ENDING ON
Her
TERMS By Stayson Isobe Inactive and on the bench last season, there were no guarantees that Lauren Orndoff would ever don the Lumberjack uniform again. Then she remembered six key words of advice. “One of my good friends gave me advice of ‘don’t stop playing until you can’t,’” Orndoff said. “For everything I’ve been through here, I owed it to myself to keep playing and to end on the terms I want.” There were no guarantees that Orndoff would have already made a return once. Not after the road to recovery she had already traveled down, battling back from her self-described lowest point. So “don’t stop playing until you can’t” lived in her mind, and Orndoff will in fact give it one final go-around. A year ago, every student-athlete across the country had to decide if competing during the COVID-19 pandemic was the right choice for them. However, with the uncertainty surrounding the 2020-21 season and how it would be affected by the pandemic, the risk was not worth it for Orndoff. “It was a decision I had to make for myself.” Orndoff said. “It was hard because I wanted to play and I’m sure everyone can relate to wanting things to be normal. It simply wasn’t though and I couldn’t change that. It was hard at the time because there weren’t a lot of protocols in place yet, there wasn’t a plan for vaccines and for what the season would look like so I felt I didn’t have enough information to make the decision to play.” To fully understand Orndoff’s decision is to know what she’s been through. Midway through her sophomore season, Orndoff, now entering her fifth year as a member of the Northern Arizona women’s basketball program, experienced spontaneous pneumothorax, which caused her lung to collapse. Given the respiratory effects of COVID-19, Orndoff’s decision was the smart one, as difficult as it was. However, as difficult as that decision was, it pales in comparison to her journey back to the court in the first place. Orndoff’s career could look a lot different right now. The potential was there. Sitting at 580 career points prior to the start of the 2021-22 season, Orndoff could
18 2021-22 NORTHERN ARIZONA MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL YEARBOOK
