Dating all the way back to high school, redshirt junior forward Bethany Coons was known for being a prolific athlete without any major injury history.
Coons finished her career at Union High School with 452 total points, a state record that was broken in 2017. Coons also finished fifth in state history with 186 career goals in just 100 career games. For her efforts, she was named the 2015 Missouri High School Offensive Player of the Year.
Coons was also a point guard for most of her life, known for running the show on the hardwood. According to Coons and others that knew her, she might have been just as good on the court as she was on the pitch. Despite that, she ended up choosing to focus on soccer.
Coons simply has always had what it takes to be great at both the forward spot and to run the point: flair, creativity and style.
"Bethany is one of the most creative players that I have ever coached," her club soccer coach Jim Wipke said. "She has a knack for scoring big goals and consistently comes to play in big games."
Coons received offers from Iowa State, Illinois, LSU and SLU, but she wanted to join a family on a campus she loved while representing her home state. So naturally that criteria led her to a decision: she was going to be a Missouri Tiger.
During her freshman season, Coons played in 13 games and led the team with a .615 shot on goal percentage. The following season, Coons started to flash more consistently for head coach Bryan Blitz, scoring two goals in her 15 games played. It looked as if she was ready to take the next step. However, that winter, things changed.
Coons started to feel pain in her hip towards the end of her sophomore season, but she played through the pain. She felt she didn't have a choice. It's what she had always done.
"She has never been a crybaby," Tina Coons, Bethany's mother, said. "Never."
The redshirt junior continued to grind, playing through immense pain to end the 2015 season. Often times, she would be taken out of games, coming to the sideline grimacing in pain. It was hard on her, but it was also hard on the team and on her family.
"For her to come off the field a couple times and cry saying it hurt so bad, 'I'm trying so hard, but it hurts so bad.' That was heartbreaking for us," Tina said.
Entering her junior campaign, the plan for Coons was to prove herself and become a driving force for the Mizzou offense. At first, it looked like she might be able to do so: team doctors first diagnosed her injury as a hip flexor. The thought was Coons would do some rehab, and be ready to go entering the fall of 2017 at full go. That spring though, the pain was still there, and something was clearly not right. Coons again didn't want to say anything because she wanted to play, but she had to know what was going on.
"I just wanted to see if I was crazy or something was wrong," Bethany said.
It turned out she wasn't crazy after all. Coons' MRI revealed she had suffered a torn labrum in her right hip. Shortly after her MRI, Coons underwent surgery. Her 2017 was done as she was forced to trade in her No. 9 shirt in for a redshirt.
" 'I can't play through this- it just hurts so badly.' That's what I was thinking towards the end," Coons said. "I'd rather take the year to redshirt than be in pain all the time."
Though the decision to opt for surgery was a tough one, Coons knew it was the right one. It was a decision she knew would benefit her and the team in the long run. That didn't make the decision any easier, though.
"At first, I thought, 'I'm going to be sitting on the bench and it's going to be miserable,'" she said. "Choosing to redshirt was a hard decision, but there were some positives for sure. It was still really hard, but there was some good that came out of it."
What good could possibly come from an injury this serious and a whole year on the sideline? Well for a player that hadn't faced much adversity due to her natural ability, it forced Coons to take a different approach mentally.
"It was a different place for me," Coons said. "Growing up, I was never on the bench. It really helped me focus on my team, not just on me. I was forced to sit on that bench, and I made sure to be there for anyone who needed my help."
More than anything though, the injury made her grateful. Grateful for the time she had played, and grateful for the opportunity to play the game she loved again.
"I am definitely more thankful than I was before it happened," Coons said. "I had never dealt with a serious injury before. There were times during rehab where I thought 'what is the point?'. But now, I get it. This season has shown me why it was worth it. I feel better now than I ever have."
Coons made her return to the pitch against Iowa in the season opener, and has played in all but two of the Tigers' games so far this season. Through the season's first month, she led the team in shots and shots on goal, showing that same ferocity that made her such a terror in high school. However she couldn't find the back of the net through the Tigers' first six games.
That all changed against Gonzaga.
The Black and Gold were already up one on the Bulldogs courtesy of a goal from fellow redshirt junior Madison Lewis, but the game was still tightly contested. In the 83rd minute, Coons put on a move, and shook herself free from her defender. She absolutely crushed the ball with her patented left-footed stroke, and found the top corner. Gonzaga's goalkeeper had absolutely no chance. And as was true to her style, the goal was unassisted. She used that trademark flair to get free.
"More than anything it was just so nice to see her back in the mode we were accustomed to seeing," Russell Coons, Bethany's father, said.
The Coons family wasn't alone. Her teammates were also beyond thrilled for her.
"It was awesome to see," junior defender Peyton Joseph said. "We all know what she can do. It's just nice to see her do it in a moment like that. We all knew what that moment meant to her."
The goal was just the peak. According to her teammates and her coaches, that is a constant thing in practice. They would rather focus on all of the other areas where the redshirt junior has improved.
"Her growth from last year to this year, well she didn't even play last year, but it's been immense in her maturity," Blitz said. "How she trains and how consistent she is and how she leads the younger players."
That growth is nice, but the Gonzaga goal signaled that Coons is back doing what she is supposed to be doing: scoring goals in style. And according to all that interact with her on the team and on the staff, one theme rang consistently true: she's not even close to finished.