By Mike London
Salisbury Post
SALISBURY – Working at Dunkin’ Donuts in Salisbury is just another test of North Rowan graduate Bailee Goodlett’s mental toughness.
She stays busy on six-hour shifts making coffees, Espressos and frozen drinks.
“It’s not too hard on my legs,” said Catawba’s 5-foot-6 point guard. “But I have to stay away from the sweets.”
Goodlett has faced serious adversity in the last six months. She suffered the first major physical setback of her basketball career on Saturday, Dec. 6, when Lincoln Memorial visited Goodman Arena.
Goodlett scored the first bucket of the game and was feeling on top of the world.
“I remember it all like yesterday,” Goodlett said. “Competitive game against a very good team. It was still early in the game. I drove and dished, got the ball to Mary Spry and I remember Mary making the shot (the bucket that put Catawba ahead 6-4). Then I remember being down on the floor. Everything went black for a few seconds. My leg had just kind of buckled under me. I wasn’t in severe pain, had no clue I’d hurt my knee. I was able to get up and play. I was determined to keep going.”
Goodlett headed to the bench about 20 seconds later when the Indians made several substitutions. She got taped up, did some jogging in the halls to get loose and went back in the game late in the first quarter – for about 30 seconds. This time she went down, she couldn’t get up.
The pass to Spry was Goodlett’s last assist of the season. Medical exams over the next few weeks indicated she’d probably torn the ACL in her right knee on the play when she passed to Spry. Her desire to get back in the action and not let her teammates down had cost her more damage – a torn meniscus and a badly bruised MCL.
ACLs happen in basketball. It was unfortunate. Now Goodlett is focused on traveling the road back.
One of the all-time players at North Rowan, a healthy Goodlett is a point guard with sensational quickness and speed. Her hands and feet were blurs. She was one of the six 2,000-point scorers in modern Rowan County girls basketball history, with many of her 2,026 high school points coming directly off her defense.
There were some doubters concerning her shot and her size and the level of competition she’d competed against, but she was the real deal. She turned in a strong freshman season for Catawba, starting right away for a good team and averaging 8.8 points and 2.3 assists. On nights when her outside shots didn’t fall, she made up for it by defending fiercely and by pushing the pace and setting up her teammates. There weren’t as many easy points as there were in high school, but by the end of her freshman season there was no longer any doubt that she would be a good player in the South Atlantic Conference.
Goodlett pushed herself hard to be even better as a sophomore, but her season ended abruptly against LMU. She was averaging 12.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists when she was injured. She was making almost 90 percent of her free throws.
Catawba struggled to a 12-16 season, even with Spry having a tremendous senior season. The loss of Goodlett probably cost the Indians at least a half-dozen games. Spry said Goodlett was the quickest player in the league, someone no one in the SAC could stay in front of.
“Your first thought is ‘Why did this happen to me?’ because no one loves basketball more than I do,” Goodlett said. “Why did I get hurt when I was playing so well? I was killing it. I knew I was going to have a huge sophomore year. It was going to be my year. But you can’t let negative thoughts take over. The injury I had to the meniscus and MCL made my journey to get back a little longer and the rehab a little harder, but it wasn’t long before I started thinking about how good it was going to feel when I got back on the court.”
Goodlett had knee surgery over the Christmas holidays.
Since then, she’s done her best to attack each day of rehab with a positive attitude.
An ACL injury drastically weakens the quadriceps on the injured leg, so Goodlett does a lot of exercises to strengthen her right quad muscle.
She has made substantial progress. She is grateful for Catawba trainers who are understanding, but still demanding. They push her. They want her to be full-go for November. They don’t want her to lag behind her teammates in conditioning.
“I’m doing a lot of basketball stuff already, things like the slides and the back-pedals,” Goodlett said. “The cutting will be the last thing I’m cleared to do.”
She couldn’t run for about four months. She was amazed at how much her body slowed down with no running, but the energy is coming back now, a little more every day. Goodlett is so peppy and upbeat, she makes cheerleaders seem laid-back.
It was a happy moment for Goodlett when her tentative jogs on the wounded knee slowly transformed into confident runs. She does her roadwork at the Catawba track.
“It felt so good running again, especially running out there with my mom (Meagan Walker), my twin sister (Bloom) and my dog,” Goodlett said. “We’ve been able to turn my rehab work into some good family time.”
Goodlett’s mother and sisterare among the Indians’ most faithful fans. They make every Catawba road trip, no matter how far. Bloom was a solid, defensive-oriented high school player at North. She’s put away her basketball shoes now, but she is a stellar student at Catawba with a bright future.
Bailee keeps up with her twin in the classroom. She has a 3.78 GPA,
Bailee said she’s been granted a medical redshirt for the 2025-26 season, which is super news for the Indians. When she’s a fifth-year player in her 20s, she might be a terror in the SAC.
“It’s not like I lost a whole season,” Goodlett said. “I’m looking at it like I just had a basketball season postponed.”
Goodlett most likely will need to play with her knee braced when she makes her comeback on the court. That’s a bit of a concern for a player for whom quickness and speed are so much of her game, but she is confident if she continues to put in the rehab work, she’ll be as good as ever.
“My mindset is nothing but positive every single day,” Goodlett said. “That’s who I am.”