Purnell Swett’s Jayden Strickland bats during a game against Hoke County on April 27. Strickland played in his first competitive games in two years this spring after a six-year battle with knee injuries which resulted in a bone transplant.
                                 Purnell Swett Athletics

Purnell Swett’s Jayden Strickland bats during a game against Hoke County on April 27. Strickland played in his first competitive games in two years this spring after a six-year battle with knee injuries which resulted in a bone transplant.

Purnell Swett Athletics

<p>Purnell Swett’s Jayden Strickland and his family take a photo before the Rams’ Senior Night game against Hoke County on April 27.</p>
                                 <p>Purnell Swett Athletics</p>

Purnell Swett’s Jayden Strickland and his family take a photo before the Rams’ Senior Night game against Hoke County on April 27.

Purnell Swett Athletics

PEMBROKE — As he fought back from a rare and unimaginable injury and a bone transplant in his right knee, Purnell Swett senior Jayden Strickland prayed simply for one opportunity go get back on a baseball field again.

On April 27 — Senior Night — those prayers were answered when he got the start as his Rams team played Hoke County — six years after the beginning of a long, difficult road.

“I prayed every night, just give me a chance of relief and find a sense of peace, that I actually got to experience being normal playing the sport of baseball before my time was up on a baseball field,” Strickland said. “Ultimately, the Lord blessed me to be able to see, to be able to feel and experience that, so I’m eternally grateful today. It’s emotional to talk about, so I want to thank the good Lord for allowing me to be able to experience it, and it’s a story I will carry for the rest of my life.”

Strickland was 1-for-5 against the Bucks that night, and also got at-bats as a substitution in three blowout games, including an RBI against Seventy-First, finishing the season 2-for-9. While without context the numbers seem modest, in reality they’re the statistical representation of a tremendous accomplishment of even getting back on the field at all after what he’s been through.

Strickland first injured his right knee in the sixth grade; a surgery then didn’t entirely fix the problem, and by ninth grade he got a second opinion. That physician told him to wear a brace to let the knee more properly heal.

But by 11th grade, when Strickland began basketball workouts before the 2020-21 season, he was in “so much pain and agony” he sought a third opinion from Dr. Alison Toth at Duke.

He was diagnosed with osteochondritis dissecans, a rare bone condition which most often affects children and adolescents; the condition causes the bone underneath the cartilage of a joint to die from lack of blood flow. The solution was a bone transplant, replacing his right kneecap; after waiting about six months for a donor, the surgery was performed successfully on July 1, 2021.

“I went to therapy two times a week for eight or nine months (after surgery),” Strickland said. “I just kept working my way up, doing a lot of strength and conditioning training. I didn’t get to jog or do any hard-contact stuff for at least seven months. I mainly worked on a lot of stability work, and eventually I was able to work my way up to play on the field on Senior Night in April.”

Strickland did play through the pain to participate in JV baseball in ninth grade, having what he called an average season, and played JV basketball and baseball as a sophomore; a “great start” to that baseball season came to a halt when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and shut down high school sports in March 2020.

But as the injury persisted and doctors couldn’t find answers, Strickland not only wondered about his future in high school sports, but also his long-term future.

“I didn’t know if this was going to affect me for the rest of my life,” Strickland said. “I couldn’t ever find answers, period. And I went to two well-medically-informed institutions beforehand, and when them two couldn’t find out what was wrong, it was like, man, what do I do now? … I didn’t know if my condition would give me some arthritis issues down the road at an early age.”

Because of the uncertainty of the injury, questions persisted from those around Strickland in the sports community too — and even at home.

“A lot of people just think that my injury wasn’t that serious, but people don’t understand mentally and physically what I went through for those six years,” Strickland said. “Even my own parents didn’t understand what I was going through. My dad always thought I was just being lazy, didn’t want to play, so even my own parents didn’t understand it. I just want people to understand … it was a tough road. It wasn’t easy at any stretch.”

Entering this spring, Purnell Swett coach Jeff Lamb knew Strickland had a strong background playing baseball through his youth, including his years with the Rams’ JV team, and assured him he would have a spot on the team when he was medically cleared.

“We had strict guidelines we had to follow in practice on what he could do when,” Lamb said. “He came in every day and did what he could do; he always wanted to do more than what he was supposed to be doing, and we were constantly as coaches pulling him out.”

When his opportunity came on Senior Night, Strickland initially felt as if he’d let his team down with a key error and multiple strikeouts with men on base in a 9-8 extra-innings loss.

But when the team, which had struggled throughout the season, had a “heart-to-heart” the next day and Lamb gave seniors the chance to speak, Strickland shared with the Rams how much they’d taken the game for granted as he’d watched them all season, hoping for his one chance.

“For him it came down to, he was telling us how he was in a tough spot that night after that game, but at the end of the day (he said) ‘I realized when I was going through all this I just asked for the opportunity to get on the field again, not to be good.’ It’s pretty humbling,” Lamb said.

“I was telling them that they should be thankful for being fully healthy and being able to run around a baseball field and be able to play and participate without having to deal with any injuries and aches and pains, because if they were in my shoes they would have quit sports a long time ago,” Strickland said. “I told these guys to work hard, take this season as a learning curve, and just to be better next year at giving 100%.”

That moment, Lamb said, was a turning point for the Rams late in the season. While they only won one of their three remaining games, the team did play better — including an upset win over Jack Britt in the first round of the United-8 Conference Tournament — and competed with more appreciation for the game.

“Some of the other players approached me afterward and said, coach, you should have let him talk to us about a month ago. They finally got what it meant to be playing for somebody else,” Lamb said. “And it kind of hit me in the face too, because the day I opened it up to them, I’m sitting there talking about wins and losses and all that, and at the end of the day that’s not what it’s about. It’s about watching these young men grow. It affected everybody that was in that dugout that day. My whole approach has changed.

“At the end we didn’t have the wins in the win and loss column — but we had a lot of other wins.”

After he graduates in two weeks, Strickland will attend The University of North Carolina at Pembroke and plans to major in exercise sports science and become a physical therapist — hoping his story can inspire the patients he could potentially treat in the future.

“I feel like I can use my story to help rehabilitate other people and make them get better at the end of the day,” Strickland said. “I feel like personally it was my calling to actually do that because of what I’ve been through and my background, so I can use that to help other people in that way.”

Strickland also hopes to inspire not just those going through an injury, but anyone going through a hard time in their lives — spreading a message of perseverance and hope.

“With anything that you’re dealing with, there’s always a light at the end of the road,” Strickland said. “Never give up — always fight. That’s what I did. I could have easily quit at any time. But just never give up. … It’ll make you stronger at the end of the day.”

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.