Cibola graduate Waddell excited to return to play
Cougars standout missed some of season with health concerns
If 2020 has been stifling for many high school athletes, it has been downright punishing for Adamari Waddell.
And, oddly enough, the coronavirus pandemic is scarcely part of the equation at all.
“It’s been really crazy,” she said. “I didn’t expect my summer to be like this.”
The recent Cibola High School graduate later this month will begin her first semester of college, at Collin College in McKinney, Texas. There, the 5-foot-10 Waddell hopes to punch out a new chapter in her life. She’s glad to be rid of the previous chapter. “I’ve been anxous to play against people,” she said. Waddell missed the second half of her girls basketball senior season at Cibola, after doctors discovered a pulmonary embolism, a blockage of an artery in one of her lungs.
She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, spread out over two visits, as doctors addressed the problem.
“I didn’t know much about it,” she said. “I was actually having pain back in December in my ribs, and it was really hard to breathe. When I got checked into the (emergency room), they told me nothing was wrong, so I decided to keep playing. The pain went away.”
By January, the pain had worsened. She couldn’t even walk, not even when she returned to the ER.
The second visit revealed a blood clot in her chest, she said. Waddell spent three days in the hospital. She had barely been discharged when a complication forced her to return, this time for about a week and a half.
Consequently, she never reappeared in Cibola’s lineup, where she had been a fixture since her freshman season.
“It was tough,” Waddell said. “I didn’t even know if I would be able to play basketball again. I was really angry and frustrated, because I couldn’t finish my senior season.”
Blood thinners have corrected her blood clot, she said.
But not being able to play the meat of her senior season — and she already had dealt with a shoulder injury as a junior that caused her to miss significant time — created another dilemma: What do do about college? “That was my thing going into my senior year,” she said. “I was trying to get as many looks as possible.”
Doctors didn’t clear her for basketball activities until May.
“I was trying to convince them, I’m fine,” Waddell said with a laugh. “Just clear me, please. I’ll be careful.”
Waddell has been sharpening her game the last several months in anticipation of starting college, where she said she’ll largely play guard.
“She’ll be just fine,” Cibola coach Lori Mabrey said. “She was one of the best ballhandlers on the team, and we used her to break presses and to help bring the ball down the floor against teams who pressed us.”
However, finding the right school was a meticulous process. In fact, Waddell was forced to take the initiative and find one herself.
“That is totally her,” said her mother, Marta Pereira. “She’s always been proactive.”
Said Waddell, “I’ve always been the one to contact coaches. I’ve always been that type of person.”
It’s a personality trait, she said, she inherited from her mother, who said she consistently encouraged her daughter to seize her own opportunity.
“Don’t depend on anyone else to do it for you,” Waddell said.
She vetted a number of schools before settling on Collin College, a community college in south Texas. She looked at their style of play, their transfer list, sent them some game film and expressed her interest. Which was reciprocated. “She had offers,” her mother said, “just not from places she was interested in going.”
Now, after wearing out the family Netflix account and reading a few books, Waddell, healthy and motivated, soon will leave for Texas.
“Things,” her mother said, “happen for a reason.”