YORKTOWN, Ind. — The clock hits 9, and Kenzie Knuckles’ phone buzzes. She doesn’t have to look down to know what it says. It’s the same reminder she gets every Sunday night.
“Call daddy,” it reads.
Knuckles hasn’t been able to call her dad for more than three years now, not since cancer took his life too soon at age 57. She keeps that alert on to remind her of what he meant to her, and what those weekly conversations did for her.
Without dad, volleyball was always her way of escaping reality. But when the pressure of being one of the nation’s top high school players became too much last spring, Knuckles had to get out.