College basketball player scores 1st points since traumatic brain injury
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Josh Speidel waited a long time for this moment.
The University of Vermont senior made his basketball team debut on Tuesday night during a game against the University of Albany. Speidel was a star on his high school team, averaging more than 28 points a game, and in 2015, accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Vermont. Soon after, he was nearly killed in a car accident, and spent six weeks in a coma.
Speidel sustained a traumatic brain injury, but Vermont's coach made sure he was able to keep his scholarship. Although he couldn't start his basketball career during his freshman year, Speidel had the chance to launch it on Tuesday night. With the team cheering him on, Speidel showed how far he's come during the game, scoring two points with a layup. "I can't put into words how it made me feel," he told CBS News, adding, "It's just nice to be able to say I ended my college career shooting 100 percent." Catherine Garcia
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
