November 2, 2020
By: Bill Conger
DeKalb County High School basketball player Kennedy Agee is fighting to come back to the court after a third debilitating injury.
The junior Tiger basketball standout was playing in a travel ball tournament in Alabama on August 16 when she hurt one of the major ligaments in her right knee.
“I went around a girl and went to shoot a lay-up, and when I pushed off, my knee gave out and buckled and snapped my right ACL this time,” Kennedy remembers.
“When it happened the third time, Josh and I were standing out on the court with her, and he said, ‘Why us?’” her mom January Agee said. “We don’t know. We’ve been through a lot of emotions.”
“As a father, you try to give the answers of why in life, and I don’t have any answers for her right now,” DMS Basketball Coach Josh Agee adds.
Growing up the daughter of a coach, the 17-year-old girl had always been around basketball, but her interest took off in third grade.
“In middle school I realized it was time to start pushing harder,” Kennedy says. “My dreams have always been to play at Tennessee Tech.”
“Her dreams may not be done yet,” her dad said. “You always want your kid’s dreams to come true, and that’s probably been the hardest thing for me.”
Over the last nine years Kennedy has played year round for a travel league, the DeKalb Middle School Saints, and now D.C.H.S. Two years ago, she had her first ACL injury on the left side in the 4th period of a game against Warren County. She worked her way back in seven months instead of the nine doctors expected, but when she returned for a scrimmage game on October 30 of last year, the ACL on her left knee gave out again. Still, she never even thought of quitting.
“Basketball is too big a part of my life to give it up. I just kept pushing.”
Kennedy went through her second surgery on her left ACL, completed her therapy rehabilitation, and started lifting weights and running sprints.
“My expectations were to get back out there and play the game I love. I know that a lot of people in the county have been rooting for me, and they’ve always kind of been waiting around waiting to see me play. I still wanted to make my journey of playing college basketball come true. There were always the doubts, but you push through it. You suck it up and go.”
“Being a coach’s kid, you have to earn it more just to show I don’t play favoritism,” Josh says.
“She’s very inspiring to me the way she’s handled the adversity and come back twice and now has to deal with it again.”
“In that instant of the third time, it was like all the hard work and the hopes and goals and dreams crashed, said January, a teacher at DMS. “When you’re a basketball family, like we are, it’s a hard pill to swallow.”
“When I first went down on the floor, I really couldn’t believe what was happening again,” Kennedy says.
In that moment the Christian youth, who is a member of Smithville First Assembly of God, knew God had this.
“I just felt a peace from Jesus come over me that everything was going to be alright. The Bible verse that kept running through my head was in Daniel 3: 18: ‘If not, he is still good.’ I knew that no matter what happened whether I stepped back out on the floor again that my life was going to be okay.”
“When our daughter says that she still praises God through all of this, basketball takes a back burner, and we figure we’ve done something right,” says her mother. “She has handled it phenomenally. She was pretty down the first day. The second day she started making jokes about it. We even brought her orthopedist a punch card that I had made that said, ‘Buy two, get one free; ACL reconstructions’,” she says with a laugh.
“She has been inspiring to be honest,” her dad says. “She is mentally stronger than anybody I’ve ever seen. She’s handling it like a champ.”
The day after the latest injury, Kennedy was mowing the yard for her neighbor who had recently experienced a stroke.
“I have been raised by two wonderful Christian parents and a wonderful Christian family,” Kennedy says. “I’ve always had that foundation to stand on. Once you start going through trials, you learn to pray about it and dig deeper in your Bible about it and find ways to show that it’s going to be okay. I can’t tell you how many times the Lord has shown no matter what you face, no matter what valley you’re in the Lord is standing with you and it’s all going to be okay in the end. He always has a purpose for your life whether it’s what you want or not. He has a greater plan that sometimes we don’t see.
What happened happened, but I need to use that to glorify God because without Him I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I did. Basketball has also given me the opportunity to share His love to others.”
“We have to keep trusting that something good is going to come out of this,” her mother says. “We don’t know what it’s going to be. There’s got to be a reason for it.”
The trials for dad remind him not to take anything for granted.
“We don’t know when our last days on this earth are going to be,” Josh says. “Live every moment like it’s your last, and enjoy the ride. If I could go back and do it over again, that’s the one thing I would do more. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed her playing like I should. I’ve never got to sit back, watch and just be dad.”
Recovering now from her third surgery, Kennedy is striving to rebuild her body with the hopes of playing her senior year with her cousin Averly Agee, who will be a freshman.
“She’s got that determination of she’s not going to let something keep her down,” Mom January says. “We may go through a fourth one [ACL injury] She has too much love for it.”
Kennedy continues to hold tight to her desire to play college basketball. Just this past week Kentucky Christian University checked up on her again and invited her to the campus for a visit. Who knows where her faith and determination will take Kennedy next?