Rachel Richardson is back. And she’s back stronger in body, mind and soul.
Six months ago, Richardson, a senior outside hitter for the Duke volleyball team, was struggling with immense pain in her hips. She was sleeping on the couch in her apartment to alleviate the pain because lying flat on her back or side in the bed through a night hurt too much. She couldn’t sit for extended periods of time without pain, and she could not get her legs into the most basic position of criss-cross applesauce. All at the age of 21.
“My quality of life had already gone down in a way,” said Richardson. “Class was so hard to go to after practices some days because walking hurt. Sitting, they would still be throbbing. So, my mood … I was a different person. I would say I became very unhappy because I was constantly in pain.”
She had been managing the pain she felt in her hips for so long, but it was starting to bleed into her steadfast faith in God and into her love for the sport of volleyball. She found herself simply managing to get through daily tasks and not enjoying the moments of life.
“I don’t feel like my faith ever left,” said Richardson. “I feel like it got really weak though, and that is why life started feeling so hard. Because there was an inability almost to see past what I was experiencing in hope for something better. But I feel like the way my faith manifests in my life now has changed, because it’s about more than just the future. I’ve learned how to live life with present faith, which has manifested in me looking for the good in the now.”
On the court, Richardson is having her best season, ranking second on the team with 2.55 kills per set and third in total attacks. Her hitting percentage has improved by 81 percent from .091 to .165 and she already has four double-digit kill performances in eight outings after just two in 29 matches in 2023.
Rewind one year, after having dealt with the pain throughout her career at Duke with incredible guidance from former athletic trainer Melissa Gresham and current athletic trainer Cole Archer, Richardson felt a strain in her quad and hip flexor in the final game against North Carolina. But this time it felt different.
“That was like the third time I strained my groin (playing at Duke),” Richardson said. “So, I already knew kind of what I would need to be doing (to recover), but I was having weird other pains. I really couldn’t walk. It was like the actual movement of even moving my legs…
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