Alive and Kicking : USC Soccer Player Whitfield Maintains a Zestful Outlook Despite Some Often-Calamitous Times

The last 20 months have been rough for Kaylee Whitfield. She tore ligaments in both knees. One relative died on her 21st birthday, another the day before. A sorority sister was killed in a car accident. And she has taken on a schedule that has turned her into more of a machine than a 21-year-old college student.

Yet, this is one of the happiest times in her life.

One reason for that is, besides being less than a year away from earning her degree, Whitfield is a starting midfielder for the USC women’s soccer team that is ranked 17th in the nation and begins play in the NCAA tournament Sunday against either Baylor or Southern Methodist at 1 p.m. at the Coliseum.

The other reason Whitfield can find happiness? Whatever she faces, she knows she’s lucky to be alive.

When she was 9, Whitfield and seven other girls on her softball team were, in effect, struck by lightning. A tree they were standing next to in a Santa Ana schoolyard was struck by lightning and they were splashed with electrically charged ground water.

The shock stopped Whitfield’s heart for more than a minute. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation performed by her coach and mother got her heart beating before an ambulance arrived.

After a three-day stay in the hospital, Whitfield was released, and, aside from the precaution of being held out of physical activity for two months, resumed a normal life.

“All I remember is standing by the tree, then laying on the ground and my mom shaking me, saying ‘Kaylee, wake up. Say something,’ ” said Whitfield.

The lightning surging through the other girls left them with exit wounds, which required skin grafts, but Whitfield escaped that, another reason she feels fortunate, rather than unlucky, about the incident.

“It was like, ‘OK, my heart stopped, you got it working again, I’m good to go,’ “she said.

If Whitfield doesn’t really remember the lightning strike, the same can’t be said for her mother.

“The lightning that flashed in the sky looked like it was . . . so far off,” Kya Whitfield said. “I didn’t even hear thunder. Once it started raining, they all huddled under a tree. The next I heard was a boom and the ground shook.

“It was like a bomb hit the tree.

“They all did a 180-degree turn, got really stiff and fell down. They all did it at the same time. I thought it was funny at first. It looked like a stage production.”

It wasn’t until she saw her daughter, blue-faced and not breathing, and the other girls on the ground, that the severity of what had happened struck Kya.

For more than a year, Kya sometimes cried while driving without Kaylee in the car, worrying about her, thinking about losing her.

“I was pretty uptight about her getting out of my sights,” Kya said.

Less than two years after the incident, while Kaylee was playing in a soccer game, there was lightning in the distance. Kaylee’s father and coach, Jeff, tried to get the officials to stop the game. When they wouldn’t, Kya pulled her daughter off the field and put her in the car.

An upset Kaylee watched her team win in overtime.

But Kaylee might not have even been on the soccer field if she hadn’t been hit by lightning.

For a couple of months afterward, she experienced shooting pains through her arms. She would move her arms as little as possible, and they weakened. That was it for her and softball.

“At that point, I figured I’d enjoy soccer more,” said Kaylee. “I didn’t feel like going back to softball.”

She apparently made the right decision.

In her third year of eligibility and after a season in which she didn’t play a full game, Whitfield is a starting forward for the best team in Trojan history.

“Right now, she’s playing the best soccer of her career,” USC Coach Jim Millinder said.

But that she is even on the field this season is remarkable.

While playing in a spring game in March 1998, Kaylee tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. After rehabbing for six months, she returned to the team in the season opener. Late in the second half, she tore the same ligament in her left knee--six months to the day after the first injury.

“I felt sick,” Millinder said. “The doctor said she could go 40-50 minutes and she got hurt in about her 57th minute.”

It was more frustrating than sickening or painful for Kaylee.

“I was really disappointed because I worked really hard during the summer,” she said. “But the second one was easier emotionally. I knew what to expect, when I would be able to run, when I could start playing.

“After the first one, I didn’t know if I’d ever be the same again. When I did it the second time, I knew I’d be back.”

So far this season, Kaylee has played in all 19 games, starting 12. She has two goals and three assists, both goals having been scored in her final home game.

But shortly after that game, Kaylee got more bad news. While she was with the team at Oregon, her great grandmother died on Kaylee’s 21st birthday. Kaylee also learned her great uncle had died the day before. Three days later, one of her sorority sisters was killed in a car accident.

“When it rains, it pours with Kaylee,” Kya said.

All of this while Kaylee is serving as a teacher’s assistant at an elementary school, part of her final year of schooling before she graduates and becomes a teacher.

She’s at the elementary school from 7:30-12:30, leaving just in time for practice from 1-3 or 3:30. On Tuesdays, she has classes from 4-10 at night. Every other night, if she doesn’t have a game, she’s working on the next day’s lesson plans. And any training time she misses, she makes up on her own.

But the busy life has been great for Kaylee. It’s what she wants to do and it has kept her mind busy through tough times.

“It’s definitely worth it,” she said. “I love playing soccer, and the teaching has been a great experience.”

But it may not be over. Although she is a senior academically, and lists herself as a senior in soccer, she has a year of eligibility left. And Millinder isn’t positive she won’t be back next year.

“I haven’t given up hope,” he said. “What happens in the playoffs will determine if she will come back.”

And after all, coming back is what Kaylee Whitfield does best.

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NCAA Soccer Playoffs

When: Today through Dec. 5 championship match

UCLA

Record: 14-4-1 (Ranked 14th)

Opponent: Winner of San Diego State vs. San Diego.

When: Saturday, 1 p.m.

Where: UCLA’s North Athletic Field

USC

Record: 14-5 (Ranked 17th)

Opponent: Winner of Southern Methodist vs. Baylor.

When: Sunday, 1 p.m.

Where: Coliseum

* USC and UCLA have first-round byes