Years ago, when she was much, much younger, Katie Koestler dreamed of playing basketball at the University of Tennessee.

As her skills developed and she realized just how tough that would be to achieve, she just wanted to continue a family tradition and play at any college. Even after a life-threatening injury, that dream has proved tougher to dash.

Koestler, who was an all-county basketball and softball player for St. Aloysius last season after suffering a near-fatal brain hemorrhage in 2007, has been invited to play basketball at Mississippi College. The Division III school in Clinton is far from the big-time atmosphere of Tennessee. It doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. Its 3,500-seat A.E. Wood Coliseum is a fraction of the size of Tennessee’s cavernous Thompson-Boling Arena.

And none of that matters to Koestler. Just getting a chance to continue her career is enough.

“I knew when I hit junior high that I wasn’t going D-I. To me, it’s still the same game. I could play at the YMCA and I wouldn’t care. It’s different levels, but it’s still the same game,” she said. “My mom and my aunt both played in college. It means a lot to me to do what they’ve done. That’s been a goal since elementary school.”

That Koestler got a chance to play basketball again, let alone in college, is nothing short of miraculous.

In September 2007, she was diagnosed with an inner-cranial hemorrhage. A CAT scan revealed bleeding deep in her brain, in a location that made it impossible to operate without doing even more damage. It could be treated, to an extent, with drugs. But doctors were helpless to completely cure it. The hemorrhage manifested itself in several ways, including double vision, hand tremors and a decline in motor skills. In many cases, it was fatal.

Koestler, though, got better.

A lot better.

She was able to leave the hospital by early November and was walking on her own by Thanksgiving. The double vision cleared up a couple weeks later. Except for a few days, she missed the entire 2007-08 school year — what would have been her senior year — but was able to return as a full-time student in September 2008. And in July, she was cleared to play sports again.

“You can’t even explain the excitement that went through my head when they told me I could play,” Koestler said with a wide smile.

Playing, and playing well, were two different things however. When she suited up for St. Al’s basketball team last fall, she didn’t want to be just another body on the court.

“If I wasn’t better, I would not have been pleased with myself. I didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh, look at her.’ I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me,” Koestler said. “My first worry was to not come back at least as good as I was. I don’t know what I would have done.”

No worries. Koestler averaged a team-high 11.3 points per game for the Lady Flashes last season. She earned all-county honors in basketball and fast-pitch softball.

She was back, and maybe better than ever.

“I’m thankful just to be walking by myself. Living. Seeing straight. Playing basketball is just something extra God gave me,” Koestler said.

Although Koestler got a clean bill of health, she still has some lingering reminders of her ordeal. The steroids she took to treat the hemorrhage have left her with a thyroid problem that doctors have told her she’ll always deal with. She still has to have an MRI every six months and an angiogram — where doctors insert a probe into her hip, thread it through her body and up into her head — every year.

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com