Life after injury: A Hoopfest and MultiCare journey

When Kyle Woelber woke up to play his last game of Hoopfest weekend, his biggest concern was his shoulder.

Barely able to lift his arm over his head, he went straight to the MultiCare medical tent in downtown Spokane. Staff told him he had a shoulder impingement and would need it taped.

He decided to play through it — one-armed — and deal with it later.

An hour later, Woelber was being rushed back to the MultiCare tent after rupturing his Achilles tendon on the court.

That was 2023. Fast-forward to 2025 and Woelber is back on the court — although it looks a bit different: shooting hoops with his three young boys rather than jumping into a competitive game.

“If you had asked me before my injury, I’d say that Hoopfest was a part of my life, the greatest summer experience for a basketball player. I would’ve told you that I would play until I was 80,” he explains. “My injury changed things, but didn’t change the love that I have for the game of basketball or Hoopfest. When you realize that you are breakable, it changes the way that you approach competition.”

Woelber is, however, proud of the progress he’s made, including running in Bloomsday. He says he owes a lot of that to his MultiCare team — including the surgeon who not only performed his initial evaluation in the medical tent, but also his surgery just three days later.

MultiCare at Hoopfest

As the official health care provider of Hoopfest since 2017, MultiCare provides on-the-spot support to event participants and spectators.

“Our teams come together every year and provide absolute top-tier care to players and spectators throughout the weekend,” explains says Nicholas Strasser, DO, medical director for Hoopfest. “This year we saw expanded resources for imaging, an additional injury board and even more specialty providers join our team from our Western Washington colleagues.”

MultiCare’s role at Hoopfest allows staff and providers to live out our mission of partnering for healing and a healthy future, and for the community to see our values in action, Dr. Strasser adds. From start to finish, the community gets to witness excellence in medical care, respect for the athlete, and the joy staff and providers have for being part of the event.

A team from start to finish

Despite his major injury, Woelber is grateful for the care he received.

“I have nothing but good things to say about the place where I was given the worst news of my life,” Woelber says. “The staff was kind and caring, and I really feel like they supported me in the process of getting the news.

“The thing that impressed me the most was that the first person that I met in the tent was Dr. Croff, who would be the one to perform my surgery that next week,” he continues. “He was compassionate and willing to answer any and all questions … even taking the time to answer my son’s questions.”

Before Woelber even left the Hoopfest medical tent, his surgery was scheduled. With so many uncertainties about his future, having that in place was a huge relief, he explains, because at least he knew the next step.

“I was beyond impressed with the seamless process that MultiCare provided to get the surgery done in a timely manner,” he adds. “Dr. Croff and I stayed in touch through the whole recovery process. … I am very thankful for the care and time that Dr. Croff put into me as a patient and really helping me have the confidence to get back to the best me post-surgery.”

In total, Woelber says his physical recovery took about nine to 12 months, with a lot of small milestones along the way.

”When you realize that you are breakable, it changes the way that you approach competition.”

The first six weeks included a lot of resting and letting his body heal. From there he slowly began walking with a boot. After eight weeks, he started physical therapy in Brewster, where he lives with his family.

Thanks to an excellent physical therapy plan and team, just three months later he was back to running, Woelber explains. But it would be six months before he picked up a basketball and started working out again.

“I made a goal that I would play basketball by Christmas, which was exactly six months from my injury, and I did play a pickup game on Christmas Day,” he says. “But I was still a shell of my old self as a player.”

The mental game

Almost two years out from his injury, Woelber says it still sits in the back of his mind.

“I don’t know that you ever fully recover from that piece of it. You just learn to navigate through it,” he says. “Some of the darkest moments in my life happened in that time, but if I just sat in those moments I would have missed some pretty awesome things going on around me.”

You have to take the valleys and mountains in the recovery process, he explains. Encouragement from his family and friends, plus their constant checking in and stepping up to help — like friends helping with his 8-year-old son’s birthday party while Woelber was still in a cast — renewed his faith each day that he would get through it.

But winning the mental game doesn’t just happen; you have to put in hard work, and some days feel harder than others, he says. A few months after his injury, Woelber describes riding his knee scooter through Riverfront Park and the surreal feeling of being back in the place of such a tragic injury.

“But it made me appreciate all the things that I still have and gave me motivation to keep pushing myself,” he says. “Since then, I’ve done Bloomsday and found myself back in that same park with a confidence that you can come back, and life after an injury is possible.”

Post-surgery life

While Woelber knows he’s physically strong enough to jump back into Hoopfest, he’s more excited to see the next generation of his family get into it while he continues enjoying one his favorite sports from the bench.

“I just don’t know if I can put my family and myself through that challenging season again,” he says. “I have three young sons (9, 7 and 4) and I think maybe it’s their turn to start thinking about making a team for themselves in a couple of years.”

As someone who’s played in Hoopfest off and on for more than 15 years, Woelber says he’s always going to find a way to be part of the weekend — whether that’s cheering on his friends or hopefully coaching his own kids’ team someday.

And he’ll continue checking in with Dr. Croff and the friends he’s made along his recovery journey.

“Achilles’ injuries are weird — it’s almost like a brotherhood,” he says. “I now have great friends because they had been through the journey and helped me through mine, and I’ve been able to do that for others, as well.”