Izzy Steer recognizes the importance of having the right team.
For example, she tore her ACL and meniscus in her left knee playing volleyball during her senior year of high school in Hawley, Minnesota. Despite the injury and not being able to play basketball that season, she still had options to play at the college level, like the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.
“They reached out and wanted me just as much as they did before,” she said. “They were like, ‘We still trust in you. We trust in your abilities.’ It assured me that I would be OK here.”
She also had a team on her side at Sanford Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Fargo, North Dakota. Surgeon Ben Noonan, M.D., repaired Steer’s left knee, while physical therapists had the 5-foot-9 guard ready to return to play by the start of the Stevens Point women’s basketball season.
As a college freshman, Steer participated in basketball activities for the first time in two years.
The Pointers were in the early days of practice when Steer was driving to the basket and jump stopped, then felt the pop – this time in her right knee – and crumpled to the ground. She knew immediately what medical staff would soon confirm.
“‘We know that your ACL is torn,’ which was tough to hear,” said Steer, who is entering her sophomore year. “I thought about my family right away – ‘I’m far away from home. This is gonna be tough.’”
Placing trust in the right surgeon
According to Dr. Noonan, Steer is a classic high risk – a young athlete who has already had an ACL injury. Therefore, when he got the call about the new injury, it did not come as a complete surprise.
“I tell my patients, you’re at the same or higher risk of tearing your other ACL just because you’ve torn it and we reconstructed it, even if you look awesome,” he said. “You’re at pretty much the same risk of tearing either the one we’ve reconstructed or the other.”
What was unexpected for Dr. Noonan was that Steer, seven hours away from Fargo at the time, was adamant about teaming up again to perform her surgery.
“It was an honor to have them say, ‘We definitely want you to do our surgery,’” Dr. Noonan said.
“I was familiar with him and with his work, so I trusted him to do it,” added Steer. “And he trusted the physical therapist here that they would do a good job getting me back to where I wanted to be.”
Dr. Noonan reconstructed the ACL in her right knee, using her patella tendon as a graft, and repaired her meniscus. He also added what’s known as a Lemaire procedure to stabilize the knee.
“It’s a lateral procedure on the knee where you take a little strip of her IT band (iliotibial band) and you fix it to the femur. What that does is fights that pivoting or that rotational motion,” Dr. Noonan explained. “It’s been shown in high-level research to dramatically reduce the risk of retearing an ACL reconstruction, especially if you use a graft like a hamstring.”
Another repaired knee under her belt, Steer had a familiar journey ahead – more rehab, more physical therapy and the mental hurdles that athletes endure on their road to recovery.
“It’s a huge toll, especially doing it the second time,” Steer said. “I honestly think it was easier this time because I knew I can get to the other side. But it’s harder right away knowing that you do have nine months to a year of just working and working and working.”
Photo by Jay Holbrook, Marshfield Clinic
Highest highs and lowest lows
The path ahead often feels like an uphill climb for athletes on the mend, but partnerships can pave the way for new possibilities.
In 2018, Marshfield Clinic and UW-Stevens Point announced a sports medicine partnership that now includes seven full-time athletic trainers.
“The best part about athletes is they always want to be the best. They always want to continue to push themselves, whether it’s the best on the court or on the field,” said Brock Reichardt, Marshfield Clinic athletic training manager and USWP head athletic trainer/director of sports medicine.
Reichardt worked with Steer when she arrived on campus in the fall of 2025, preparing her for basketball season. He was also the first person at Steer’s side when she fell to the court during that fateful practice.
“I probably wasn’t the first face she wanted to see,” joked Reichardt, who consoled Steer before assessing her injury.
The partnership with Stevens Point allows Reichardt to work with student athletes every day. The first couple weeks after surgery focused on activating Steer’s leg muscles and regaining as much motion as safely possible. Dr. Noonan allowed more leniency because of Steer’s previous experience with recovery.
“Basically, anything that I can throw at her that she’s not running or jumping. It’s pretty challenging, but she’s able to handle it pretty well,” Reichardt said.
Although a lot of the job is physical training, there is a mental and emotional support component to working with student athletes.
“It’s an interesting job because we get to see our athletes at the highest of highs, but then you also get to see them on their worst day ever. In Izzy’s situation, her worst day was when she realized that she was at day zero again,” Reichardt said. “There’s no replacing Mom and Dad, but we get to see them every day where unfortunately their parents may not be there.”
Added Steer: “It’s nice knowing that he’s not only there to support me through my physical challenges here, but also mentally overcoming any obstacles I face, especially being far away from family.”
A long way from home
The drive from Stevens Point to Hawley is about six and a half hours. It’s another half hour to Fargo.
“It takes up a whole day and a half of your life and it’s a pain,” Steer said about the roundtrip.
Had her injury happened one year earlier, she would’ve made that long drive for follow-up appointments with Dr. Noonan. But the merger between Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic presented another option. Steer was able to see a Marshfield Clinic doctor in nearby Weston, Wisconsin, for post-operative care.
“It was a big relief. It was nice knowing that I could drive 30 minutes here and go see somebody,” Steer said.
The closer proximity also allowed Reichardt to have a more informed role in Steer’s care.
“I like to be a part of those conversations when they do meet with physicians because there’s little things that athletes may not pick up on that a physician says that guides the trajectory of rehab,” he said, recalling one drive home where he and Steer discussed being able to pivot her physical therapy right away. “We’d have a new plan, and I didn’t have to wait. We just got right into it, and it was very, very smooth.”
For Dr. Noonan, this particular perk of integration speaks to the larger commitment of removing barriers and reaching people in rural communities with the goal of providing high quality care.
“I think the team approach is the only way to do this appropriately,” he said. “It’s one of the things that Sanford can do so well. We have surgeons, physical therapists, athletic trainers. We have strength and conditioning professionals. We have people working together with the same mission and a really high level of communication.”
Getting back to basketball
Steer returned to Sanford Sports in Fargo during summer break for her “return to play” testing at the six-month mark. The assessment includes both physical and mental standing of athletes working their way back from significant injury. Steer is on track to resume basketball activities this fall.
“She looked great with all of our testing. She looked strong. She moved well,” said Dr. Noonan. “That ultimate decision when to return to play is hers. It’s not mine. My job is to counsel her so she knows what that means and what the risks are. Those kinds of discussions are what help to generate a lot of that confidence and trust.”
Steer will be roughly 11 months removed from surgery when the Pointers are in action for their first game of the upcoming season. There are several benchmarks for her to reach before she’s able to do the one thing she came to Stevens Point to do, but she’s confident she’ll back on the court.
“Every day is going to be a big challenge, but I knew that my goal is to go back and play basketball,” Steer said. “We have conditioning and stuff right away, which I know I’ll be able to do, but when we hit that contact day, I want to be able to do pretty much what everyone else is doing.”
Her teammates behind the scenes are excited to see her return, too.
“It’s a privilege and an honor to help take care of these young athletes going after their dreams and things they work their whole lives for,” Dr. Noonan said.
“My proudest moment always is when they get to go sit in front of the scorer’s table for the first time and go play their first game,” added Reichart.
When Steer does check in for that first game, she’ll know she has a strong team behind her drive to be the best.
“It’ll feel great knowing that I can do everything that I’ve been taken from for about like two years now,” Steer said. “It’s gonna be a great feeling.”
Learn more
- ACL injury is focus of Fargo researchers
- Women’s college basketball player is back on the court
- Volleyball player comes back stronger from knee surgery
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Posted In Basketball, Fargo, Marshfield, Orthopedics, Rehabilitation & Therapy, Sanford Sports, Sports Medicine
