On June 16, 2001, Kent Copeland was riding around his hometown of Hickory, N.C., with some friends. Copeland, who is now a sophomore on the men's golf team, was just getting ready to enter his freshman year of high school. After passing a police officer, he and his friends decided they should put on their seat belts.
Thirty seconds later, the driver of Copeland's car ran a stop sign. The vehicle was struck in the end and did not stop until it had flipped twice. His right hand had been resting outside the window, and it was crushed between the pavement and the car on each successive flip. Copeland said his hand was barely recognizable at this point.
"When I got out, I could see my hand," Copeland said. "I could basically almost see through it. I saw my bones and my fingers."
Although he was just a freshman, Copeland, who was hailed as the next Hickory High golf star, already had a notion that there may be a future for him in the sport. However, in the hospital that night, doctors were deciding whether or not they would be removing his middle and index finger.
Luckily, the doctors decided the procedure would not be necessary. What followed were months of surgery and physical therapy. Much of the skin on Copeland's hand was lost in the accident. Copeland said the therapy was extremely painful because his hand was so raw.
"The hardest part about recovery was physical therapy," Copeland said. "I did that two months straight seven days a week. Before I had one of my skin grafts, I literally cried every time they made me put my hand in a whirlpool. That was really tough, those first couple of months."
It would be three and a half months after the accident until Kent would pick up a golf club again. It would begin the long process of recovering mentally in order to play effectively with his rehabilitated hand.
"Learning to regain my confidence when I got back was hard," Copeland said. "I didn't really know what was going to happen. Was everything going to be 100 percent? Although the doctor said it was going to be OK, you still have that doubt. I didn't know if I was going to be the player I was before."
Copeland would fully recover. In fact, he went on to have one of the most successful careers in the history of Hickory High golf -- a program that has won three state championships in the last seven years.
Copeland was named the conference player of the year three times and earned all-state honors twice in his career. He would choose to play for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he would spend his freshman year of college. Copeland thinks that the accident was a turning point in his golf career.
"Right before that, I was really frustrated with playing," Copeland said. "I was burned out and didn't really love it anymore. It's like the old saying that 'you don't know what you got till you don't have it anymore" -- well, that was really true with me. Not being able to play for a while made me realize how much I really wanted to play and that it was something I wanted to pursue."
Katie Winders, Copeland's girlfriend and a junior at UNC-CH, agreed there were silver linings to the accident.
"He's always said that the accident put golf into perspective for him," Winders said. "It was kind of a blessing in disguise because it made him realize how much he loves the sport."
Copeland would find that Greensboro was not the place for him. After disagreements with the coach, he decided to transfer to N.C. State after one year of playing for the Spartans. State coach Richard Sykes said he had known about Copeland as a high school player, and he knew Copeland would be a good addition to the team.
"Well, I watched him play in high school some, so I knew he was a talented player," Sykes said. "He's got an infectious personality. He seems to always be up, which keeps the other guys on the team up as well."
Copeland redshirted last season. This season, he has been a major contributor for the Wolfpack, playing in its last three tournaments. He said he has been struggling with his short game recently, though, and the team as a whole has not lived up to its potential this season.
"We as a team really haven't done as well as we wanted," Copeland said. "We've kind of struggled to get a lineup that we've really liked. If I was putting better, I would be playing a lot better. I have been doing really well from tee to green, but the putting I am struggling with a little bit."
