Brooke Craig, Rock Hill High girls’ basketball team inspire each other

After the Rock Hill High girls’ basketball team finished warming up for its game against South Pointe two weeks ago, the players each ran over to Brooke Craig and exchanged good-luck high fives with her.

Rock Hill coach Kenny Orr said his girls have learned from Craig.

“When they’re having a dying moment, talking about their legs hurting,” he said, “she’s talking about ‘I just wanna walk one time.’”

Craig sat in the corner of the Rock Hill High gym with her sister, Brittany Craig, and her father, Ricky. Craig sits in a motorized wheelchair, her sister adjusting the backrest from time to time.

About three years ago Craig was involved in a car accident that caused severe brain trauma and left her partially paralyzed.

She left school around 1:30 in the afternoon and was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when she over-corrected after going off the side of Glasscock Road in Rock Hill. Craig’s truck careened across the road and flipped into the woods.

Craig was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and underwent brain surgery.

The doctors had to remove flaps of her skull to allow her brain to swell. She suffered a broken pelvis, fractured ribs, and a fractured bone in her arm. Craig was in a coma for 30 days and doctors said she would most likely be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life.

That prediction hasn’t come true, but Craig’s daily realities barely resemble her pre-crash life. She was initially paralyzed on the left side of her body but is now able to move her left arm and pick up her left leg.

In some ways, the most debilitating result of the crash is in her head. Craig suffers from short-term memory loss.

“She can eat, and five minutes later she won’t remember if she ate,” said her sister, Brittany Craig.

Memory loss affects her in school because work has to be repetitive, the same information over and over.

Besides coaching the undefeated Bearcat girls’ basketball team, Orr is Craig’s one-on-one shadow every day in school. Craig says he calls her “his boo” – the pop culture term for a boyfriend or girlfriend – around school.

Orr introduced her to his basketball team and works to help her improve her cognitive strength each day. He said he reinforces information and sometimes has to give her quizzes on the same day she learned the material.

Orr said it is difficult for her to retain information in school from the previous day. “But she may come back two weeks later and remember that like it was yesterday,” he said.

Craig had the opportunity to graduate two years ago with her GED, but she decided to stay longer to earn her diploma.

“I really wanna finish and graduate,” she said.

With Orr’s help, Craig is on track to do just that in May. She plans to graduate with the basketball team’s seniors, Kendall Lahr, Monique Stevenson, Kayleigh Schneider, Madison Hendrix, Maladia Bahena, and Modesty Fobbs. The team’s coach has been integral in her pursuit of a diploma, and the team has been a welcome distraction and change of focus.

Craig attends every home game and most away games with her sister and father. She sings all the words to each cheer and claps and hollers every time the team the scores. Craig smiles: “I’m part of the team.”

Craig played basketball at Rock Hill her freshman year, along with Brittany, who was a senior then. She says Brittany used to be a good 3-point shooter, laughing and looking to her sister, as they sit together watching the Bearcats. Now, Brittany is a vital part of her sister’s days.

Craig says she doesn’t think about her accident much, but she does ponder it for a moment during the first half of the Rock Hill-South Pointe game.

“I’ve matured a lot; I’ve become a lot more of a Christian,” she said.

“I’m gonna walk one day and I’m gonna play again.”

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Brooke Craig, Rock Hill High girls’ basketball team inspire each other."