Texas is Abundantly More in a Season of Injury: EmJ Cox
9/1/2023
“GUS.” It’s a word center back EmJ Cox sees as a cornerstone as she endures the 2023 soccer season on the bench.
Cox went down on the pitch in a spring scrimmage against Oklahoma on March 26, suffering a knee injury with a lengthy recovery. The junior underwent knee surgery just two weeks later, days before her classes’ finals, a time that is marked by pain and “GUS” – an acronym head coach Angela Kelly and team adopted as a way of life, standing for for grit, unity and selflessness.
“(It) would be easy to pick it apart and try to dissect the reasons why (the injury) happened,” Cox said. “Whether I was on that field against OU or if I was stepping off a curb, that’s what this year was going to look like for me.”
The Highland Park High School native chose to have surgery in Dallas to be near family. Three hours north, Cox felt the abundance of support in Austin, recollecting how her team, coaching staff, trainers and all of Longhorn Nation rallied around her for the road ahead.
“It was hard,” Cox said. “It was a really painful injury, and that was hard in not being able to walk and not being able to drive, but the way my team and the facility at Texas – and I think that absolutely wraps into the Longhorn Foundation – the way that everybody came around me was just so incredible. And the resources and even the academic team being able to step in and help me, it meant absolutely everything.”
Named to the 2023 MAC Hermann Trophy Preseason Watch List – representative of the nation’s top player of the year -- on Aug. 17, Cox was one of three Longhorns to make up the 56-member list, joining teammates Trinity Byars and Lexi Missimo. As time moves away from the COVID-19 pandemic-altered 2020-21 season, Longhorns like Cox do not find themselves eligible for an additional year. The defender was told she would redshirt this fall season, a piece of news that is hard to stomach.
But Cox chose to look at a tumultuous injury and a redshirt status with gratitude, something that is rare and hard to come by.
“(The Hermann Trophy Watch List is) the goal and that’s what we’re going to get back to,” the reigning Big 12 Conference Defensive Player of the Year said. “It was really encouraging because it’s hard, (because) you do naturally drop off a lot of watch lists when people find out that you’re hurt.”
This season looks different for Cox as the Longhorns have already taken on the season with a 4-1 record, that includes three home clean sheets against Rice, Iona and UT Rio Grande Valley. As one of two Cox sisters on the team, EmJ gets to experience the game of soccer in a multitude of ways she never has before: a more analytical, more supportive and more leadership- and encouragement-centric game.
Stepping up to fill Cox’s shoes is freshman defender Carly Montgomery, a Charlotte, North Carolina native. The role Cox gets to play is one that aligns with her personality as a leader, as the redshirt junior gets to befriend and mentor Montgomery through the transition from high school to college ball.
“I get to help out my teammates a lot,” Cox said on her analytical task with game statistics and reviewing film. “My role this year, I think me along with the coaching staff, they’ve developed an awesome plan for me that just is absolutely going to grow my analytical side of the game.”
This season is not wasted for Cox. It’s nowhere close. Perhaps one of her favorite experiences thus far – and possibly ever – is getting to play alongside her sister, Sydney, but the fondness of this experience was not an emotion at the beginning.
Cox committed to Texas in 2018, three years prior to Sydney’s committing, and was “not thrilled” that her older sister would be following her to the Forty Acres. The Cox sisters are two of five children, and EmJ wanted to tackle some territory on her own. But now that a knee injury has overridden her story this year, she doesn’t have to go through the recovery alone.
“I was excited to get to tackle some new territory on my own, but it has been the biggest emotional and even physical blessing to get to do that part of life with her,” Cox said. “Just having her to go through it with, whether that’s my injury or whether that‘s the really high highs of my time at Texas, she just makes it all so much better. She makes those high moments so much more fun. Being able to get to play and get that time with her and spend that, even share that emotional baggage (of the injury) has meant all the difference in the world.”
In the midst of rehab and still playing a pivotal role in Texas Soccer, Cox still gets to embrace the opportunity of being a Longhorn student-athlete. The human dimensions of organizations major relates most of what she learns on the field to what she learns in the classroom.
Human Dimensions of Organizations is a Texas-specific major, only available at The University of Texas, which, for Cox, merges culture, problem-solving and team building. Cox believes this major is one that will set her up well for life post-soccer – although she intends to play as long as the field will have her – all because of how much it has translated to her soccer experience.
“When things are going so wrong, how do you fix that with culture and with teamwork to turn stuff around? And I think that (that) team experience is something that’s given me the best experience I could have for what I’m studying,” Cox said. It’s really awesome how Texas (and the Longhorn Foundation are) preparing me to step into that next stage of life.”
(I’m) thankful for all of our (resources) that measure my progression (throughout my injury). I think that’s something that absolutely sets Texas apart, but I would not be there without the Longhorn Foundation … It’s been one of the biggest reasons why I am able to be sitting here at five months post-op and be ahead of the game and be really healthy.EmJ Cox
With Cox’s additional year of eligibility as the silver-lining to her injury, she intends on sticking around one more year on the Forty Acres to represent the Longhorns on the field but also receive an additional degree, an opportunity that is only allotted by the support of donors.
Cox’s gratitude toward donors is not only futuristic as she treads on toward another degree in the years to come, it’s also a gratitude that is present right now. She attributes the swift progression throughout her injury to the facilities, staff and support of Texas Athletics and the University – including donors – who have set Texas apart from any other school in the country.
“(I’m) thankful for all of our (resources) that measure my progression (throughout my injury),” Cox said. “I think that’s something that absolutely sets Texas apart, but I would not be there without the Longhorn Foundation … It’s been one of the biggest reasons why I am able to be sitting here at five months post-op and be ahead of the game and be really healthy.”
The starting defender is wholly anticipant to getting back on the field, but she’s also content with where she is right now. Cox is grateful to be experiencing her academics and craft in a slower pace of life.
“There’s another side to it,” Cox said. “(Texas and the Longhorn Foundation have created) such a fun environment to go to school and enjoy student life as a student-athlete in a year of not playing. I’m still getting to travel with my team. I’m getting to enjoy such an aspect of life granted by the Longhorn Foundation in a year that I can’t play that really helps us keep our head above the water.”
The three values of “GUS” are what the team strives for, and they’re not only the defining characteristics of Cox’s first two years on campus, but they’re also representative of her waiting season now.
“(‘GUS’ is) what we try to implement on and off the field in anything we do,” Cox said. “Even if we win or lose, if the GUS was high, that’s just something we can be proud of ourselves for.”
What GUS challenges in Cox is how she can put others above herself, how she can serve her teammates and how she can be a good leader to those around her. Cox deems it as challenging and refining in the 2023 season from the sideline, and it’s a word that will carry her forward until she steps on the field next.
