By Langston Wertz Jr.
lwertz@charlotteobserver.com

Providence Day girls basketball star Tiffany Mitchell remembers exactly when her life changed – and what it sounded like.

A 5-foot-10 sophomore guard, Mitchell already has college scholarship offers from Alabama, Charlotte, Clemson, Duke, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wake Forest.

By April of 2009, still in her freshman year, she had been invited by USA Basketball to try out for a 16-and-under Junior National team that would go on to win a gold medal in Mexico. Most of the players were at least a year older. And just weeks before she would’ve left for the tryouts in Colorado Springs, Mitchell was playing in an AAU game in Atlanta.

She stole the ball and drove down the court for a layup. Another player chased after her. They got tangled up. Mitchell fell awkwardly. She said she heard the sound of a soda can popping open.

Except that sound was coming from her knee.

“I was more scared than hurt,” said Mitchell, whose team is ranked No. 2 in the private school state poll and hosts No. 1 Hickory Grove tonight at 6. “I was just shocked that it happened.”

Her mother, Cheryl, ran to the court. Someone kept yelling that Tiffany had broken her leg. That wasn’t true, but there was definitely something wrong with her knee. After consulting with emergency medical officials, the family drove back to Charlotte. About a week later, an orthopedic specialist came into the exam room with some bad news: an MRI revealed a completely torn anterior cruciate ligament and a bruised meniscus. Tiffany would need surgery. There would be no USA Basketball tryouts.

“We were totally devastated,” Cheryl Mitchell said. “I was trying to figure out if she was crying so much because she couldn’t go to Colorado or because she needed surgery.”

Tiffany had surgery five days later, on a Thursday. By the following Monday, she had already started rehab. Doctors told her it would last six months. She still traveled with her elite summer team in Atlanta, something she said kept her spirits up as she went through 90-minutes of painful stretching and strength work on her knee twice a week.

“It was hard at first,” she said. “You didn’t want to move your leg and you are forced to bend it. That hurt. But I really wanted to come back. Basketball can take your mind off anything else that’s going on in your life. I have fun with basketball.”

The rehab went well and Mitchell was cleared to play just in time for the start of the high school season in November. Providence Day coach Josh Springer limited her minutes early, but has been using her more and more as the season has gone on – and Mitchell has gotten stronger.

For the season, Mitchell is averaging 15.1 points, 6 rebounds, 2.6 steals and 2.1 assists. In her past eight games, however, she’s boosted her scoring to 20 points.

“We took a lot of opinions from her doctors and our athletic training staff and her mom,” Springer said, “and we said ‘What do we need to do for this kid to be safe? Do we need to sit her out this year?’ They said ‘Absolutely not.’ Now is she 100 percent? No, but Tiffany Mitchell at 75 percent is a lot better than a lot of high school players in America.”

She’s not bad off the court, either.

Mitchell has been on the Dean’s List at Providence Day, her mother said, since she was in the 7th grade. Last month, she got an A on tough series of geometry tests, which she was more proud of than anything. “Math here is really, really hard,” she said.

Her iPod is full of rappers Jay-Z and Lil’ Wayne and pop music star Alicia Keys. Her favorite TV show is “SpongeBob Squarepants” and the last movie she saw was the wildly popular “Avatar.”

On the basketball court, Mitchell’s got the height of most high school post players, but she’s got a point guard’s command of the ball and a scorer’s mentality. She has deep range on her shot and can also go inside and rebound with bigger players. She led the Chargers to the 2009 state finals, where they lost to Hickory Grove, and Mitchell wants, very badly, to get them back to the finals again this year.

A win tonight would be a big confidence boost.

“She’s very determined,” mother Cheryl said. “She’s very competitive and that’s helped her get back so quickly to almost where she was. She eats, sleeps and drinks basketball. I can’t imagine her doing anything else.”

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