LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The NFCA is pleased to announce that longtime coach Jade Geuther has been chosen as the 2023 recipient of the Association’s Donna Newberry “Perseverance” Award, which recognizes an NFCA member coach who has demonstrated extraordinary strength of will and character in the fight to overcome a physical, mental, or social adversity that presented an additional challenge to the already demanding job of a coach.
Geuther, who scored her 300th career coaching victory in 2021 at Reinhardt University, where she was the head coach for five seasons, spent last year as the associate head coach at Kentucky Christian University following a horrific accident in December 2021, when she was struck by a car while traveling in a golf cart near the Reinhardt softball field.
In that accident, Geuther was thrown over 30 feet into a tree and suffered numerous injuries after the car that hit her and two others in the cart struck them going 60-plus miles-per-hour in a 30-mph zone. Among other injuries, Geuther had a subarachnoid hemorrhage — a life-threatening bleed between the brain and covering tissue — vertebra and chest fractures, 11 fractured ribs, renal injuries, multiple soft tissue injuries, a scalp laceration, a broken pelvis, a spleen injury and a collapsed lung.
The most severe wound, though, was a traumatic thoracic aortic injury — a ruptured aorta — causing the layers of her heart to split from the bleed out, which is fatal at the scene of the accident for 80 percent of patients. It is second only to a head injury in leading cause of death and is among the most time-sensitive of life-threatening conditions.
“Thankfully I was stubborn and fought,” Geuther wrote. “I have zero memory of the day. Doctors said I had just hours to live. The dissection was addressed and an aortic stent was inserted before they could move their attention to my (other injuries).”
“After the doctors saved my life, the recovery has been endless. Thankfully, my parents dropped everything to move to Georgia and help every step of the way.”
Geuther was in a coma from Dec. 22-31, and when she woke up, she had to re-learn things we take for granted, like swallowing, walking and talking. She had to deal with more than 30 surgeries overall.
She returned to coaching in a part-time role at Kentucky Christian this past season, which she credited as being a key factor in her recovery and she said her perspective has changed since the incident.
“Sports used to be it, my everything,” Geuther said. “Because of this event, I see that winning and losing are minimal in sport and so monumental in life. I used to think that it was important to keep everybody happy, but trauma is tough, and showed me life goes on with or without you, so prioritize your people, and love on those who love on you.”