TCU Athletics
Madilyn Cole
Madilyn Cole, center, returned to the TCU volleyball team happy and better than ever after surgery to repair her spine.
The trials of TCU volleyball player Madilyn Cole ultimately had a very good ending.
For one, she is healthy, having fully recovered from back surgery to repair a terribly painful and disabling case of scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine most often, like Cole, diagnosed in adolescents.
For a second straight year, she also will be among her team’s starting six entering the fall semester, making significant contributions to the Horned Frogs as a middle blocker. And, she says with a verbal wink, she’s now 6-foot-4, an inch taller since doctors straightened out her spine. That’s an inch more to use as a defensive fortress in her role of derailing the opposing hitters’ assault on the net.
And there is one other good ending to this story. Cole now has an opportunity to share her tale of persevering through adversity through an NIL sponsorship deal with Clearcover, a car insurance company that is offering sponsorships to college athletes through its “Inspired Underdogs” program.
With Cole’s distinction comes a $10,000 sponsorship.
“It opens a lot of doors for me,” says Cole, a computer science major. “I would really like to go to graduate school or possibly law school. This makes it more possible for me.”
Last summer, in a break from years of mandate and tradition, the NCAA decided to allow athletes to profit from their name, images, and likeness — or NIL — in the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that redefined the concept of amateurism in an industry — college athletics — that collectively generates “billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a majority concurring opinion.
TCU has been on the forefront of the development by offering student-athletes guidance on NIL issues, as well as the university’s Neeley School of Business developing curriculum and a course on the NIL and marketability.
Cole’s deal with Clearcover is a 12-month contract. Her obligations to the company include a minimum amount of posts to Instagram. She is also required to do an interview with a Clearcover representative telling her story that the company can use to promote Inspired Underdogs.
Cole found the opportunity through Opendorse, an NIL platform to help athletes identify potential NIL opportunities.
“Madi’s resilience and love for the game of volleyball are why we chose her to be a part of Inspired Underdogs,” says Kyle Nakatsuji, Clearcover’s founder and a former college football player in his day. “She was diagnosed with scoliosis in middle school, but that didn’t stop her from playing the sport she loves. For her, it was something she thought she would just have to power through, and that’s what she did for years.”
Cole’s story meets the standard for an inspiring one.
Diagnosed with scoliosis as a seventh-grader, Cole was told her condition was minor. And it was. Doctors had found it through X-rays of her lungs during a case of pneumonia.
“It was considered very minor,” she says. As she grew older, it became “progressively worse.”
As she moved through high school, the pain grew worse and worse. She began to try alternative methods to deal with the pain, including visits to a chiropractor.
“It was difficult,” she says. “A lot of managing the pain. I think I just got used to that level of pain. It wasn’t until after surgery that I realized how much pain I was in … that it wasn’t normal.”
Ultimately, she believed her best option was to “grin and bear it.”
Cole was a “redshirt” her freshman year at TCU. A redshirt year is available to college athletes to delay the start of their college eligibility to develop their skills or overcome injury. It is quite typical for freshmen of any sport, male or female, to use one. Aside from recent pandemic exemptions, athletes typically get five years to play four years.
During the following spring semester, the pain growing even worse, Cole’s trainer recommended her going back to her doctor to look into “all the options.”
That visit with her medical team ended in a conclusion that surgery was necessary.
That surgery was set for Sept. 23, 2020, Cole’s 19th birthday. It turned out to be a very welcome birthday gift, even with the recovery and rigorous rehab that followed.
Cole, a graduate of Magnolia High School, stayed home in the Houston area all of the fall semester, dependent the first three months following surgery on her mother, who took a leave from work, to help her eat and get out of bed.
“The first three months I was put under a no-bending-twisting-or-lifting restriction,” she says. “I couldn’t sit longer than 10 minutes; I couldn’t stay in one position too long.”
She also had to relearn how to walk.
By the end of three months, she had regained much of her independence. She could drive again and walk a mile, she says. She had also been able to continue school through the digital devices we’ve come to lean on. Cole managed to take 15 hours the fall semester, even with a hospital stay of a week for the surgery. “My professors were amazing. They were great with me.”
So, too, were her teammates and coaches, Cole says, when she returned to school and the team in January 2021, and methodically got back into shape and recouped her range of motion. In time, she returned to live practice in spring workouts and finally six on six. By the end of the spring semester, she had been fully cleared for any and all activity on the volleyball court.
There were psychological barriers she had to get through. That kind of surgery will cause that.
“I was hesitant at first but regained my confidence. You’re not sure what it’s going to feel like; what will be my range of mobility. It was trial and error, but I pushed myself past those nerves,” she says.
Then, of course, there is the first game. That wasn’t only her first game since surgery, but her first game — she started it — in college. She had been a redshirt her true freshman season. To top it all off, the game was in Madison, Wisconsin, against the University of Wisconsin, not just any opponent. Wisconsin would go on to win the national championship in December.
Talk about an emotional waterfall.
“It was definitely emotional. Wisconsin is a great environment. Huge volleyball fans up there,” she remembers. “My mom had traveled to watch, and I remember looking up and she was crying when they announced my name.”
Cole says she felt strong the entire season, “a lot stronger than before the surgery and feel I’m a better player now.”
Cole is currently in the midst of spring workouts. The day we chatted she was headed with her team to Norman, Oklahoma, for a spring workout game with Oklahoma.
Says Nakatsuji, the Clearcover founder: “She came back stronger than before, and I’m excited to see what she does at TCU and where her career takes her.
“Not only is it inspiring to see what Madi has done in her athletic career, but it’s great seeing her take that resiliency off the court too.”
