STARKVILLE — Holly Schaefer will remember the words for as long as she lives.
“The statistics are not in his favor.”
The words, which were said countless times by doctors and hospital personnel, referred to the prognosis for Logan Schaefer following his wakeboarding accident July 12, 2010, at Frontier Camp in Grapeland, Texas.
Vic Schaefer heard the refrain time and time again about his daughter, Blair, a guard on his Mississippi State women’s basketball team.
“Too small, too short, too slow.”
Two cases. In the first, Holly and Vic Schaefer didn’t know if their son, Logan, would survive. In the second, neither mother nor father/coach knew if Blair was mentally and physically ready to put in the work needed to realize her goal of being a big contributor for the Bulldogs.
As No. 1 seed MSU (34-1) prepares to face No. 4 seed North Carolina State (26-8) at 6 tonight (ESPN) in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament’s Kansas City Regional, the “miracle” of Logan Schaefer’s recovery and the miraculous maturation and development of Blair Schaefer have been at the core of MSU’s success. The unwavering commitment of the Schaefer twins and the dedication of their parents to helping their children overcome obstacles and realize their potential have pushed all of the Bulldogs never to give up.
“Both of them worked their rear ends off to overcome whatever limitations that were placed on them,” said Vic Schaefer, who was named Thursday the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association/United States Marine Corps Division I National Coach of the Year. “Logan never whimpered in rehab. He never whined. He never complained. He never said, ‘No, I don’t want to do it when he couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t hold a fork in his right hand and was drooling out of the right side of his mouth.
“Blair has been the same way. She has never whimpered, whined, or complained. She has just worked her tail off to achieve the success she has achieved.”
The Schaefer’s “miracle”
Vic Schaefer has told the story numerous times in his six seasons as MSU’s coach.
Each time, the power of the word “miracle” and how it is used in reference to Logan Schaefer doesn’t diminish. To hear the story, it’s easy to understand why Vic believes the 39 days he remained by his son’s side and helped push him through his rehabilitation from a serious brain injury remains his best coaching job in a 30-plus year career that includes a national title at Texas A&M (2011), a national runner-up finish at Mississippi State (2017), and an undefeated regular season and 16-0 finish in the Southeastern Conference at MSU (2018).
“I have always had a competitive nature, but my dad never left me for 39 days (in the hospitals after the accident) and he is the No. 1 reason I came out in the shape I am in,” Logan Schaefer said. “He made sure I did everything with 110 percent and everything I had. That is the coach in him. He helped keep my mind positive when I wanted to give up. He told me we weren’t going to stop until we reach our goal.”
Logan was put in a position to battle for his life after he suffered a hard fall on his first wakeboarding run on the morning of July 12, 2010. He recalls being halfway through his second run and feeling his heart beat in his head. Logan said it started to hurt so much he couldn’t continue his run and let go of the rope.
When the boat returned to the dock, Logan said the last thing he remembers was standing up to take his life jacket off and getting it halfway unzipped before passing out.
Logan was in a coma for four days with bleeding on the brain. The doctors told Vic and Holly he was close to death.
Still, everyone believed.
“It is pretty cool because I have been very blessed,” Logan said. “Any time we refer to my accident, we refer to it as the miracle because of the situation that happened and how we responded and the outcome was what we expected from the very beginning. We don’t know why God puts us in certain situations. My dad said we didn’t know why He put us in this situation, but we were going to respond in a way that was pleasing to Him.”
Logan kept that attitude despite being in a coma. He said the experience was like being paralyzed with your eyes locked shut. Logan said he could hear people talking to him and feel people touching him. He remembers on that fourth day hearing his mother ask him to give her a sign if he was OK and responding with two thumbs up.
That was just the beginning.
“I can’t imagine how it feel like to wake up in the morning when your head is tilted to one side and you try to stand up and you want to fall down,” Vic said of Logan’s early days in recovery. “The most basic, simplest thing we do every day, all of a sudden that has been taken from you. Logan just accepted the grind of OK, I am going to get back. Here is what I have to do. It starts in the morning when we wake up and it’s an all-day grind until we’re done at five o’clock in the afternoon.”
Vic believes the background of his family and Holly’s family and the work ethic everyone instilled in Logan and Blair set the stage for both of them to overcome their obstacles.
“If I heard it once, I heard it 1,000 times, the statistics are not in his favor,” Holly said. “But he just kept beating the odds and beating the odds and beating the odds. And he is truly our miracle — one of them.”
Logan, 22, graduated a semester early with a grade-point average of 3.1 and a degree in business marketing. He said has applied to a few schools in hopes of pursuing additional study toward a career in sports management.
Logan said he understands every day since the accident has been a gift, which is why he appreciates the meaning of the word miracle.
“I had to learn how to walk again and they said that was going to take a long time,” Logan said. “In seven days, when I did that, every nurse was bawling her eyes out and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a miracle.’ I don’t think I ever will forget the tears on those ladies faces seeing me walk and doing it so quick.”
Time to mature
Blair Schaefer was conflicted.
The former Starkville High School standout chose to go to MSU because she wanted to play for her father. But after two years and not seeing as much as action as she wanted, Blair arrived at a crossroad. Thoughts of transferring crossed her mind.
Blair wasn’t sure if that’s what she wanted to do, so she talked to her coach/father to see what she had to do to play a bigger role as a junior.
“My message to her was, ‘I want you to play more, too, but to play more you have to get in the gym,’ ” Vic said. “You have to defend better. You have to become a better on-ball defender. The next thing is it is about making shots.”
Vic said he spent all summer working on footwork with Blair. He said they focused on developing her into a better on-ball defender because she remains the team’s best help defender.
The work helped transform Schaefer into a key player off the bench last season. This season, the 5-foot-7 senior leads the team in minutes per game (32.1) and has started all 35 games. She is averaging 9.7 points per game and has raised her shooting percentage to 40.4 percent from the field and 41.3 percent from 3-point range.
“She worked at it,” Vic Schaefer said. “She didn’t run from her problems. She addressed them. She was accountable.
“I think that is why she is such a tremendous student. She didn’t run from that biological science degree when it got hard with all of those classes you have to take that I could never pass. She met them head on with work ethic, commitment, and sacrifice. She did the same thing with her basketball career. I am awfully proud of her for what she has done and how she has done it. That is the thing young people need to understand: It is hard work.”
Blair said she worked on her ballhandling and agility and continued to shoot so she would be ready when called on. She said a change in attitude was just as crucial to helping her understand she could and needed to do more.
“When we worked on those things, there was that motivation that got me through it,” Blair said. “I saw things starting to change. Then I got to start in the NCAA tournament (21 points vs. Troy, 18 points against Washington) and that was my first really breakout moment. It kind of came full circle for me.”
This season, Blair added SEC All-Defensive Team honors to her list of accomplishments. She also was named a SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, earned her third appearance on the SEC Academic Honor Roll, and was named to the SEC Community Service Team the last three years.
“I don’t know what the word is if it is miraculous,” Blair said. “I know a bunch of coaches from other schools told me personally that we are super inspired by the way you play the game. I never looked at my game that way. But I feel since I found something that I’m good at — taking charges, being in help side, being that energizer player who will do the dirty work. I do things other people just usually don’t want to do.
“I just feel it is a mixture of the people that have surrounded me during my time of transformation and the mind-set and effort I put in to make myself a player.”
Logan said Blair has been driven to prove people wrong. If her maturation into a All-SEC performer hasn’t been miraculous, Logan said it has been “phenomenal.”
“When Blair started playing college ball, people told her she was too short, too small, not quick enough, that she didn’t have the SEC type body to play,” Logan Schaefer said. “But she spent hours and hours and hours in the gym working. … As she got older, she made the most of the opportunity. She lived in the gym in the summers. I feel like the fact she wanted it so bad for herself is why she got to this goal because she was willing to do the hard work to get there.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.