BESTSELLERS in EDUCATION Shop All Education Books.If my high school self looked at me, I wouldn’t have believed it. And within that record of 67 goals, I probably had at least 20 with my left hand. So it’s one of those things that didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted to do, and that does make it meaningful. “I did everything I wanted and better than some people. “Sure, I could still think about that, but it didn’t matter because I still pushed through,” she said. O’Connor acknowledged she has wondered what she might have achieved if she had both bones in her left forearm. “She adapted, and there was no difference in play. “I noticed no difference in any skill set that she did on the field - using her left and right hands, taking the draw, her strength,” she said. Mullady acknowledged she was unaware of O’Connor’s missing ulna bone until the player informed her at the start of the 2022 season. And then this spring, she exploded to finish ranked 58th in the nation at 3.7 goals per game. In her first season with the Pride, O’Connor amassed 42 goals and 10 assists. She applied to but was turned down by Boston University and chose not to accept an offer from Florida State before settling on Springfield. After graduating in 2021, she sought a master’s in sports psychology and a chance to use her last two years of eligibility.

In three years at Longwood, O’Connor compiled 17 goals and eight assists. When she got to high school, she began wearing a black wrist brace with a metal insert along the interior of her arm, wrist and palm to further stabilize and strengthen her hand. Without the proper bend in her left wrist to cradle the ball or shoot or pass it in the direction she wanted, O’Connor learned to use her right hand on the butt end of her stick to cradle and direct the ball. Playing lacrosse meant O’Connor had to develop her left hand. “But they said, ‘It would make you look more normal,’ and I said, ‘I don’t really need that now. “If I had gotten a little more mobility or strength in my left arm, it would have been worth it,” she said. In her freshman year of high school, doctors suggested to O’Connor and her mother that she could undergo a third procedure on her arm. But after an ultrasound in 2000 took an unusually long time, she was sent to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where she was informed of the missing bone in Jade's arm. Shawne O’Connor, a former basketball and lacrosse player at UMBC who is a member of the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame, had no complications when she was pregnant with her first two daughters. Shawne O'Connor, second from right, poses for a photo with her daughters Taylor, left, Jade, second from left, and Sierra, right.

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