After Suffering Knee Injury Yet Again, DesChamps Finds New Role in Final Season

NORFOLK, Va. – Some players go through their whole career without missing any significant time due to injury, whether it be middle school, high school, college, or beyond. And some go by the name of Shelby DesChamps, a sixth-year senior outfielder with Norfolk State softball.

A team leader on and off the field, DesChamps has suffered not one, not two, but three ACL tears in her left knee during her softball career. The most recent came in the first weekend of the 2021 season, putting an end to an outstanding Spartan career that began as a freshman way back in the fall of 2015.

The Virginia Beach native was looking forward to a strong sixth and final season, a year that she got back when the NCAA granted eligibility relief to spring sport student-athletes after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the 2020 season. Given a chance to extend her collegiate career, one that included her being named first-team All-MEAC in 2019 the MEAC Preseason Player of the Year in 2020, she was ready for one last hurrah before it all came crashing down in the fourth game of the season.

“I am still getting over (that initial shock),” said DesChamps, more than two months after the injury. “Now it’s just been figuring out where I fit in at this point. That has been getting me through it still; knowing that I am still part of the team. Just trying to get in where I fit in.”

At first, she hoped to play through the injury. She did exactly that her senior year in high school when she originally tore her left ACL. But after realizing she would not be able to give 100 percent, she decided surgery was her best option. Now, she helps her teammates in different ways.

“It’s helping them in any capacity that I can, whether it’s giving them feedback from plays in practice or games, or reading a defense and telling them what I see,” said DesChamps, a career .356 hitter and two-time all-state player. “Even just putting a ball on the tee for them or throwing bunts. Just being there for them, whether it’s off the field or on the field.”

She will finish her career ninth all-time at NSU in walks (62) and 11th in hits (150) and one of just six players in the Division I era to hit .400 in a season after batting .408 in 2018. Although she is still around the team, the loss of that full-time leadership on and off the field definitely stings.

“Losing her, I almost felt was going to be an insurmountable task because she is the catalyst for our offense as the leadoff hitter,” said head coach James Inzana. “She is the captain in the outfield. She is the captain in the weight room. She holds people accountable. She is not afraid to speak her mind to the underclassmen. To be honest, we really have not had another player replace her yet.”

Of course, she is now a veteran at adapting to her post-injury time. After playing through the ACL tear her senior year at Bayside High School, she reinjured the knee her freshman year at NSU in 2016 at a tournament at Liberty. Just 12 games into her collegiate career, she was sidelined with the second of three injuries to that knee. Including an illness her junior year in 2018 that caused her to miss 17 games, and of course the pandemic in 2020, DesChamps will finish her career having played just two full seasons out of six.

For that reason, she has been stressing to the players to not take anything for granted.

“My first two years, I wish I had come to the field more often and put in that extra work,” she said. “As I have gotten older, I have had two extra years to realize what I need to do so I do not look back and wish that I had done more. That is something I harp on to them now. Give it your all. Come to the field extra on your own. It goes by quick. Take advantage of every moment.”

Those moments, at least on the field of play, have been taken away from her. Although there was the initial disappointment, Inzana helped her see past that as DesChamps prepares for her life after Norfolk State.

“She worked really, really hard to get back into conditioning and the shape she was in. She was having a really good year,” he said. “She took it pretty hard when it initially happened. But we discussed it. Just like the last time, time heals all wounds. Just give it some time, and she will see her health is more important than softball and winning a game.

“She still has her life in front of her. She really has to start thinking about her knee. I told her if she is not careful, she is going to end up old and fat like me. She did not want that,” added Inzana with a chuckle.

With NSU set to compete in the MEAC Tournament next week, her time with the Spartans will soon come to a close. After graduating in May of 2019 with a degree in social work, she is set to finish an internship and her master’s in social work and move on into a career in the foster care system. A regular member of the AD’s Honor Roll and the MEAC All-Academic Team, DesChamps wants to work directly with children, either re-uniting them with families, or connecting them with services while in foster homes.

But she may not be completely done with softball. DesChamps wants to get into coaching, either through travel ball or with some sort of youth team. She joked she may even join adult slow-pitch leagues when she gets older.

As for what she will miss most about NSU, playing softball is right up there. And after getting personal notes from players when the program celebrated Senior Day on April 3, there is one aspect of being a senior leader she will also miss.

“Just being able to have an impact on others, being close with them and being part of their journey. It really means something to me. I did not think I had that big of an impact on people,” added DesChamps, who was surprised that her teammates felt that way. “That is something I am really going to miss.”