Basketball
Favorite athlete: Kyrie Irving
Favorite team: Philadelphia 76ers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the championship with all my friends for the first time
Funniest memory while competing in sports: When my coach would get hyped
Future plans: To play college basketball and be a plumber
Favorite motto: “Never give up”
One goal before turning 30: To be successful in my career and possibly coach or play basketball in the near future
One thing people don’t know about me: I used to play baseball
By Ed Morrone
When Beau Woollens crumpled to the floor during a Jan. 10 game against Plymouth Whitemarsh, Sean Feeley’s heart immediately sank.
Here was the toughest player Feeley had ever coached writhing in pain on the hardwood, a kid so tough that he almost seemed indestructible. Woollens — all 5-foot-6 of him — only knows one speed at which to play the game of basketball, and that is hard and fast. He had avoided major injury before despite some close calls: there was the broken nose Woollens’ sustained his sophomore season against Quakertown, elbowed so hard in the face that Feeley said blood poured from the point guard’s face like a waterfall. Then there was last season against Abington, when Woollens fearlessly tried to take on either Eric Dixon or Lucas Monroe — Feeley can’t remember who — by charging right at one of the much taller players in the lane and ended up going airborne before coming down hard on his shoulder.
Which is what makes what happened during that PW game so hard for Feeley and the Upper Moreland hoops team to swallow. Their hard-nosed, tough as nails point guard with the shoulder-length brown hair always got back up after he fell.
Until he didn’t.
“It was weird,” Feeley recalled. “It was right near our bench, and all I remember is one of the kids from PW fell into him and Beau’s knee bent in. Beau is one of the toughest kids I’ve ever coached, and he immediately signaled us over. I went over to him and the first thing he did was grip my arm really hard. As soon as that happened, I knew it wasn’t good. He texted me the news after, and I was just sick to my stomach at how unfair it is.”
Woollens had torn multiple ligaments in his right knee on a play like so many others he had run as the team’s point guard and primary ball-handler. With surgery scheduled for later this month, Woollens’ season and basketball career at Upper Moreland vanished in the literal blink of an eye.
Woollens is about as gritty and tough as they come, but this cruel twist of fate gutted even him.
“It’s been horrible, honestly,” Woollens said. “Right when it happened, it was killing me. I was in so much pain. I was just driving down the court like any other time I drive and it bent in and my leg just folded. I heard the pop, and right away I knew it was bad. I couldn’t even get up to walk off the court.”
To make matters even worse, the Bears, one of the smallest — if not the smallest — schools in Suburban One were in the midst of an extremely strong season. Upper Moreland was 8-2 on the season heading into that PW game, and the team’s fight perfectly epitomized its diminutive point guard: undersized, but fierce and not afraid of anybody.
Luckily for Upper Moreland, Woollens is as resilient as he is strong, and it didn’t take the senior very long to shift his focus toward turning this horrific occurrence into a positive. Even though his right knee was mangled and broken, he could still be an asset to his team. Feeley gushed about Woollens’ basketball IQ, so the kid could still help the team finish strong, even if he was sitting on the bench instead of standing at center court with the ball in his hands.
“I do feel that is my role now,” Woollens said. “I’m a senior captain, so I’m supposed to be there. I’m not going to give up and quit just because of this. It’s horrible not being able to play, but what can I do about it? I’m going to be there every day cheering them on. It sucks, but I’ll still be there every step of the way.”
Feeley and Woollens entered the Upper Moreland program together, with Feeley coaching the jayvee team that Woollens was the point guard for. Feeley jokes with Woollens now that his star player must have hated him when they first met because of how intense Feeley’s coaching style is. But that ferocity soon rubbed off on the lightning quick floor general to the point where their personalities became mirror images of the other.
Feeley had a good idea that Woollens wouldn’t sink into a depression and isolate himself from the rest of the team after his injury. That’s just not Woollens’ style, but still, the coach worried, because these were extreme circumstances.
“You worry about any kid after tearing everything in the knee,” Feeley said. “I couldn’t be happier and prouder of him in how he’s handled things since the injury. It’s about how you respond, and he’s still there every day helping the kids go through their progressions and coaching them up. I’m just so proud of the young man he’s become.”
Feeley said Woollens sees the game with such a mature, intelligent eye that the coach often finds himself repeating things Woollens has said on the bench to the rest of the team during a timeout. And much to Woollens and Upper Moreland’s credit, they have not let the devastating knee injury derail their season in the slightest. Since the PW game, the Bears have gone 6-3, with their record sitting at 14-5 overall and 7-5 in SOL American Conference play.
Woollens said doctors have told him traditional recovery time for an injury like the one he sustained is anywhere from nine to 15 months, although he said his doctors told him he can be back on the court on the shorter end of that spectrum. If all goes well, Woollens should be walking without crutches in four to six weeks and could be hoisting jumpers again within six months.
Until then, he will continue doing exactly what he’s been doing. Woollens’ team still needs him just as much as they ever did, and he sees it as his responsibility to see this through and help his brothers in arms get as far as they can in the postseason.
“I just try to still be a leader,” Woollens said. “Coach made me a captain for a reason, so I feel like I have to lead them, show them, teach them. I knew a lot about basketball before I got hurt, but I’ve learned a lot more sitting next to the coaches.”
Feeley said to look no further than the last few weeks post-injury at how respected Woollens is in the league. No matter who Upper Moreland plays, the opposing head coach makes it a point to shake Woollens’ hand before each game and check in on him to see how he’s doing.
“They all come up to me or him and say how he’s one hell of a player, one they absolutely hated coaching against,” Feeley said.
It was Woollens’ goal to play college basketball somewhere before his injury, and that goal remains the same. Feeley said he’s talked to coaches at the Division-III level about Woollens, and the coach has been harping on his star player that he absolutely has what it takes to play on the next level, even post-injury.
“I would never count that kid out, even with the injury,” Feeley said. “If he wants to play, it would be no shock to me at all, even after all the rehab he has in front of him.”
To his credit, Woollens is as fiercely determined as he’s ever been to get back from the harshest obstacle he’s ever faced in his playing career.
“I’m not going to let this injury stop me,” he said. “I’m still trying to find a place to play, but I’m not going to stop. I’ll be back on the court and ready for next season.”
Woollens has a strong support system around him. In addition to his basketball family, his biological one is always in his corner, even if his bigger, taller older brothers terrorized and beat up on him on the basketball court growing up, never letting Woollens win. One of those older brothers is a plumber, and Woollens said he would like to follow him into the hands-on trade. Additionally, Feeley said that Woollens’ father, Rick, has been at every game and is his son’s biggest supporter.
Woollens also thinks a lot about coaching basketball in the not-too-distant future. He has an insatiable thirst and knowledge for the game, and these last few weeks have proven to him that he might be good at this whole coaching thing. It’s been different, and not a scenario he wanted to find himself in, but he’s made the best of it as the team continues to march on toward the postseason.
“I feel like my basketball IQ has always been pretty high,” Woollens said. “I’ve always had a desire to get into coaching. I’ve always loved the game, whether I’m watching or playing. I think I’d like to coach high school, but I know that as long as I’m around basketball, I’ll be fine.”
