UNLV’s Ingalls set to return after concussion

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 | 11:39 a.m.

Anybody who has doubts about how physical a women's college basketball game can be should contact UNLV's Brooke Ingalls.

The 6-1 senior forward from Redmond, Wash., returns to the Lady Rebels' starting lineup for the first time in almost a month Saturday afternoon at the Thomas & Mack Center against San Diego State, after suffering a serious concussion against the Aztecs in a Jan. 27 game in San Diego.

One of UNLV's top defenders and on-court leaders, Ingalls had to be carried off the floor on a stretcher following a violent collision with San Diego State center Atim Otii during a scramble for a loose ball in the Lady Rebels' 82-41 win.

Otii's shoulder and elbow crashed into Ingalls' jaw, sending Ingalls down to the court. Ingalls smacked the back of her head on the Cox Arena floor and was knocked unconscious for several minutes. She spent two days in the hospital before being allowed to fly back to Las Vegas.

"It was a grade three concussion which is the worst one you can get," Ingalls said. "All I remember is the locker room talk before the game. The rest will probably never come back to me. That's what the doctors said."

In fact, Ingalls' only other memories of the incident are from her hospital stay.

"I woke up and they were cutting my uniform off," she said. "There was a mirror on the wall and I see all these bald-headed men looking over me. I was like, 'Ohmigosh! What's going on!' It was kind of a shock."

Lady Rebels head basketball coach Regina Miller stayed behind in San Diego to be with Ingalls in the hospital.

"It was quite scary," Miller said. "It was as though she was out before she hit the floor. She basically sat down and then fell back and hit her head on the floor. I knew something was wrong. Brooke doesn't go down like that unless she's really injured. It was the first time I've ever had a player taken off the floor on a stretcher like that."

Ingalls said she had suffered a previous concussion during high school.

"But it was nothing as serious as this," she said. "I can't even imagine (Dallas Cowboys' quarterback) Troy Aikman having nine of them."

Ingalls tried to play in a Feb. 8 game at BYU but retreated to the sidelines when she began feeling dizzy and nauseous. However, she has been symptom-free for almost a week now heading into Saturday's regular season home finale against -- as fate would have it -- the Aztecs.

"It doesn't matter who we're playing against," Ingalls said. "I'm glad to be able to play one last regular season game at the Thomas & Mack. My family is going to be here. It's kind of going to be like closure for my whole career here."

Ingalls, who has watched video of the play that caused the injury, says she hold no grudges against Otii, who was the Mountain West's co-player of the week this week along with UNLV's Linda Frohlich.

"We were both just going for the ball," Ingalls said. "It was just an accident."