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While riding her father's tractor earlier this week on her family's farm in Okawville, Ill., Michelle Hasheider couldn't keep her mind from wandering to where it normally focuses this time of year.
She thought about her teammates in basketball practice, about the season that soon will begin - and about how she wouldn't be part of it.
Hasheider, a guard for Colorado, was granted a medical redshirt for the year and has decided to spend it at home, working on the farm in Okawville, rather than positioning herself on the bench for a year.
"I love it too much to have to sit and watch everybody else play," said Hasheider, who started playing basketball when she was 3. "You wish you were a part and you know you're not going to be."
The redshirt is due to Hasheider's struggle with exertional compartment syndrome in both legs. She has had four surgeries to relieve pressure around the muscles. The surgeries - Oct. 12, 1995; March 26, 1996; Oct. 8, 1996, and March 24, 1997 - were intended to prevent nerve and tissue damage.
Hasheider, 20, said the first three were fine, but the fourth procedure, which produced a 10-inch scar...
