Wnba -- Mcghee: The Miracle's Miracle

ORLANDO, Fla. - Carla McGhee can just now talk about it without feeling the tears wash down her cheeks.

After 12 years, that day on a Knoxville, Tenn., freeway still clutches tightly to McGhee's memory.

After all, it did change everything.

"I'm a blessing," said McGhee, 31, who is the oldest and most accomplished Miracle player. "It's so odd that I'm an Orlando Miracle now because I am a miracle."

McGhee's life nearly came to a smashing halt in the summer of 1987 as she and some University of Tennessee teammates were driving to a booster's house for dinner. The Vols were coming off a national championship season, and McGhee felt invincible.

That NCAA title had followed a high school state championship season and a gold-medal performance as part of USA Basketball's Jones Cup team.

"I was flying high," McGhee said. "I thought I had the golden touch."

Her mortality surfaced when a merging truck slammed into the passenger side, McGhee's side, of her friend's Toyota Celica. It set off a five-car crash. McGhee, not wearing her seat belt, rocketed into the dashboard.

Knocked unconscious, McGhee had to be cut out of the car and flown to the UT hospital. She spent 47 hours in a coma. Every bone in her face was cracked. Her jaw snapped, pushing her chin up to her ear. Her hip was fractured.

The doctors did not think she would live.

Her family was comforted by a minister, expecting the worst. When she miraculously pulled out of it, the thought of returning to basketball was a million-to-one shot.

McGhee laid in the hospital for two weeks and then was transported to her hometown of Peoria, Ill., where she stayed in another hospital until Thanksgiving.

"I couldn't move because I was in traction for my hip, and I couldn't talk because my jaw was wired shut," said McGhee, who still has wires in her cheek from where the surgeons rebuilt her face and jaw.

They said she'd be lucky to walk again, and running wasn't a possibility.

McGhee returned to Tennessee the next summer, mainly to finish her degree in sports management, which she did in 3 1/2 years despite missing a whole quarter, going through extensive rehabilitation and playing basketball.

"After that, I was just determined," McGhee said.

Her mom, Claire Davis, remembers a phone call from Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt, who was in disbelief that McGhee had made not only her required time in preseason running tests but had done it in record fashion.

"We never had any idea she would do all of the things that she would do," Davis said.

She helped Tennessee win another national championship in 1989 and then had a successful career overseas.

When she made the United States national team and helped the squad make history by winning the 1996 Olympic gold medal, her experience and comeback became a worldwide story of inspiration.

People wanted to turn her life into a book or movie. McGhee, still emotionally scarred by the accident, said no.

But the scars are no longer visible. McGhee's energy, optimism and experience were just a few of the reasons Miracle Coach Carolyn Peck selected McGhee in the fourth round of the WNBA draft.

"She has a non-tangible maturity," said Peck, who played against McGhee when she was at Vanderbilt and McGhee was a freshman at Tennessee. "I'm a big believer in team chemistry, and she helps blend that team chemistry . . . I know she works extremely hard. I think her body would stop long before her mind would."

As a player, McGhee is looked to for her defensive skills, experience and knowledge.

Even though her playing time has been limited, McGhee's contribution runs deep throughout the Miracle. She provides comic relief for pressure situations, motivational talks for the tough times and is living proof of what determination and hard work can do.

"Carla is a special person," said Charlotte Sting guard Dawn Staley, who played with McGhee during the Olympics. "She doesn't get the kind of recognition she deserves for what she brings to the team. She doesn't take anything for granted. She doesn't hold anything back."

McGhee uses her past to help her through it all.

"Whenever there is a challenge or an obstacle, I go back to my car accident and then I remember that this is easy compared to that," McGhee said. "There is nothing I can't do."