Early in the season, the Parkville home crowd was practically begging coach Rod Norris to put Josh Corbett in the game.
But Corbett, a junior who had a breakout sophomore season, remained seated on the bench. What some in the crowd didn't realize was that just being in uniform was a major accomplishment for the 6-foot-7 forward.
Last summer, Corbett was on life support in a medically induced coma for four days after being seriously injured in a car accident. He suffered brain trauma, a collapsed lung, a lacerated liver and a broken clavicle, among other injuries.
The accident occurred July 4. Corbett was four miles away from seeing the ocean for the first time, as he was headed to Virginia Beach, Va., with family friends.
He was asleep in the back seat when the driver dozed off. The car flipped over three times before landing in a ravine. Of the four passengers, Corbett was the most severely hurt.
Corbett believes faith, family and friends helped pull him through. Dedication, hard work and his love for basketball got him back on the hardwood.
During every stage of his recovery after the first week in shock trauma - from the three weeks in the progressive care unit in Virginia to the three weeks of outpatient rehabilitation when he returned home in August - Corbett would ask the same question: "When can I play basketball?"
"Yeah, I love basketball," he says in a gentle tone that reflects his warm personality. "It's just the game itself."
Dr. Ajai K. Malhotra, the associate director of trauma at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center who treated Corbett, said: "The first thing, of course, was life. But once the immediate, life-threatening injuries subsided, what was most concerning was how much he would be able to get back into life - including playing basketball - and that would depend on his brain.
"It took about two or three weeks before he started to say his own name and understand what people were saying. The fact that in a fairly short period of time he's back to school and back playing basketball and essentially back into life ... it's pretty amazing."
Josh's mother, Carla Corbett, found another word for it.
"He's my miracle," she said. "He just showed his will to live from the very beginning. And once he really came to himself and remembered what he was doing, [basketball is] all he would talk about."
