This story originally appeared on
TxStateBobcats.com.
It's a moment forever etched in Texas State volleyball history.
The then-second-year head coach Sean Huiet stood in front of his student-athletes, assistant coaches, and support staff inside a hotel conference room in Foley, Ala., during the morning of November 17, 2021. The program's media relations representative was alerted of the news less than 24 hours prior. But Huiet knew the miles to this destination were more than the nearly 10-and-a-half-hour trip from San Marcos to the Yellowhammer State, where the Sun Belt Conference Championship tournament was held.
"Emily (DeWalt), for the fourth time, (Sun Belt Conference) Setter of the Year," Huiet told his program.
He, then, proceeded to ask his 5-foot-10 setter to join him in front of the team. But, before she managed to her feet, Huiet walked over to her chair. With tears beginning to run down her face, she stood up beside her head coach. While the two were standing with an arm wrapped around the other, the historic news was delivered:
"This is when I knew I was going to get emotional," Huiet said. "(Emily), you're also going to be named the (Sun Belt's) Player of the Year."
For the first time since the Texas State volleyball program joined the Sun Belt prior to the 2013 season, the Bobcats, which have won two regular-season conference championships and four conference tournament championships in the league in nine seasons, had a student-athlete selected as the Sun Belt Conference's Volleyball Player of the Year.
"I couldn't have imagined (Emily) not playing in 2021, but I couldn't fathom how much pain she was in," Huiet said looking back on that moment. "Two-and-a-half months prior to that moment, we were having a conversation about potentially not playing. And then, you not only tell her she's setter of the year for the fourth year in a row, but also player of the year. It was just a full-circle moment to celebrate that with her and the team."
It was, however, a moment that almost never happen.
In a non-conference match against UTEP during the second week of the 2020 season, DeWalt went to dig an attack from an opposing student-athlete. She threw her arm out and felt a pop in her shoulder. The then-junior, who had a subluxation — a partial dislocation — to her left shoulder before, just thought it was that. But, when she woke up the following morning, "it still didn't feel right."
DeWalt told her coaches and team athletic trainers. Two weeks later, she was sitting in a doctor's office.
She, ultimately, made the decision to keep playing and delay surgery. Unfortunately, because of how the COVID-19 pandemic altered the NCAA Division I volleyball schedule in 2020, since Texas State won its conference tournament championship match on Nov. 22, 2020, the Bobcats had to play a "spring schedule" to prepare for the NCAA Tournament, which shifted to the middle of April in 2021 rather than early December like a normal Division I volleyball calendar.
DeWalt went on to play in 36 more matches that season after the initial incident occurred.
When she returned to the doctor's office in June 2021 — due to the length of the Texas State 2020 season — DeWalt was told surgery at this point of the calendar year would all but knock her out for the entirety of the Bobcats' 2021 "fall schedule."
"Oh, that was 100 percent my decision to not have the surgery at that time," DeWalt said. "They offered right before summer started, but they told me I probably wouldn't be back for that upcoming season. And I said, 'oh, absolutely not.'"
DeWalt, still less than 100 percent, appeared in and started the first five non-conference matches for Texas State to open the fall portion of its 2021 season. Then, in the opening set of a match against then-No. 6 Ohio State in Lubbock, Texas on Sept. 4, 2021, DeWalt went down while attempting to make a play.
"When we sat down (with her during the summer) to look at our options, it was rest and rehab," Huiet said. "Because if she would've had surgery right after the 2020 season, she would've been out the whole season. We knew that, so it was just rest and rehab. We had talked about not playing her as much, but she said she was in a better place.
"But when that happened against Ohio State, we all knew it wasn't worth it. Ryann (Torres) was ready to go, and we needed (Emily) to be ready for conference and down the road. I was confident in Ryann and our team's ability to rally together."
DeWalt did not dress for any of Texas State's next eight non-conference matches, including contests against then-No. 1 Texas, a four-set win over Alabama, or a home matchup against Texas A&M.
"I was waiting to get into the doctor — I had a shoulder specialist I was seeing in San Antonio, and I wanted to see him — but he was booked out for two weeks," DeWalt said. "I reached out to another doctor, and he said, 'I can actually get you in tomorrow.' So, I went to see him.
"When we both saw the MRI, he asked me what year I was. I said, 'A senior.' So, he said, 'Well, we're going to rehab, so you can get back for the rest of the season.' I said, 'OK. But what if I said I had another year of eligibility?' He said, '(You) would have surgery tomorrow,' but, of course, me being me, I didn't listen.
"It was just better for me to sit out, rest and rehab to where I needed to be, so I could make sure I was 100 percent when it came conference time."
20 days later, No. 17 was back in the starting lineup when Texas State — coincidently — traveled to Alabama to begin Sun Belt action against Troy. DeWalt was credited with 49 of the Bobcats' 52 assists in a four-set win over the Trojans. Jada Gardner, who had transferred from Maryland to Texas State during the season, recorded 21 kills, while the league's preseason offensive player of the year Janell Fitzgerald added 16.
DeWalt went on to play in all 16 conference matches. Texas State went 14-2 during the span after beginning league play 2-2. During the forthcoming 14-match winning streak to cap the regular season, the Bobcats only lost three sets and never went to a fifth set. The impressive run continued into the postseason, when Texas State knocked off Troy and Coastal Carolina in straight sets to appear in its fifth consecutive Sun Belt Conference Championship match.
After playing 72 NCAA Division I volleyball matches — 64 by DeWalt — in 444 days, though, the Bobcats ran out of gas. But it gave DeWalt the opportunity she needed since early in the 2020 season.
"Physically, it was painful to play last season," DeWalt said. "But, I think, it took more out of my mental only because I wanted to be 100 percent, but I knew there was no way I could be. It got to the point the coaches had to sit me down and tell me I couldn't practice one day a week. And that was tough because I'm such a go-go-go person."
Less than two weeks later, DeWalt was set to graduate with her undergrad degree in exercise and sport science on Friday, Dec. 10. And she didn't want to be in an arm sling for that. So, surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021.
"I had partially torn my rotator cuff, almost (a) full labrum (tear) and then where your biceps connect up through it was torn at my labrum, so it was a bicep tendonitis — an inflammation or irritation of the upper biceps tendon — by that point," DeWalt said. "So, he repaired my labrum, removed two inches of my bicep, and re-connected it.
"But he didn't touch my rotator cuff because he said it wasn't fully torn and rotator cuffs are hard to come back from. He said he wouldn't touch it unless it was over 50 percent torn and it wasn't."
Doctors placed a six-to-nine-month rehab timeline in front of DeWalt. She replied, "I don't have more than six."
Just 11 days after having surgery, DeWalt, along with teammates Jada Gardner, Janell Fitzgerald and Jillian Slaughter all announced a plan to use an extra year of eligibility and return to the Texas State volleyball program as "Super Seniors" during the 2022 season.
With a six-month timeframe set, DeWalt got to work.
"The first couple of weeks of rehab were painful. Just more frustrating than anything, to be honest," DeWalt said. "There were times I felt I could do things, but my body says otherwise. It's like, I feel I can raise my arm above my head, but, actually, I can only move it two inches.
"Some days, I did rehab here (at Texas State) when the team was practicing and then leave to go to my physical therapy place (in San Antonio), so I was doing rehab twice a day. I am blessed that my mom is an occupational therapist, too, so she kept encouraging me to do things on my own at home."
DeWalt said re-gaining her range of motion was "probably the most painful, but once I began the muscle training, it was just tiring." She was always in an arm-sling for the first two weeks post-op, but then doctors told her she only had to wear it when she was out in public.
DeWalt missed the Bobcats' entire 2022 spring schedule, including a match against Texas inside Strahan Arena in front of an unofficial attendance of over 2,000 fans.
But she kept pushing. Pushing for her teammates. Pushing the limits of her rehab process. Pushing for herself. Pushing to meet a goal.
It finally paid off.
She was cleared on June 2, 2022. 170 days after having surgery. Or five months and 19 days.
"I was not surprised (she was cleared on the shorter side of that timeframe), that's who she is," Huiet said. "I knew when she had surgery and she got out of the sling, there was a time — and we joke about it — that she really hadn't posted on social media about volleyball, and she had not said much.
"Then she posted something that was like, 'X number of days, then I'm back to doing what I love.' I was like, 'There it is.'
Now, there's a new countdown for DeWalt and Huiet: 16 days. The start of a new Texas State volleyball season. And the return of the most prolific setter in Sun Belt history — Emily DeWalt — to a volleyball court.
As one question — how DeWalt will look in her first collegiate volleyball match in 278 days — will be answered on Saturday, Aug. 26, another one will be asked: when will DeWalt to break a certain two records. The 'Super Senior' needs only 708 more assists to pass Kristy Braun (1991-94) on the Texas State career assist list and 883 to pass Middle Tennessee's Leslie Clark (2006-09) as the Sun Belt's career leader in assist.
Having totaled 4,810 career assists in 131 career matches played thus far in her Texas State volleyball career, including over 2,000 with an injured shoulder, it's a matter of when not if she'll reach those milestones.