HIGH POINT, N.C. — Faster than the speed of sound, a single movement can shatter years of dedication, causing everything you've fought for – late-night workouts, early morning training sessions, and the daily relentless grind filled with pain, blood, sweat, and tears to get yourself to the pinnacle of your respected sport, to vanish in an instant.
 
No one understands that reality better than High Point University men's soccer defender Roman Holt.
 
"I landed and felt pain in my knee. Kind of knew something was off. I was able to walk off the field with some assistance, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to carry on for the rest of the game," Holt said.
 
As I sat next to Holt in the breezy afternoon wind, our backs turned toward Vert Stadium, my eyes were immediately drawn to the unpleasant-looking scar sliced directly down the middle of his left kneecap, and all I could think about was how someone could recover from an injury that looked so brutal.
 
ACL – the three letters every athlete fears. A fear that anytime you see an athlete collapse in sudden pain, gripping their knee, time freezes, an immediate gulp happens in your throat, and chills trickle throughout your body. The terror of the nine to 12 grueling months of recovery that tests even the toughest spirits is where your mind rapidly wanders as you hold your breath until the injury report comes out in the following days, praying the report doesn't confirm those three dreaded letters, because of the uncertain possibility of a return to play ever again.
 
The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, is a ligament located in the center of the knee joint, behind the knee cap, and is one of the four main ligaments that connect the femur to the tibia. The injury occurs when the ACL is stretched, partially torn, or completely ruptured due to various scenarios, including a sudden change or twist in direction, landing from a jump, or the overextension of the knee.
 
The injury requires immediate surgery, and even after nine to 12 months of nonstop physical therapy, it is not guaranteed that the knee will be even close to fully healed, which is the reason most athletes who suffer this life-changing injury are out for a minimum of a year, and for some, the comeback never comes.
 
Thursday, August 22nd – the opening kickoff to the 2024 season for the High Point men's soccer team versus Atlantic Coastal Conference's NC State University in Raleigh, N.C., and the first game Holt would be suiting up in royal Purple and White after spending his freshman year on the sidelines at San Diego State University as a redshirt player and not suiting up.
 
2-2 was the score as the 69th minute ticked by. The ball came soaring in the air toward Holt, who instinctively leaped for the ball like he had done a thousand times without hesitation, and as he landed back down to the turf, he awkwardly landed on his knee, going down in pain. Whether Holt knew it or not in that moment, clutching his knee on the turf, his season, and possibly his career, after 69 minutes of action in his first game of his collegiate career, came to an end with a snap of the finger.
 
"Initially, I was just disappointed that I couldn't help the team finish the game because it was an important game for us. Then in the days after, obviously, I was disappointed that the severity of the injury was going to keep me out for the rest of the season, and I wasn't going to be able to help the team on the field," Holt said.
 
The MRI confirmed the worst: a torn ACL. An injury that has caused the most durable athletes, such as professional basketball players, Derrick Rose and Michael Redd, and professional football players, Jamaal Charles and Terrell Davis, to see a rapid decline in production due to ongoing issues from their knee once returning from the injury. Holt refused to let his name join that list.
 
If there was any chance Holt wanted to be able to perform the same movements that he was capable of prior to the 69th minute of the NC State game, he was going to have to do everything required. No shortcuts. No skipped steps.
 
"My thought process going through all of it was just go day by day and just try to get a little bit better," Holt said. "It's hard, you look nine months ahead and you're like, 'oh I can get back on the field,' but if you don't do the other stuff right, you don't really get to that point to where you can enjoy all the hard work you went through."
 
HPU's Athletic Trainer, Liz Lefever, and Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach, Matt Price, went to work immediately in hopes that Holt would be able to play, and not just play, but be better than before the injury by the time the ball was kicked in the season opener in a little less than a year. The countdown began. The clock was ticking.
 
"The first three months was a lot of flexion and extension," Holt said, "which is how far you can bend [your knee] back and how far you can bend forward… so it was a lot of those activities. Then after that three-month plan… there was a lot of strength building, so it was weight stuff. Then at like five months it was running, and I think like six or seven months was cutting, and then at eight months, it was return to non-contact. Nine months, return to contact."
 
Dealing with an injury, especially of the magnitude of an ACL, not only severely affects the person's physical state, but just as much, their mental state is affected as well. Fortunately for Holt, his support system was expansive, ranging from his family and friends to his coaches and trainers, making it easier for him to deal with the physical and mental burden he faced.
 
"It was really important to have a really good support system," Holt said. "I think we have a really great group. Everyone's really supportive. We've had a couple of guys that have gone through that before, so it was really helpful to me to have their support and their advice on things," said Holt. "Guys on our team now, like Noah Behrmann, had two ACL injuries, and we're always in the rehab room, and the weight room doing knee stuff, so it's good to go through that."
 
Holt continued to push alongside Lefever and Price, despite the physical and mental toll the injury had caused because it is not easy being able to fully run and cut to having to rebuild the ability to do those same activities that were once second-nature, from almost scratch. Despite the frustration, Holt found joy in rebuilding his left knee.
 
"I talked about going through the everyday process, just trying to get a little bit better. I thought that was important," Holt said. "Once you're able to get in the weight room and stuff, I felt like I was in there a lot, which was good. It was fun for me because your leg gets really small, and then it's building that muscle back, so I actually enjoyed going through that process. It was fun to see actual results from what work you're doing, so that part was pretty cool."
 
After the intense nine-month recovery, not only was Holt feeling strong enough to play, but the team gave him the green light to be able to suit up again.
 
"I think we had a couple trainings in April that I was able to participate in before we went back for the summer," Holt said, "and that's kind of at the point where I was like, 'Okay, it's go time. I'm able to do this again.' It was really exciting because we put eight months, nine months of work in, and you're finally able to reap the benefits of that work."
 
Fast forward to August 21, 2025 – 364 days since the awkward landing that tested not only Holt's physical but his mental will as well, and whether he had the fight within to do everything in his power to get back on the field that he so cherishes.
 
Holt threw on his No. 15 lavender jersey and laced up his cleats — something that he will surely never take for granted because of the uphill battle he fought every single one of those 364 days to be able to put that gear back on — and got ready to run out on the field that he fell in love with at 5-years-old against the No. 14 ranked team in the country, Georgetown University, in the 2025 season opener. 
 
Not only was this game special in the fact that it was the first game Holt suited up for live action in nearly a year, but it was the first time he would be running out on the field to play under the bright lights of Vert Stadium.
 
As Holt ran out to 1,012 fans cheering him and the Panthers on, he paused for a few deep breaths before reflecting on the 364-day journey that altered so much of his life.
 
"I think not being able to play puts a lot of things in perspective, so I think you're a lot more grateful and have a little more gratitude for this, and I think it's important to not take things for granted, but I think at the same time once you're out there and playing, it is just a game," Holt said.
 
While the headline for the game might have been Holt's return, the Panthers still had a job to do, and that was to start the 2025 season on a positive note by getting the victory over the 2019 NCAA national champion.
 
HPU was able to do just that, beating Georgetown, 2-1, for the Panthers' first top-25 ranked victory since HPU upset No. 1 ranked University of Pittsburgh, on the road, last October. It was also the first time High Point beat a top-25 ranked opponent at Vert Stadium since 2016 when the Panthers took down No. 25 Gardner-Webb University.
 
"It was a great start to the season," HPU Men's Soccer Head Coach Zach Haines said. "It was an amazing opportunity to host them, and then the performance and the result really got us off to a good start for the season."
 
The most impressive part about the night was not that High Point knocked off Georgetown at home, but that Holt, who had just recovered a few months prior from an injury that 15 percent of people are not able to return to their previous activity, played a full 90 minutes of action, ultimately showing the unwavering commitment to work that Holt put in to get back to playing an entire game.
 
"Roman has shown the way to everybody in this program what sacrifice means, what hard work means, what commitment means, because it's not as if he walked in the door and everything happened for him easily. He's had to fight for everything that he's earned, and it's been through adversity as well," Haines said.
 
In fact, Holt has logged 90 minutes in nine of the team's 13 games played thus far this season.
 
"I hadn't played 90 in a while, so I was a little tired after, but it was a really fun game. It was great just being able to compete with the guys," Holt said. "Playing under the lights with the fans against a really good opponent. Those are the fun ones."
 
From not being able to suit up in Scarlet Red and Black his freshman season at SDSU to transferring to HPU and tearing his ACL in the season-opener of his first collegiate game against NC State, to then battling to make his comeback, Holt's turbulent journey has been one of resilience. Whether Holt realized it or not, that resilience, and his discipline to build his knee to full strength again, and the determination he had to get back on the field, became an example to the entire team that adversity doesn't define you, but it's how you respond that does.
 
"He's used this time to better himself not only as a soccer player, as an athlete, but as a leader and as a teammate and as a person in this program that's going to have a massive impact," Haines said. "As far as an example for everyone to follow, you can not do more than he just did in this past year. Really, it gives everybody in the group a lot of perspective that all of a sudden things can happen in an instant, and you don't have what you had before, so you can't take anything for granted, and that's a powerful message to send to 18 to 22-year-olds."
 
That leadership shown by Holt has been a tremendous reason for the Panthers' success this season as High Point has been ranked as high as No. 5 in the country, the highest ranking in school and program history.
 
"Roman has already had a huge impact on our team the last year," Haines said, "and now the way he's playing, the level he's playing, he is back and truly better than ever. I believe his future, it was already bright, but now that he's gone through this, it just added it to the person he is and the character he has. The sky is the limit for what he's going to be able to achieve in this game."
 
High Point currently sits at a record of 9-1-3, the team's best start to the season since 2012. With Holt in the back anchoring a defense that has six clean sheets and has only allowed 10 goals this season, which is less than one per game, he is looking to catapult High Point to a team goal it fell short of last season: to win in the Big South Conference Tournament, and make a run in the NCAA Tournament.