She may not be smiling on the field, but Dallas Texans’ standout defender Whitney Jaynes is having the time of her soccer life.

The 2011 graduate is one of the most coveted recruiting prospects of her class. She’s also a serious and very competitive player, but her happiness stems in part from knowing what might have been.

Last summer while at the U.S. Youth Soccer Region III ODP camp in Alabama, Jaynes was opening a dormitory window when the wooden portion of the bottom broke, causing her hand to basically go through the edge of the glass the piece was holding.

Seven of eight tendons and all the nerves in her left hand were sliced and more gravely, so was the main artery in her palm. Jaynes was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Alabama where she underwent 6 ½ hours of emergency surgery. She was told afterward she had been about five minutes away from bleeding to death.

These things bring perspective.

“I have more fun with it now,” she acknowledged. “I’m still really serious but I just remember before I got hurt, feeling under pressure or not being relaxed. Now I feel like I don’t take it for granted. It’s definitely something important to me and I realize I need to enjoy it.”

Not that this appreciation came overnight either. As is often the case when athletes go through an injury, the psychological dimension takes longer to navigate than the physical healing. Jaynes is aware that she won’t ever regain full mobility of her left fingers, and the injury to her main artery has healed to the point there is no limit on her physical exertion, but in the months following the accident she had to sit still for longer than she ever had.

“When I was off all my pain medicine a few weeks later, the doctor explained I couldn’t get my heart over a certain rate and that was a hard thing for me. I’m the kind of person who every single day is always doing something. If we didn’t have practice we would find something else to do. So during that time I would have my on and off days, which a lot of people maybe don’t understand ,” she said. “I’d come home crying after watching a soccer game sometimes because I wanted to play so much. Other days I’d see it more as an opportunity to learn something from it.  After the first few months I started to see it as a positive thing instead of a negative thing. I knew I wouldn’t be able to move on as a person unless I got over it.”

The physical recovery also included some ups and downs for Jaynes.

“For a little while I couldn’t play at all, and then I got to a point where I could just run,” she recalls. “It was three months before I could get back to playing again."

“When I first got back the conditioning was definitely an obstacle,” she continued. I knew I needed to get back but there’s also the mental part of everything, when you’re trying to recover. My body was into it but my head wasn’t. I just realized I needed to mentally get through it. It was just a long period and it was kind of a traumatizing thing that happened.”

Jaynes said she doesn’t talk about the injury much now as she doesn’t want to seem like she’s making excuses. Judging by her play at adidas ESP and the January ODP Region III Championships in New Orleans where she helped the North Texas team to a berth in the nationals, her recovery is now complete. College coaches are convinced as well, already making their interest known to her club coach, Ryan Higginbotham.

The Texans’ coach is an admirer of Jaynes' mental makeup and ability.

“Whitney trains all the time. She’ll be out there 2-3 times a week and I know she works with a personal coach on skills, plus she has speed training and weightlifting,” Higginbotham said. “She’s an elite athlete and already getting a lot of interest from a lot of top programs in country. Her ability on the field is already attracting interest. She’s an exciting player to watch when she’s fully healthy.”

Jaynes, who played for five years at Solar SC before this season, trains four nights a week for more than three hours, working on skills, strength and speed with other top players from the area. Others Dallas-area standouts taking part in the workouts include Kristin Cummins, Hannah Higgins, Melanie Foncham, Sophie Campise and Becka Rivera.

Whitney has become a top prospect as an outside back, but played wide midfield and forward earlier in her club career. Schools such as UCLA, Texas, Texas A&M(w) and Notre Dame have expressed interest thus far.