Kylee Simmons wasn’t supposed to be at Regal Soccer Stadium on a hot, humid evening in August, scoring a brace in her first game for Tennessee soccer.
That was all supposed to happen last year.
But a torn ACL and meniscus in her left knee during Tennessee’s
final exhibition match in 2025 derailed her senior season. Simmons, who transferred from Missouri, had a delayed debut – but she made it worth the wait.Simmons timed her run into the box perfectly on Aug. 13 and struck Ayva Jordan’s pass in stride. Rutgers' goalkeeper dove and got a hand on the shot, and the rebound bounced back towards Simmons. The forward was like a shark smelling blood in the water, and she raced the keeper to the ball.
Simmons slid, fearless as the keeper dove toward her
and landed on her legs. She sent the ball into the net eight minutes into the game.
"It kind of symbolically shows my resilience over the last year," Simmons told Knox News. "It didn't go in the first time, but I was going to make sure it went in the second time."
Simmons slid with her full weight on her left knee, not worried about getting hurt again. In fact, she was playing freer than ever before.
"I was just going into the game with so much gratitude," Simmons said. "That's probably my number one emotion that I want to keep carrying, because it's so easy to lose sight of it now that I'm back."
Running for all the times she couldn't
Simmons felt a runner's high building with every step during the Flying Pig half marathon in Cincinnati.
She feels it in games, too – it helps that she loves running –but this euphoria was different. The 13.1 miles she ran in May were a celebration of the grueling eight months of rehab before it. Each mile was a reminder of everything Simmons overcame.
Mile 1 was for the first month when she couldn't walk, Mile 2 was for the second month when she could walk, but not run and so on. Simmons felt like she entered a flow state with each passing mile.
"Oh my god, I felt incredible," Simmons said. "I never felt like I was tired during it."
She finished the half marathon in 1 hour, 45 minutes, 27 seconds, shaving 25 minutes off her time from the previous year when she did it without training, signing up last minute to run with her boyfriend.
This year, the Flying Pig was her Super Bowl. She couldn't play that spring, so it was the official test of her recovery. Simmons was determined to take her fitness as far as her body would let her – it was all she could think about during recovery.
Strength coach Sam Black and athletic trainer Greg Mytyk played crucial roles in Simmons becoming one of the fittest players on the team. When conditioning tests arrived, she passed level 19 on the beep test. It was the best score of her career.
"I figured not everyone has an opportunity to be able to build themselves back up from ground one," Simmons said. "I didn't choose to tear my ACL again, but I'm going to be damn sure that I come out better than I was before."
How Kylee Simmons' mentality carried her
Sometimes Simmons still looks back at her journal from last season, reading her entries and scrolling through old photos and videos.
One video shows Simmons walking across the field, marking the first time in six weeks she didn’t have to use crutches. In another, Simmons is running on AlterG anti-gravity treadmill with a face-splitting grin.
The physical part of rehab felt easy to Simmons compared to the mental side. She'd already torn her ACL at 13, and she wasn't scared of the pain. But the identity crisis from losing soccer, her safe haven, and the initial grief of her senior season was heavy.
Without her happy place, the photos and videos reset her perspective to celebrate every small success.
"I was able to hold a positive mindset for a lot of it," Simmons said. "And I think I'm the most proud of that, because there were definitely days where inside I definitely wasn't smiling."
Her parents, Ted and Janelle, often received the evidence of progress in texts from their only child. They've always felt like Simmons' confidants and mentors, and their approach fostered a healthy mindset. They encouraged her to follow her own path, even though she clearly inherited a natural talent for swimming – she could swim a full lane of butterfly at 4 – from Janelle, who was an NCAA champion at Ohio State.
Simmons was still playing basketball when she tore her right ACL from a bad contact hit. In her blissful childhood ignorance, the seriousness of the injury was somewhat lost on her. She was determined to get back in time for the end of her eighth grade basketball season.
"The doctors were kind of amazed, but she really had a goal of what she wanted to be able to do," her father said. "Having that carrot dangling ahead of her really drove her to do all the exercises, all the lifting to make the leg strong."
Why Kylee Simmons isn't scared to miss
Simmons came out of nowhere, flying in to meet the ball crossed into the box.
Her header sent the ball into the back of the net before the Clemson goalkeeper could react during the exhibition game on Aug. 5. The team erupted, leaping in the air, hugging Simmons as her emotions poured out after scoring in her first game back. Even goalkeeper Cayden Norris ran up to meet Simmons with a hug.
Simmons scored her first goal four days short of exactly a year after she tore her ACL playing in an exhibition against Clemson, two ends of the circle meeting in that moment.
"Even though it didn’t count in the stat books, it counted in my head," Simmons said. "The Clemson goal was really emotional, being able to share that with my teammates in my first game back."
Simmons felt like she'd always been at Tennessee, despite playing three seasons at Missouri. The connection and community with her teammates got her through the hardest days.
When Simmons thinks back to the SEC Tournament last year, which was one of the more difficult games to miss, she remembers the anxiety and fear her teammates shared about missing shots during the biggest moment of the season.
She couldn't stop thinking about how much she'd love the chance to miss, even a wide open shot, which was something she'd never thought before.
"If I get the opportunity and I miss again, I'm going to leave smiling, because it means I'm playing," Simmons said. "I don't really care about missing at all, because I just think back to myself last year, and then I'm like, never again, never going to get in my head about that."
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Inside Kylee Simmons' recovery from torn ACL, impact for Tennessee soccer | Exclusive
