KNOXVILLE - There are days Jaiden McCoy just gazes at the Tennessee sign in the women's basketball locker room in disbelief, feeling surreal about where she is.
When she committed to her hometown Lady Volunteers in May, her parents cried because they realized how far she has come - even if McCoy didn't know it.
The 6-foot-3 McCoy will be a redshirt junior this season, the culmination of a four-school journey that included her quitting basketball and working at a Knoxville department store. When she returned to the court, she chose to play at Northwest Florida State Junior College, but during her first season she broke her hip after four games and missed the rest of the schedule.
"I was frustrated," McCoy told the Times Free Press on Thursday as the Lady Vols held their annual preseason media day. "I was happy, but once that got taken away from me, I had to keep pushing. I was upset quite a bit because I got to see my teammates having fun and living their best life playing basketball while I had to watch, but I never had any doubt in my mind I wanted to come back and continue playing."
McCoy needed crutches for four months and had to learn how to properly walk, run and jump again. When she first got back on the court, she couldn't jump off one leg and the repaired hip gave out once.
Meanwhile, back home in Knoxville the doctor who had repaired McCoy's hip told her mother, Kristen Blossom, the former Farragut High School and Knoxville Webb School athlete would never play basketball again.
No one told McCoy.
Once healthy again, she was able to start all 32 games last season, earning first-team All-Panhandle Conference honors while averaging 10.9 points - on 57% shooting - and 6.1 rebounds per game. That led to interest from Kansas, Missouri and St. John's among other programs, but when McCoy found out she was on the Lady Vols' recruiting radar, her focus narrowed.
"My AAU coach called me and said, 'Hey, Tennessee is interested in you. Would you be willing to give them a call?'" McCoy recalled. "I was like, 'What do you mean, would I be willing?' Of course."
Two conversations later, McCoy was being offered a spot by new Lady Vols coach Kellie Harper and setting up an official visit with Tennessee, but that same day she was hopping on a plane for New York to visit St. John's. When she got back, she canceled a visit to Missouri to go to Knoxville instead and committed three hours into her visit.
Harper called McCoy a physical player with a role that will be extremely important this season for Tennessee, which will host Carson-Newman in an exhibition Tuesday and tip off a week later at East Tennessee State. The Lady Vols are thin in the post, with only McCoy and 6-4 junior Kasiyahna Kushkituah having the sort of size needed to compete in and withstand some of the interior battles that lie ahead in Southeastern Conference games.
"Jaiden is someone we count on that we know is going to do it the right way," Harper said. "She's going to be an easy teammate to work with, going to be positive with her teammates, but she's going to be physical, tough, bring defense and going to rebound.
"I just think she's ready and willing to do all the hard work."
McCoy said the adversity has only toughened her. Future goals after her time at Tennessee include a professional career in a foreign league, something that may not have been considered possible less than two years ago.
"The whole team's goal is to win everything," she said. "My personal goal is to just become better and just grow my game, because I've had a couple of setbacks to where I know I'm not where I need to be, and I just want to get to where they (coaches) want me to be and I can further my future with basketball past college."
At this point, she's playing with house money.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.