04/16/2026
Such an amazing young lady!!! Jade is an astounding athlete but even more she is an amazing teammate. Although we didn't have her leadership on the floor, she was constantly giving input to her teammates and coaches.
Jade Beckman knew almost instantly her worst fear for her senior year had become reality.
Just six matches into her volleyball season last fall, the Oakley three-sport standout was making a dig against Greeley County at the Syracuse tournament when she landed awkwardly on her left leg and heard a pop in her knee.
“The first thought through my head was: ‘There is no way this is happening to me,’ ” Beckman said. “I knew it was bad. My teammates and coaches said they knew it was bad because I didn’t get up. I looked up at my mom the second it popped. My dad ended up having to carry me off the court.
“There were just so many things going through my head. You never think it’s going to happen to you until it does.”
A few days later, an MRI confirmed a torn ACL.
A star volleyball and basketball player and a state runner-up in triple jump, Beckman was in disbelief that her senior sports year was over before it had barely started.
“For the first two weeks, I was in so much denial about it,” Beckman said. “I woke up every day and questioned it like 100 times a day. ‘Is this real? Did this really happen to me?’ It was the hardest thing to swallow.
“I just had so many people asking me about it, and it was just a hard thing to even talk about -- just the disappointment that I felt. At first, I felt like I let everybody down -- my coaches, my teammates and my parents. It was just a really hard thing to deal with for those first two weeks.”
After the initial shock, Beckman began finding other ways to contribute to the Plainsmen.
Oakley’s basketball and volleyball teams rallied in her absence, reaching state in both sports.
“I told myself: I gotta be there for my team in a different way now,” said Beckman, the Capitol Federal® True Blue® Student of the Week. “The one way that I could contribute to the team was by being there supporting them and helping them with any questions that they may have. That really helped me feel like I was actually a part of the team.”
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