The Inimitable Positivity of Jayla Hearp, Reprise: A Year On

Reprise (ri-ˈprīz) – [French, from Middle French] a: a musical repetition (1): the repetition of the exposition preceding the development.

In music, a reprise is traditionally a repeated passage, often altered, to imbue emphasis upon a particularly important piece. Drawing its origins in 18^th-century French, the meaning has changed through time, and the perhaps most famous modern example must be Pink Floyd's "Time" which invokes a reprise of "Breathe."

Insofar as a reprise is usually shorter than the original work, perhaps let this serve as a foundation to March's poppy, 311-word effort at an introduction to the character of Jayla Hearp.

That piece, simple as it was, talked about Hearp's ability to keep her head above water, a towering presence of joy in the Pirate locker room even through struggles with injury and slumps of play. That piece came out on March 7. On March 9, Hearp suffered a knee injury which not only ended her 2022-23 season early – just about an hour before the confetti fell in Fort Worth, Texas – but it robbed her of 2023-24 as well.

Hearp redshirted this past season, but she's still herself – she's still driven, and she is still, inimitably, positive. But before we get too far ahead ourselves, let's step back in time.

March 9, 2023 – Fort Worth, Texas
It was a Wednesday night in Texas which will be remembered for a long time in East Carolina athletics lore. It was a joyous night for those in Purple and Gold as the title drought ended and with a 46-44 victory over the Houston Cougars, the Pirates earned their way into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 16 years.

It was a different day for Hearp, though. One she remembers well, but one for which the emotions aren't unadulterated joy – something more complicated.

It seemed like a normal play. At the 4:09 mark in the first quarter, Houston had jumped out to an 8-0 lead on the Pirates and were looking to add to it when they made an entry pass to Tatyana Hill in the paint. Hearp ducked in to contest the catch, getting a piece of the ball but landing uncomfortably and colliding hard with the 6-2 Hill. Amongst a scrum as Hill shot, rebounded her own miss, and shot again, Hearp lie on the ground with nine other sets of legs in a tangle over her.

"Honestly, I thought I broke my leg," Hearp said of the moment in the Championship Game.

After evaluation, Hearp says she was able to run – up and down, sprinting and backpedaling down the hallway leading to the team's locker rooms and was given the okay to go back in the game. The knee seemed intact so it looked like she may be in the clear, returning to the bench and telling her coaches she was ready to go. It was the Championship Game, Hearp wasn't going to let herself go out that easily.

At the 5:27 mark of the second quarter, Hearp checked back into the game. She was going to give it a go. She entered on a defensive possession which resulted in a Houston turnover and ended up in the hands of teammate Amiya Joyner.

After collecting a pass from Joyner, Hearp went to make a move around the Houston defender on the fast break and lost the ball and, even worse, felt another pop. She was credited with a turnover but worse yet, Hearp knew at that point that she was done.

"I had tears in my eyes, I told Coach Kim, 'I'm done, don't put me back in.'" She recalled.

Hearp admits that she doesn't remember much of the second half. It was a blur for everyone, as a championship can be, but it was different a different sort of blur for the then-freshman.

"I was just trying to clap and support them, to just get out of my head," she said. "I was trying to let that go and not be selfish and think about myself… I just remember clapping and being hype at the end of the bench, then the buzzer went off."

When the buzzer went off, for most of the East Carolina Pirates it was euphoria. But for Hearp, it was muted. She was on crutches with an injured knee. There was no dancing; no jumping around hugging teammates; no making a confetti angel. She couldn't even climb the ladder to cut down a piece of the net for herself.

"I was kind of mad about it all."

Perhaps that is how we would all feel in Hearp's shoes that night.

One Month On
Hearp was at the NCAA Tournament in Texas – the Pirates' first since 2007 – but she didn't get to play. She didn't get to practice. To hear her tell it, she wasn't even quite sure what her role was yet. She knew the team needed a lift at the end of the long season, but she didn't know how.

She recalls talking to a member of the media before the game, being asked about playing in Texas' Moody Center. She lied. She said she was excited.

"It really wasn't a genuine response because it was like I'm not playing; I don't get to play. I kind of had a mask on just trying to smile, but it was really hard for me."

When the season ended, most players' attention turned to finals, to summer, to resting a little after a long year. But Hearp's attention immediately shifted to surgery on her injured knee. She had it two weeks on – March 22. The surgery was a success, but it was hard. It was still major surgery, Hearp's first of her life.

She went in to begin rehab at the end of that week, but she didn't want to.

"I was in a lot of pain," Hearp said of the time when she began her rehabilitating exercises. "It was really rough for me at first. I didn't like pain; I didn't like being uncomfortable.

But Hearp would come to realize that to get where she wanted to go, she would have to go through the process, however hard it may be. That, if she didn't take her rehab seriously, she probably wouldn't be able to get back to where she once was – to have the career she wanted to have.

"It was just curveball after curveball after curveball," Hearp said of those early months. "I just learned to take the little milestones and make them big."

One of those early milestones became bending her knee, little by little. It was celebration worthy once she got five degrees of bend. Then a couple degrees at a time – bit by bit, brick by brick, mini-milestone by mini-milestone. It was those small victories that became motivation and helped propel Hearp forward.

There was also raising her leg from a sit. It was a multi-week process. Try, sitting at home, to lift your leg up from a seated position. It should be fairly easy. Now imagine the frustration, at 18 years old, of spending multiple weeks just relearning how to do that motion. Something so simple and so natural – an act which is suddenly foreign.

To stay positive through that is a gift. A gift.

Eight Months On
It is November 6, 2023, the first day of the '23-24 college basketball season, and the East Carolina Women's Basketball Team is in a quiet Schar Center on the campus of Elon University. Most of the team is going through shootaround, getting shots up and running through plays as they prepare to kick off the year with a road win.

Hearp wasn't on the floor; but she wasn't sitting idle. Hearp was on the move running stadium steps. Up one set full speed, walk around the concourse to the next set, jog down and repeat. It was distinctly unglamorous work. But she was working, eyes ahead, step by step. Building strength and getting better.

She said that it wasn't then, but actually in the preseason when it became real to her. It was at the Pirates' open exhibition at Maryland when it began to set in to Hearp that she wasn't going to be suiting up this season.

"I was sad honestly," Hearp said. "Because Maryland was one of my dream schools back when I was younger so going and getting a chance to play there, but not actually playing and still being a part of it was hard. I was still trying to figure out what my role would be not playing. At the time I kind of felt like an outsider."

It would be hard not to feel that way. Going through workouts separately; watching the games from the bench but not wearing a uniform, no chance of going in – and in front of fans for the first time.

And then the Pirates hung a banner. On a Monday night in Minges Coliseum in a moment of memory and jubilation, it was bittersweet for Hearp.

Of the night Hearp said: "It was a mix. It felt like a show… They rolled out the carpet for us, had the banner and everything, and I think there were a lot of people at that game too. Then they're playing another intro video, and it was pictures of after we won with all the confetti and stuff and it really kind of made me sad, just thinking about how I felt like I couldn't enjoy the whole celebration… I know obviously I had a role last season to help us get there but yeah it did bring back some bad memories with how I couldn't finish the game."

Though it may have been hard for her to remember at the time, Hearp did have a major role on that team. She played 16 minutes per game, scored nearly seven points per game and shot north of 75 percent from the foul line. She wasn't a star, but Hearp was critical, and the Pirates would not have made their run to the championship without her.

But the sadness lingered, as did the yearning for a role on the 2023-24 squad. The young sophomore, unable to play but knowing that on a talented, new-look team she was going to have to carve out a niche, it took Hearp a while to find it.

She did eventually, and she did it, ironically on a trip in which the Pirates went 0-2 down in the Bahamas. It was there when she figured out that for the team to find success they would have to create their own energy – and that therein was a space she could step in.

WBB Bahamas

It suits her, after all, being a source of positive energy. Prior to her injury the team used to talk about letting the dog off the leash – and when she was let free it was electric.

10 Months On
There's an old sentiment in sport that says that a player doesn't really feel "in a game" until they take contact. Once a ballplayer gets that first bump, it's game on.

Hearp didn't get to have that feeling for a long time after her injury. It was just one of the many things that felt foreign for her throughout her rehab. It was another thing that separated her from her healthy teammates – separated her from the game she loves.

But like a player in a new game, Hearp remembers the first time she was thrown into full contact after her injury and its energizing effect.

"It's weird because they were babying me, they didn't want to touch me, they didn't want the guys hitting me with the pads then one day JB [Assistant Director of Operations J'Kyra Brown] just throws me in the fire and she's like, 'Jay come on I'm not playing you got me?'" said Hearp, surprised. "But It kind of fueled me, it kind of turned me up."

It was a rare moment of excitement in the months long slog; but at the same time, any sports fan knows that it is human nature to feel tentative on any joint, bone, knee, ankle – anything which had been previously injured. The memory of the injury lingers and, perhaps for lack of better word, haunts the athlete.

Hearp has had those moments. Those moments of not being willing to go as hard off the right leg as the left. But that first time, the dominating emotion was excitement.

"I felt good out there my first time," said Hearp. "I was like: 'Okay I am ready, my brand-new knee is stronger. I'm ready.'"

Still, from the moment of being allowed to go through some contact drills for the first time and running five-on-oh drills to being allowed to play fully is a long journey in itself. The temptation to rush back and risk reinjury is a dangerous one. Which is part of why having a predetermined plan was so important for Hearp.

She knew that she was redshirting the entire season, and as the season went on and more and more games went by it became even more critical to stick to that plan and retain the year of eligibility. Not that there was no temptation. Oh, there was plenty, Hearp explained. She joked, late in the season, to athletic trainer Kelsey Reilly about "coming out of retirement," to play this season.

"She said she wasn't even going to listen to me," laughed Hearp.

Then the 2023-24 Pirates made a great run of their own accord. They made a run to the American Athletic Conference final – the program's second straight league final for the first time since 1992. Hearp was able to enjoy it better, but it was plainly clear to see she wanted in. When the Pirates win another title, Hearp wants to be a part of it.

Jayla Hearp Bahamas

A Year On
As the cruel fates would have it, since the work on this piece began, two more ECU players went down with season ending injuries in Team Captains Synia Johnson and Micah Dennis. Johnson is returning next season, something which is exciting to Hearp. She knows that with a fully healthy squad the Pirates could be a force to be reckoned with, saying, "I don't think anybody in the league could run with us if we had everyone healthy this year… It's something to look forward to for sure."

Hearp is back on the court now, full speed ahead as she continues to improve her game heading into what will finally be her sophomore year. She doesn't look like her old self – she looks better. That's something taken from her work with Associate Head Coach Cory McNeal, taking the approach that, "this isn't a year off, it's just a mental year." Even though she couldn't take the physical leap she would usually hope for from freshman to sophomore year, she could return to the Pirates mentally stronger than she left. Something not every player gets and something that can be gained only by going through something hard and coming through on the other side.

Now that she has, Hearp is quick, she's strong, she's smart, and her jump shot is just as silky as ever. She's going to be a sight to see when she finally checks into a live game for the first time – and she'll be doing it all with a smile on her face.

One would be remissed, Hearp insists not to mention the village she has had with her along the way. Her family, friends, coaches, teammates and so many more.

"Obviously, there would be way too many people to name," she said. "But I just want to credit those people because without them I probably wouldn't be where I am today."

And she's right. Hearp has had a village behind her. A beautiful support system built on faith and an abiding belief in brighter days coming. With them, she gets to come out on the other side of it better than she went in.

They say to kill them with kindness and Hearp just might; for through all of her joy and positivity a greater motivation lurks:

"For me it's kind of like redemption. It's an opportunity to run it back. It's kind of like the same feeling that it was my freshman year. The championship game and then the NCAA, it's vengeance for me. I have to get back there."

Jayla Hearp Championship

The Inimitable Positivity of Jayla Hearp, Reprise: A Year On

Players Mentioned

Micah Dennis

Jayla Hearp

Synia Johnson

Amiya Joyner

Footer

The Inimitable Positivity of Jayla Hearp, Reprise: A Year On

Related News

Players Mentioned

Micah Dennis

Jayla Hearp

Synia Johnson

Amiya Joyner

Related Videos

Footer