It’s been a tough go for Winnipeg pro basketball player Emily Potter as she tries to get her career on track.
Potter was playing overseas in the Czech Republic when she was diagnosed with COVID-19 back in October, but now she’s healthy, and back on the court hooping it up again.
“I’m feeling better,” Potter said from the Czech Republic. “Everyone on my team now, we are all recovered — the ones that got sick.”
It took about a month for Potter to get her game legs back after she tested positive.
“I didn’t really have a cough or a fever or any of those symptoms,” said Potter. “But I was very tired. I had a headache and no sense of taste or smell.
“So I think the biggest symptom for me was just being really tired. I was just sleeping a lot. But other than that I was still able to do a little bit of working out at home and just wait to feel better.”
Potter was certainly not alone with about half of her KP Brno team also coming down with the novel coronavirus.
“I’m happy that not everybody ended up getting it,” she said. “Our head coach ended up getting it first. And then I did, one of our managers, and from there about another four people on the team.
“Even within our team, everybody got affected by COVID differently. Some people only lost their sense of taste or smell. Some people had worse — fevers and coughs. I guess I was kinda like somewhere in the middle.”
It seems Potter just can’t catch a break in her pursuit of basketball greatness. Her rookie campaign in Poland ended early with a serious knee injury that required surgery. Her second pro season in the Czech Republic was cut short when COVID-19 shut the entire league down.
And now, in her third professional season, she got the virus while living in a foreign land.
“Me having COVID probably scared my friends and family back home more than it alarmed me,” Potter said. “Just being so far away, and it being so unknown cause it affects everyone so differently.
“But when you have COVID, you need to self-isolate, so it was OK that I was here by myself, because there’s nothing really else for me to do, except for kinda wait it out by myself.”
The Czech Women’s Basketball League has since re-started with Brno sitting in third place through just eight games with Potter starting at centre.
“It’s a very unique opportunity that I have and I get to do what I love every day,” said Potter.
“I would love to make it healthy for a full season, and I think when that happens, I’ll be like, alright, I’ve made it.”
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