This is Jess Spezzano’s last, best chance, one she thought she’d never have.
Spezzano, the former All-State soccer star at Watertown High and Connecticut’s all-time leading scorer for girls with 114 career goals, missed three years due to complications from concussions.
A nursing major now at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Spezzano, 22, is back on the soccer field. She does not know how many concussions she had. She thinks maybe six. She’s pretty sure the first one came in the fall of 2008, as a high school freshman. Little was known then about concussions, how to diagnose them, or what to do about one, if you knew you had one.
“Back then you just went back out three days later.”
We used to say of an athlete that they got their bell rung. Be tough. Get back out there kid.
After her celebrated high school career — she was All NVL four times, All State three times, and the NVL’s most outstanding senior — Spezzano went to Southern Connecticut State University. In her first season there, she suffered another concussion, most likely her sixth.
“That’s when I was told that they were letting me go,” said Spezzano, who was at SCSU on a half-athletic, half-academic scholarship. “They told me that I should take a break.”
After six concussions, the word “break” really means quit.
“I was 18 years-old and I realized that I had to stop doing what I love,” she said. “After all those year playing, premier leagues and high school, that was hard to swallow.”
There is no cure for post-concussion symptoms. You wait, and hope.
“For those three years I didn’t feel like myself,” Spezzano said. “Something was missing, something that I had my whole life.”
She coached youth soccer in Watertown “to fill the void,” and she held seminars with youth teams about concussions.
There are issues still.
“It is a tricky thing,” she said. “I still have side effects, the headaches, and it has also impacted my schooling. It has changed my learning pattern. If someone needs to study two hours, I need to study four. Sometimes I need help to retain the information.”
But a visit this year to a neurologist brought good news. She was cleared to play, if she wished.
“I had transferred to Saint Joseph, but soccer was not on my mind at all,” she said.
One day, however, the phone rang. It was Saint Joseph soccer coach Kelly Shimmin. She simply said to Spezzano, “I’d love if you come play.” Spezzano’s reaction: “Why not give it a go.”
Spezzano, a junior in the classroom but a sophomore on the field, has started all 10 games for the Blue Jays, scored four goals, two of them game winners, with three assists. The team is 5-5.
“I would say that she has returned at the top of her game,” Shimmin said. “Her attitude, ability, and love for the game is still there. She has brought a level of maturity to a young side that was needed.”
Shimmin believes there are many goals to come for Spezzano. That is a guarantee, if Spezzano stays healthy and on the pitch.
“I have changed the way that I play,” Spezzano said. “I am not as aggressive going in on players, and I get rid of the ball sooner.”
Now that I would have to see for myself. Spezzano was adept at taking on tacklers, maintaining control, and creating chances. If she could see the goal, she could score.
“It’s hard, and sometimes frustrating. I won’t lie,” she said. “I have backed off the way I used to play. My coaches tell me to relax, and don’t go in as hard.”
Spezzano’s dream of proving herself at the collegiate level was cut short in her first season at SCSU. She has another chance at Saint Joseph, and she said: “This is the happiest I have been in three years.”
Along with soccer and school, Spezzano works at Middlesex Hospital in patient care. She hopes to be a nurse practitioner, “and work with kids with concussions.
Spezzano lost three years of training. “My body was not in soccer shape. During the first few weeks of practice my mind was in one place, but my body in another. Now, I am getting back to being my old self.
“In a sense,” she added, “I am beginning all over.”
It is a good beginning, a new journey and, hopefully, a long and healthy one.
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