THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: April 20, 2014

After six knee surgeries, playing for three different teams in two countries over a six-year span, and some eight months away from turning 25, you couldn't blame Deanna Dotts if she was ready to hang up her basketball sneakers.

And she might.

Then again, she might not.

The Coeur d'Alene High graduate, who spent three years at North Idaho College, has spent the last three years in Lethbridge, Alberta. If she wants, the 6-foot post has one more season of college eligibility remaining, for the Lethbridge College Kodiaks.

"Why else would you come back so many times if you didn't love the game?" Dotts said the other day, back in Hayden for a few days for the Easter weekend. "There's a part of me that felt like I had some unfinished business. I felt like I never fully reached my potential, because I was always recovering (from knee injuries) ... and at the same time, I really enjoy being able to pass the game on to the younger girls - pass a love and a passion on to them."

WHEN LAST we saw Dotts play, she was a member of the NIC women's team that won the NJCAA championship in 2011.

Naturally, she had suffered a knee injury - that would be surgery No. 4 - some three weeks before nationals. But, after not being able to play as a senior when her Coeur d'Alene High team won the state 5A title in 2008, she was determined to be a part of this championship.

Two weeks before the Region 18 tournament, playing defense, she took a step and thought, 'That didn't feel right.' Moments later, she went up for a rebound, came down hard on her left side, and felt a lot of pain.

She looked over at NIC assistant coach Carey Carlson and said she had to come out.

"I said, 'I just tore my lateral meniscus,'" Dotts said. "Once you've had a couple of them (knee injuries), you can feel it."

She had surgery, which should have shelved her for the season. But she wanted to play in the postseason, which was less than two weeks away. Her doctor told her normal recovery on a surgery like that is six weeks.

"And I said, 'What can I do to make it 10 days?" Dotts said.

The doctor said as long as there was no swelling in the knee, and no pain, and the NIC trainers were OK with it, he would OK it.

She played a few minutes a game at regionals, giving the other bigs a breather. Her coaches were a little apprehensive about playing her, then said to be careful out there.

So naturally, there was Dotts, in the championship game against Salt Lake, in a key moment of the game, stepping up to draw a charging foul on Salt's best player.

"And I never got such a mean look from either of them," Dotts said of her coaches. "They're telling me, 'Play defense and be smart about it,' and here I am, 10 days out from surgery, trying to take a charge."

(You may recall that her senior year at Coeur d'Alene, after not playing all year, Dotts was allowed to step on the court in the final seconds of the Vikings' championship game victory. She entered the game during a free throw, and was told to stand at the other end of the court and stay out of the way. Naturally, a girl for the other team dribbled up the floor and Dotts ran over to guard her, much to the horror of her coach and the opposing coach, who was privy to the deal.)

Her role at nationals was the same at regionals, and was happy to actually play a part in the championship.

"At Coeur d'Alene ... we win the state championship and I was happy," Dotts said. "But sometimes you have that twinge that I really didn't contribute, I didn't really play, I didn't do anything on the floor. So to be able to play at nationals and even play just a few minutes and be a part of the whole season ... it was really important to me. It was a moment where I got a little bit of redemption. I was a part of it, and I contributed."

DOTTS WAS recruited to play at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, some six hours north of Coeur d'Alene, up U.S. 95 and into Canada.

A Baptist college in Riverside, Calif., was also interested, and Dotts laughs at the thought of choosing a city where it gets down to minus 50 degrees in the winter over one where it is 60 degrees or warmer much of the time. Must be something about overcoming hardships.

She played for the Pronghorns in 2011-12, in a league comparable, she said, to an NCAA Division II league, or NAIA Division I. She then took a year off from basketball to focus on school and getting healthy, and re-emerged this past season at Lethbridge College, which plays at a level comparable to NIC, or perhaps NAIA Division II, she said.

"I kind of had the itch again" to play, said Dotts, who said the pace of play at that level was better suited for where she was, healthwise, in her career.

This year, she enrolled in a co-op program between the college and the university, where she took enough credits to be eligible, but was also allowed to find a job. She worked 35-40 hours a week in a law office as a paralegal, took nine credits, practiced and played basketball.

She's on course to graduate this coming school year with a bachelor of arts in history. She'd like to continue to work as a paralegal.

This past season, Dotts led the Kodiaks, who finished 18-5, with 13.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocked shots per game. She was named to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference all-conference team, received All-Canadian honors from the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association, earned the Most Outstanding Contribution award from her basketball team, and shared the school's Female Athlete of the Year Award.

In Canada, athletes are given five years of eligibility in college, with some restrictions. In Dotts case, since she was a transfer from a school in the U.S., her fourth year of basketball had to be at a Canadian school to receive the fifth year of eligibility. In the past, Dotts said, athletes would play four years in the States, then try to play a fifth season in Canada.

DOTTS HAS no problem recalling the dates of each of her six knee surgeries - the first three on her right knee, the last three on her left.

The first was in June 2007, in the summer before her senior year at Coeur d'Alene. She had arthroscopic surgery in September 2008, in her first year at NIC, then decided to have a total reconstruction done in December 2008, and took a medical redshirt.

The fourth one was in February 2011 - the one just before regionals and nationals with NIC. She had her left knee scoped again in July 2011 and again in June 2012, both times removing parts of the meniscus.

She said her knees "hurt quite often, I'll be brutally honest. The coaches knew they hurt, as much as I told them they didn't. You just learn to live with it, and play through it."

SO DOTTS has a decision to make soon. Her coaches want her to return for one last year.

What way is she leaning? Depends on the day. She balances the nagging pain in her knees - not just while playing, but in everyday life - with the joy of playing the sport she loves.

There was a time when this decision wouldn't have had to have been made. Prior to her senior year, her game was developing to the point where she was considered an NCAA Division I prospect. Davidson College in North Carolina was particularly interested.

But when she blew out her left knee in a summer-league game prior to her senior year, and not coincidentally, most of that interest from D-I schools went away.

At the time, she thought that "was a load of crap," but now, years and multiple operations later, she understands. Sort of.

Still as a high school senior rehabbing a devastating knee injury and her Division I dream apparently over, she told everyone who asked that she was done - she was not going to play in college.

Then, a letter she received from Carey Carlson just before state advised her that she "shouldn't give up on the dream."

Six years later, here she is.

So, whichever way the decision goes, through the surgeries and the rehabs and the championships and the accolades, Deanna Dotts has finally found some inner peace.

"I got a little bit of closure this year with some of the things we did, and I felt like I had a good years ... and so that unfinished business is gone," Dotts said.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.