SALT LAKE CITY — Fear was the first fight Dru Gylten had to win.
Pain, disappointment and doubt would have their turn challenging the South Dakota native’s resolve to work for a dream she’s had since she was in elementary school.
“At first I was just scared,” the South Dakota native said of tearing her right ACL in the semifinals of the state tournament her senior year. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do, what to expect. But coach Gavin (Petersen, Utah’s associate head coach) was at the game. I talked to him, and then I called all the other coaches, and they were like, ‘Our plans don’t change. We still want you.’ It was a big sigh of relief.”
But then came sadness.
“I wasn’t going to be able to play my first year (of college),” said the 5-foot-11 guard, who admits she’d never even sat out on a team before the injury forced her to redshirt. “It was up and down, at times. Sometimes I thought, ‘I’m never going to play basketball again,’ ‘I won’t be where I was,’ ‘I won’t be strong enough.’”
The recovery was grueling in both length and daily demand.
“It was just the time off,” she said. “I’ve never taken that much time off of basketball before, and with the injury you lose so much muscle because you’re not supposed to be putting any weight on it. So it’s just kind of scary. You don’t know what the future is going to bring.”
Gylten did something she thought she’d never do during that time — she contemplated life without the sport she’s played since preschool.
“I felt kind of lost, honestly,” she said. “I’ve played basketball my whole life. So when the game is taken away from you, you have to kind of step back and realize what really matters. But I knew I couldn’t give up basketball. I was going to keep trying, keep pushing, and just trust in the future.”
Gylten said it was the support and advice of her teammates and parents, both college basketball players, that sustained her. Her mother, Kristi Gylten, broke her finger in college and was forced to miss some games.
“You do wonder, ‘Am I ever going to be who I was?’” she said. “But I never had any doubt. … She’s the type of kid who put in every hour, every minute to get back to where she is today. I knew it would come back.”
Kristi said her husband drove Dru 20 hours from their small town home to Minnesota to each weekend to play on an AAU team. “That’s what they did to give her opportunities that she didn’t have in a small town,” she said. “They sacrificed every spring and summer.”
Kristi said her daughter has a natural affinity — and gift — for basketball.
“We enrolled her at age 5 in a Christian Fundamentalist basketball league, and it was the craziest thing,” Kristi said. “It has just been natural for her.”
Each step of Dru’s development has both tested her and revealed her gift. Quiet and reserved, Kristi Gylten said her daughter never had to be pushed or prodded when it came to hoops.
“She’s just a hard worker,” Kristi Gylten said. “She’s probably harder on herself, a bigger critic of herself than anybody else. She’s just dedicated.”
That dedication and embrace of hard work helped her recover from the knee injury, even as she battled doubts about whether or not she should continue fighting for her dream of playing college basketball.
“The days I wanted to give up, they didn’t let me,” she said of her parents. “They’re like, ‘You got this. You can push through. You’re going to get there.’”
As Utah prepares for its season opener at Nevada Wednesday, Gylten said she now sees benefits in the unexpected turn her life took.
“I think I’ve benefited from it,” she said. “I’ve gotten stronger. I’ve been able to watch the offense and the defense for a whole year. … I think a taking the time off and watching what coach Rob expects and other coaches expect in through the offense. I think just sitting and watching for a year has benefited me.”
For Utah coaches, Gylten’s place in the program was never in doubt. Head coach Lynne Roberts had been on the job three days when she saw Gylten playing with that AAU team from Minnesota in a tournament.
“I was like, ‘We’ve got to get that kid,’” Roberts said smiling. “She was my type of player. So we just started recruiting her hard from that moment on.”
Gylten admits she knew nothing about Utah — except that it was in the Pac-12 — when Roberts offered her a scholarship. But her visit about a year later would persuade her to commit while on the U’s campus.
Roberts said it wasn’t just Gylten who was disappointed that she’d spend her first season watching from the sideline.
“It would have been nice to have her last year,” Roberts said. “But things happen for a reason. And now she kind of gets it, and she doesn’t seem like a true freshman. She had that year to watch and learn. … And she is a special player.”
So special that in the team’s win over Westminster she earned what would have been a record number of assists (16) if it hadn't been an exhibition. But for Gylten, there was a more important number on her mind before that game — 596.
“Yes, I did count,” she said laughing. “That’s how many days from my last game until I was able to go out and play again.”
As the game approached, she admitted fear started creeping back in again.
“Doubts run through your head like, ‘Oh, well what if I get out there and I do bad? Or I’m not the player I used to be?’” she said. “But my teammates were there and they were also excited. … There is no more doubt. But the excitement will always be there just because I get to play basketball every day.”
She admits she may never have enjoyed the hardwood more than that first game in front of thousands of screaming elementary school students.
“I was just so overjoyed to finally be playing again,” she said. “I think I take every day as an opportunity. I get to play again. I’m not injured. I have amazing teammates and great coaches. And I get to play the sport I love.”