Teammates. Ryan Lee has plenty of them.
Prior to the week of Thanksgiving, Lee, the video coordinator for the UA women’s basketball program, may not have known just how many people had his back.
He does now.
Lee will return to Los Angeles on Friday night when the Wildcats take on the No. 8-ranked Bruins for the first time since a harrowing stay in a hospital there last fall.
The Wildcats had just finished playing at Loyola Marymount and Lee was in the team hotel lobby, finishing his dinner and breaking down film of TCU, the Wildcats’ next opponent. As he did, Lee felt like some food was stuck in his esophagus, so he drank some water. That seemed to do the trick — for a little while.
The pain came back about 30 minutes later. Lee tried to sleep, but was awakened by more pain. UA trainer Jessie Joseph met with Lee, and together they decided he should go to the emergency room. Tests performed early that morning showed that Lee had a tear in his esophagus. He was transferred to Cedars-Sinai Hospital around mid-afternoon.
Lee underwent an exploratory procedure “to see what kind of tear it was and how severe it was,” he said.
“It’s in the body, so you can’t monitor it like a cut on your hand,” Lee said. “So you have to give it time and do a procedure to see how it is healing.”
Lee doesn’t remember a lot about his week and a half in the hospital, but he does remember talking with team manager Kevin Edwards and operations director Jessika Carrington. He also texted with Alexus Atchley, a graduate assistant.
“They had to set up film for the tournament and film, TCU film, for the team to watch that morning at around 9:30 a.m.,” he said.
See, Lee wasn’t going to let his team down. And his team wasn’t going to let him down.
The managers took over while Lee remained hospitalized.
“Kevin really stepped up,” Lee said. “He made sure all the coaches had what they needed. He taught the other managers what to do when he had class, so that the team had everything they needed.
“Kevin does whatever is asked of him. His entire time here, he’s helped with everything and balances it with his schoolwork and everything outside of basketball. It’s not like I expected him to do this; but it didn’t surprise me.”
For Edwards, it was all part of his job as a manager. Edwards is quick to say “yes,” his co-workers say, even if there’s not a clear path to success.
“They expect a lot of us and we have that ‘next-man-up’ mentality,” Edwards said. “We have the best managing crew in the Pac-12, so we have to back it up. I have to give a shout out to Christian (Shepperd); we’ve been working together for three years and our communication is so good. He knew exactly what to do; it was like clockwork. It wasn’t that big of a deal; it didn’t seem like it. We didn’t think twice.
“His job is not easy. It was a lot of work, but nothing we haven’t tackled before. Even the coaches stepped up to take the burden off our backs and code themselves. I taught coach Salvo how to code. It was an all-around effort. We’re a team; we are family. We are all here for each other.”
And what did the managers take on? They broke down film in different categories including players’ minutes, possession results, out of bounds plays and ball screens — and fast. Managers broke the film down by player and offensive and defensive sets. Lee handled film exchange with other programs to help coaches scout the opponent.
“Ryan is a huge part of our team,” Barnes said. “Sometimes you don’t realize until someone is gone just how much you need them. Everyone chipped in, but it was hard.
“We couldn’t do his job. He was only gone a couple of weeks, but it felt like a couple of months. At the end of the day, he’s family and I was more concerned about him being healthy.”
Lee was back in Tucson on a Monday afternoon and as soon as he landed he was back in the basketball offices ready to get back to it.
Lee is excited to go back to Los Angeles to see both his parents and former colleagues at UCLA. Lee handled video scouting reports for the Bruins for five years, and was there when the senior class that includes Jordin Canada, Kelli Hayes, and Monique Billings came in as freshmen.
The only remnants of his hospital visit were a restricted diet, a few lost pounds, and a hoarse voice. Of the diet, he said it was “not a big deal as I am a picky eater and I don’t eat a lot of solid foods. It didn’t affect me like it would’ve affected others.”
Doctors weren’t sure what caused the tear. Lee has put the entire experience behind him.
“I didn’t have any feelings about it; it’s just something that happened,” he said.
