Iowa women’s hooper talks sharing raw eggs, ACL tears with Drew Ott

CHICAGO - Iowa women's basketball player Kali Peschel has dated football defensive end Drew Ott for around seven months, and the two shared a few raw eggs this summer. Unfortunately, they both now can swap stories about torn ACLs.

Ott, an all-Big Ten prospect at defensive end, suffered the season-ending injury last week against Illinois and will have surgery next Thursday. Peschel, a senior starting forward for the Hawkeyes, tore her ACL in high school and can relate to Ott's road back to recovery.

'His situation is completely different,” Peschel said Thursday at Big Ten basketball media day. 'It's kind of for him not knowing what is next and what's going to happen with the (NFL) draft. Hopefully something works out, and I think it will. He can come back a hell of a player from it, just being able to get in the gym a lot more, getting the upper body back. I think he realized he can be a lot stronger coming back from it, too.

'He's never had an injury like that so it's a rude awakening. It's hit him really hard.”

Peschel hails from Sauk Centre, Minn., averaged 5.1 points and 2.9 rebounds last year while sinking 43.4 percent of her 3-point attempts. She said she returned too early from her ACL tear just to play in the postseason as a high school senior. Peschel waited about six weeks to have surgery that year just to strengthen her leg. Ott's quick turnaround from injury to surgery is a credit to the shape he is in.

'He actually is pretty good at listening to me, surprisingly,” Peschel said. 'He's a very stubborn person. He doesn't have a lot of patience, so this is going to test his patience. He asks a lot of questions because he's never had a knee injury, and I've been through a couple. The injury process, the rehab stuff, I can kind of help him with that. I know how to prop up the pillows up under the legs. I've tried to be as helpful as I can.”

Ott became a hit during Big Ten football media days by eating a raw egg - shell and all - in front of cameras. Peschel tried it herself.

'I was a little bit peer pressured into eating a raw egg,” Peschel said. 'Drew is a character of his own, but it was pretty painless and it went down pretty well. No complaints. It was more the shock of it than anything.

'I didn't eat the shell. I wouldn't do that. I just ate the inside of the raw egg. He is a monster. He just eats raw eggs like it's nothing to him.”

There's a reason why Ott does it, Peschel said.

'The kid didn't want to cook so, ‘Well, let's just eat four eggs, shell and all,'” she said. 'He got the vitamins he thought he needed, nutrients, and that was it for his meal. I think he's figured out that he can't depend on it, so he's cooking a little more now.”

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