Injury Doesn’t Stop Bell-Linnear from Succeeding at Basketball

The words that best describe Bluefield College student-athlete Kierra Bell-Linnear are passionate, determined, and motivated. A member of the Lady Rams basketball team, Bell-Linnear went through a painful injury and powered through it to become the senior basketball standout she is today.

Bell-Linnear is originally from Texas but later moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she attended Varina High School. There, she was a star basketball player who caught the attention of Bluefield College women’s basketball coach Corey Mullins who invited her to be a part of the Lady Rams.

Not long after, during the summer of 2016, Bell-Linnear tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which took her off the court but not for long.

“I still had a passion for the game,” said Bell-Linnear, “and I wanted to see myself back on the court playing better than I did my freshman year.”

She had surgery to repair the torn ACL and soon after began a nine-month rehab regiment to recover, all the while wearing a bulky brace around her knee. With Coach Mullins and her teammates by her side encouraging and helping her throughout the difficult recovery, Bell-Linnear returned to the court and the game she loves. In fact, during a game against West Virginia Tech on November 1, 2017, she was the leading scorer with 18 points.

“I was very nervous about how I was going to perform,” she said about coming back from the injury, “but I felt very confident in my knee. I didn’t play timid.”

Now, this exercise and sports science major is looking to leave her mark at Bluefield College and leave it all on the court. She’s thankful to be with the program for so long and glad she made it through the injury to return to the game. Her plans after college are to attend graduate school to become a physical therapist.