Tara Trainer is one of the top 2015 pitchers in the Midwest, if not the entire nation, and is a candidate for the Hot 100 list of top juniors.  She has overcome a lot to become a Big Ten commitment… here’s her amazing story…

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Tara Trainer had just had her wisdom teeth removed a week before. Still feeling uncomfortable, she was looking forward to taking her mind off the pain as well as squeezing in some last minute fun before school started the next week.

It was a typically warm Ohio summer day in mid-August of 2012 and the Lebanon High athlete was on her way to the movies with her friend, Morgan Gibson, and Morgan’s boyfriend who was driving.

Sitting in the backseat just a half mile from her home, Tara remembers a left turn at a four-way signal. That was the last thing she would remember before waking up an hour later in the ICU of the Dayton Children’s Hospital.

Without warning, the car Tara was riding in was t-boned by a driver who ran a red light. Morgan walked away without injury, her boyfriend had facial fractures, but it was Tara who took the blunt of the impact.

Unconscious and with a skull fracture at the base of her neck, collapsed lung, ruptured spleen and fractures to her ribs, tailbone, and pelvis, she was airlifted by helicopter and transported to the hospital 12 minutes away.

“I don’t remember much of the accident,” Tara says now. “I remember waking up in the hospital and asking what happened and where everyone was. I was pretty out of it.”

The then soon-to-be sophomore spent three days in the ICU and a week total in the hospital. She had a morphine pump and the medicine for her injuries made for a hazy initial recovery.

“I rested a lot and had to do therapy, but all of it was a blur being on morphine,” she continues.

One of the first questions that entered Tara’s mind was, “Will I be able to play softball again?”

Tara was a naturally gifted athlete who excelled in soccer, volleyball and basketball, but she shined brightest in the softball circle.

A tall, lanky right-hander, she had exploded onto the Ohio softball scene as a freshman at Lebanon High, located in the Cincinnati metro area. Tara led the Warrior’s to the Div. I state finals, losing to current three-time state champion Hoover of North Canton and current standout senior Jenna Lilley, rated by StudentSportsSoftball.com as the No. 1 senior in the country.

Tara had an amazing year in 2012, going 16-2 with a 0.69 ERA while striking out 178 batters in 112 innings and the freshman was particularly dominant during the Warriors’ tournament run to the State finals.

She posted four shutouts and allowed just three runs (two earned) and was at her best during a 3-1 state semi-final win over Elyria when she struck out 11 and allowed just three hits.

She had also put herself on the recruiting map in January of 2012 when she pitched at the Demarini Fastpitch Exposure Camp in Chicago as part of the Ohio Lasers club team.

The young athlete caught the eyes of several schools including Ohio State, Kent State and Ohio, but Indiana showed the most interest.

Hoosiers Head Coach Michelle Gardner and Assistant Coach Christy Hebert invited Tara to their Elite camp that month and later in the summer, just weeks before her accident, watched her pitch at the PGF Nationals in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Everything seemed to be falling into place until that split-second driving mistake by a stranger put her athletic future in doubt. Initially, doctors said she’d likely never play contact sports again.

Tara would spend the next seven weeks at home, going to school only for very brief periods of time.

“They didn’t want people running into me in the hallways and doing more damage to my neck,” she remembers.

She was fitted with a neck brace to stabilize the head around the fracture, which occurred at the base of the skull where the spine connects, and had to wear the brace for the four months after the accident. This meant that she couldn’t move her head left or right, either.

“Tara could only take off the brace after her shower,” explains her mother, Robin. “She’d have to lay on the bed and I would take her wet neck brace off and put a dry brace back on her neck. She wasn’t allowed to move her neck at all.”

For the nearly two months Tara was at home, a tutor would come and work with her for an hour per day and, despite not going to school, she still continued to get straight A’s.

The dead time of not being able to go to school or play softball led to what the athlete called her lowest point of the recovery.

“I couldn’t do anything,” she recalls. “I was really weak and lost 20 pounds. What helped me, though, were visits from my friends and my travel team which came to see me.”

In time, the brace was taken off but Tara then had to go through two months of physical therapy which included walking, stationary bike riding, working out with stretch bands and strenuous exercises to strengthen her legs. She couldn’t do upper bodywork as it may have impacted the neck injury.

The Lebanon High season started in early spring this year and all Tara could do was watch from the dugout as she charted pitches, which she believes did have positive results.

“If we had to play that team again, I had a scouting report and knew how to pitch to each player.”

Finally, in April of 2013—more than eight months after her accident—Tara was cleared to pitch.

Despite only being at what she estimated as “70 percent,” Tara made it back into the circle and, according to Lebanon assistant coach Scott Hayes, “returned and pitched like she hadn’t lost her touch.”

The sophomore struck out 40 batters in 24.1 innings and posted a 4-1 record with a 0.58 ERA.

Her lone loss came in her best pitching performance of the season, a 1-0 defeat to Mason High in the State Quarterfinals where she held Ohio’s No. 5 ranked team to two hits and struck out 10. The one score came via a home run.

As summer came and Tara got back into travel ball, she got stronger with each outing. By the end, she says, “I felt like I was back to about 90 percent.”

The Indiana softball coaches kept in contact with the pitcher throughout her recovery and Coach Gardner watched Tara pitch during the summer. She sent them an online link to watch her throw at the ASA Gold Nationals in Clearwater, Fla.

This fall, the Ohio pitcher went to the Indiana campus for an unofficial visit and also attended the Hoosiers pitching camp.

After seeing that Tara was back to pre-accident form, the Hoosiers’ coaching staff offered her and she accepted.

“I probably would have committed earlier if not for the accident,” Tara says. “I like everything they have to offer, from the campus to the coaches to the academics.”

Today, she works out with a personal trainer and believes, “I’m back to full strength or close to it.”

Her mother believes Tara has come out of the experience a better person.

“I imagine that many of Tara’s attributes were strengthened and improved through her car accident.”

She continues, “I remember watching Jimmy V (Valvano, the former basketball coach who died of cancer) on ESPN with Tara during her recovery. It was his famous ‘Don’t give up, don’t ever give up speech.’ There’s one part of Valvano’s speech that was particularly relevant to Tara and all she went through…”

‘I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm,’ to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.’”

“I believe this touched Tara more than she knows.”

Ultimately, it was a winding road to get to her ultimate goal, a softball scholarship, but Tara looks at the positives from what she went through.

“I appreciate what I have a lot more,” she concludes. “You never know when it can be taken away.”

— Brentt Eads