be home when she had to be home and we were both doing school at home while my parents were at work.”
Cogan became more than just a big sister during that time.
“When she had questions, I was always there to help her because virtual is different,” she said. “It’s a different type of learning. We got through it together.”
The sisters grew closer during that semester and now during Clarkston matches Carly cheers like crazy for her former teacher.
“She was just a good teacher because she always helped me and she could understand me,” Carly said. “She always told me what was good and what was wrong and what was right. Overall, she was really nice.”
The way she jumps and attacks the ball, you would not know Cogan underwent ACL surgery a bit over 10 months ago.
She is as aggressive as ever and is a dominating force on the court in every match the Wolves play these days.
But it wasn’t that way when practice began in early August; the surgery was constantly on her mind then.
“I was very hesitant,” she said. “I had these thoughts in the back of my mind: ‘What if I injure myself again,' 'what if' this, 'what if' that. All of these thoughts in the back of my mind that were holding me back for the longest time.
“I had many conversations with family, friends, coaches trying to get me out of that mental state of being nervous, being hesitant when I go for a ball.”
But all of that is in the past. Cogan can recall the day all of her hesitation and tentativeness disappeared — Sept. 6 in a match against South Lyon East.
“I didn’t find a single moment that I questioned myself about a play,” she recalled. “I didn’t feel like I was holding myself back. That’s when I noticed that I was back to playing, in that I didn’t have to worry about anything anymore.
“I kind of forgot about everything. I wasn’t even thinking about my knee whatsoever. I was just playing the game.”
Cogan hopes to continue playing the game for another month or so, all the way to the state championship game in Battle Creek.
She has seen the Wolves improve to the point that they are now one of the favorites to reach the final four.
“Everyone now has a really good perspective of the game now,” she said. “We’re all on the same page, all have the same motivation. I’m, excited with how we’re playing.”
Cogan occasionally thinks back to the random meeting with Zywicki and how it ultimately changed her life.
“I still talk to him to this day,” she said. “He comes to my game sometimes. It’s just really cool. He’ll give me some feedback if he sees something that I need to fix or just some advice.”
As for Zywicki, he still can’t believe that the little kid who could jump and touch his hand would turn out to be one of the state’s best players.
“She achieved even more than I even dreamt,” he said. “Watching her progressing, you kind of get used to her growth. It was an unbelievable journey to watch her go through and then the selection of the college. I’m so proud of her.”
Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Clarkston's Cayla Cogan overcame injury to dominate in volleyball
