With the University of Minnesota’s “M” plastered across every piece of clothing he’s wearing, Gophers basketball player, junior Parker Fox, looked up at his strength coach in the team’s weight room after he jumped as high as he could onto Hawkin Dynamics dual force plates.
The plates are a motion analysis system that aids performance assessment and rehabilitation, according to Steve Felde, Associate Director of Sports Performance for Gophers men’s basketball.
Fox and his strength coaching staff celebrated the small 8% difference between the force he was using on one leg compared to the other. Fox tore his ACL and three parts of his meniscus in the spring of 2021.
After a stand-out season at Northern State University (NSU) in South Dakota, Fox’s career-changing injury happened when he was in the midst of deciding between eight Division I schools to transfer to.
Originally from Mahtomedi, Minn., the 22-year-old is a brand-new member of the Gophers basketball team this year, but will be unable to play a single game the entire season.
Basketball has been Fox’s whole world for as long as he can remember.
“When I could barely even walk [my father] put a basketball in my hands. All I’ve ever known is basketball. Yeah, I just love the game,” Fox said. “My best friends know that if I’m ever not myself, I can just go to a gym and play basketball and I’m back to myself again.”
Fox, a big, outgoing presence who doesn’t let someone walk by without giving a high-five or a warm greeting, has clearly come into his own. Eight years ago, you wouldn’t have recognized the now 6-foot-8-inch power forward.
A late bloomer, he began his high school basketball career smaller than many of his opponents. Fox said he was only about 5 feet 8 inches and weighed 100 pounds.
“I didn’t have the physical attributes to be a college basketball player yet, but I knew all I wanted to do was play basketball,” Fox said.
After four years at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Fox had the highest winning percentage of any player that’s ever played for NSU. He was an All-American, the 2020-21 NCIS North Division MVP, the Defensive Player of the Year in 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, and more.
When Fox finished his final season for NSU with two more years left of eligibility, he knew that he was ready to play Division I ball.
As soon as he entered his name in the transfer portal, Fox had offers from programs from over 100 schools across the country.
“I didn’t think I was going to have these opportunities when I was a freshman [in college], but I just worked my butt off and it all paid off,” Fox said. “I think that it’s a testament to my motivation and understanding that I wanted to be bigger and better than I was.”
During the time he was making the decision for his next step, Fox continued to practice at
NSU. In a routine dunk, Fox jumped off his right leg, landed on his left and felt something pop.
After some tests were done on his knee, his trainer looked down at him and said the most devastating phrase that any athlete could hear: “Your ACL isn’t connected.”
In an instant, Fox felt the promise of his future quickly crumble.
“I just got a wave of emotion over me. I just broke down and started crying. I was at a point in my life where I was a person who was one of the top recruits in the country and this big-time player that was supposed to be the next big transfer and my knee wasn’t attached anymore,” Fox said. “The emotions that flooded over me was something I couldn’t even control. That was the first time I had ever really cried like that.”
After leaving the training room, Fox called his mother to tell her the bad news. When learning about his ACL tear, she helped him find new perspective and inner strength.
“I’ll always remember [this], she said to me, ‘You didn’t lose your leg. People are dealing with way worse things in life. This is just a knee. This isn’t the end of the world. You’re one of the strongest people I know and you’re going to come back from this one day.’,” Fox said. “When she told me that, I believed it was true.”
This new perspective is the way that Fox approached his rehab in not only becoming a better player, but a better person.
Fox also found clarity through his injury, as his first thought was to notify first-year University head basketball coach, Ben Johnson, of his desire to be a Gopher.
“Everything happens for a reason, and I think that God was trying to tell me that I have to come home. I have to come to Minnesota,” Fox said. “Being from here, I grew up a Gophers fan my whole life. I knew this is where I wanted to be, I just needed something to show me that. I think this knee injury and this process allowed me to kind of see that and allowed me to grow too.”
While Fox isn’t cleared to play, he still found ways to make a positive impact for his team by helping his coaches with recruiting or watching film, as well as helping his teammates off the court.
“It’s all what you make it. You can dread it, whine about it and cry about it, or you can pick yourself up and try to be a good teammate and a good person,” Fox said. “I’ve taken some of the freshmen underneath my wing. I’ve learned a lot through college basketball, and I want to be able to share that knowledge with other people.”
Nine months post-injury, in addition to his efforts off the court, Fox spends his time in rehab and in the weight room, strengthening his torn knee in preparation for a full comeback in 2022.
“For Parker’s current situation, we notice with his injured leg that he is lacking strength in his quad,” Felde said. “So what we want to end up doing is get his injured leg even with his non- injured leg. So, currently in his program, we want to focus on quad and hamstring strength.”
Next season, Fox will be cleared to play for the Gophers and live his dream of competing at Williams Arena. But for now, he can only support his teammates and watch.
“It’s not easy to hear someone tell you that you’re going to be out from the thing you love doing for a year, and the fact that I have to sit on the bench and watch people do what I love to do is super tough,” Fox said.
But for Fox, with adversity came self-discovery. The competitive young man who once tied his whole identity to his sport has discovered a new love and respect for himself as a human being, rather than just an athlete.
“It was tough, but it made me realize there are so many bigger things in life than basketball and it’s just a game at the end of the day,” Fox said. “A lot of times I like to call myself a basketball player, the basketball guy, but you know, I’m way bigger and way more than that.”
