Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of stories chronicling Archbishop Mitty basketball player McKenna Woliczko’s road back from a serious knee injury. Woliczko is a five-star prospect in the class of 2026. Here are Part I and Part II.
The light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to emerge for McKenna Woliczko.
It has been six-and-a-half long months since the Archbishop Mitty five-star forward had surgery in late January after suffering a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury in a game on Jan. 4.
But her recovery journey is nearing its end. Woliczko, who is beginning her senior year, can now do most things day to day – walking, running and careful side-to-side movements are all part of her routine once again.
Better yet, she’s now able to begin building her strength back up in earnest. Life has regained a sense of normalcy.
On a recent morning at Mitty, Woliczko was working out in preparation for the upcoming basketball season. After a brief warm-up, she began by running two miles around the track at a controlled pace.
It looked like a breeze, which was a far cry from where she had been just months ago. At this point, Woliczko is focused fully on getting to the finish line.
But that doesn’t mean she’s there yet.
McKenna Woliczko warms up on the track at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
After completing the two-mile loop, Woliczko let outside observers in on the distance she still has to travel to get back to the player she once was.
When one noted that it looked as if she had barely broken a sweat, she retorted, “I’m lowkey dead.”
The lungs are coming back. But there are still a few months of hard work ahead before she returns to the court in earnest.
Summer of choice
Though she has been recovering from injury throughout, Woliczko’s summer months have been anything but idle.
In June, she narrowed down her laundry list of college offers to four schools – South Carolina, Iowa, Ohio State and USC.
She visited South Carolina in late June and early July, coming away impressed with the totality of what the Gamecocks have to offer.
“It was really fun to get to know the girls and the coaches there and see how I’d fit in there,” Woliczko said.
The Woliczkos who traveled to Columbia – McKenna, father Aaron and mother Erica – also left impressed with the lengths to which South Carolina showed its desire to accommodate their family. While touring the Gamecocks’ basketball arena, South Carolina staffers shone a spotlight on the accessible seating at the top of the arena’s lower bowl.
This is where Woliczko’s grandmother Micaela, who lives in San Bruno, will be able to sit and watch her games if she is able to travel to Columbia.
The gesture clearly made an impact on multiple members of the Woliczko clan.
“For me, that’s really big, because my grandparents come to every game,” Woliczko said. “In college, it will definitely be different, because my grandma’s handicapped, so it’ll be harder for them to travel.
“To see that they put in the effort of where my grandparents would sit was definitely awesome, because going to some gyms that I’ve gone to, it’s definitely hard. Like, ‘I don’t know how that would work for my grandma.’ So it’s definitely interesting to see that in perspective. All those surprises they did were really cool. It was very cool to see how much effort and time they put into me.”
McKenna Woliczko adjusts her hair after running on the track at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
Schools pull out all the stops on official visits, and Woliczko’s experience was no exception. In fact, it may have even exceeded expectations.
There were crab legs, prawns, an ice cream truck, corn hole and dancing, plus photoshoots, TikToks and Giant UNO. The Woliczkos also joined coach Dawn Staley and a number of current South Carolina’s women’s basketball players to watch the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship on the jumbotron at South Carolina’s football stadium.
Then there was time for one more special touch.
South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer, shortly before heading out on a brief summer vacation with his family, took some time to break down the football highlights of 10-year-old Patrick, Woliczko’s younger brother.
“He showed my brother’s football highlights off YouTube and broke it down,” Woliczko said. “He was like, ‘This is what you did good. This is what you did bad.’ So it’s pretty cool to see that. He just started tackle football, so he’s been doing that like five days a week.”
In all, the visit showed the Woliczkos all the things they can look forward to if McKenna chooses South Carolina.
“That was pretty special and makes us know they understand our family,” Aaron said of the Gamecocks’ demonstrating where Woliczko’s grandparents would sit.
The future is now
After wrapping up her visit to South Carolina, Woliczko traveled to Greece with her Jason Kidd Select AAU program in July, taking in the sights while cheering on her teammates from the sidelines. But she wasn’t parked on the bench the entire time.
She dressed out for a game on Aug. 7 in Crete, and the Greek junior national team they were facing allowed her to score an uncontested layup to open the game. It will go down as the final basket of Woliczko’s AAU career, which for a player of her caliber concludes in the summer before senior year.
“The jump ball happened, and I was just by the basket, and then they threw the ball to me, and I scored a layup,” Woliczko recounted. “And then I immediately subbed out. It was kind of awkward, but it was also really fun just to know that this was my last AAU game and to see how far AAU has gotten me.”
Back in the Bay Area, Woliczko has charted a course to ultimately decide where her future will take her.
She will take a visit to Iowa on Labor Day weekend, then a decision will likely come soon thereafter. Woliczko wants her college future to be decided before the ramp-up to the high school basketball season begins in the fall.
“It’s been fun to get to know the girls,” she said. “That’s definitely the biggest part for me is getting to know the coaches and the girls, especially with all these schools being across the country, very far. Having this injury, it opens my eyes to see who’s gonna be there if something were to happen again, or who’s gonna be my family when my family can’t be there.”
McKenna Woliczko sits next to her family while watching the Golden State Valkyries play against the Los Angeles Sparks at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
For now, she still has her immediate family with her in person. The Woliczkos celebrated being home all together with a trip to the Golden State Valkyries game on Aug. 9, enjoying the team’s matchup with the Los Angeles Sparks in courtside seats thanks to some members of the Kidd Select AAU organization.
While there, they met up with former Mitty star Danielle Robinson, a Sparks assistant coach, and took a picture with San Francisco Giants stars Willy Adames and Randy Rodriguez.
Aaron and McKenna were back at Chase Center two days later, taking in Golden State’s comfortable win over Connecticut. Woliczko said before the game that while it is exciting to see what her future could look like so close to her hometown of San Bruno, she realizes that there is a long way to go before she reaches the WNBA stage.
Woliczko is not overwhelmed by much of anything, including the possibility – or maybe likelihood – of one day playing in the WNBA. While watching the game, she wasn’t noticeably demonstrative. Certainly not to the level of a Brandin Podziemski, for instance.
She calmly took in the proceedings alongside her father, himself a former college basketball player and coach at the University of the Pacific.
“It’s just for fun right now, being able to watch, whether it’s college or pro,” her dad, Aaron, said. “But the idea that we’re starting to know people that we’ve seen or McKenna’s played against or played with at various levels are in college and even in the W right now, it’s pretty cool. There’s always details that I point out a little bit or she points out.”
Woliczko took another step toward being a professional player when she signed with Disrupt the Game, a boutique sports agency, in July. She is the first active high school player to sign with the agency.
Aaron got to know Jacki Gemelos, Disrupt the Game’s VP of Talent Representation, as she grew up in Stockton while he was at Pacific as an assistant coach. The agency’s client list includes Washington Mystics forward Kiki Iriafen and Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell.
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“They work with a lot of WNBA players,” Woliczko said. “Jacki, she played in Stockton, and so her mom worked at University of Pacific with my dad. So they know each other, and getting to know them on the family side has been awesome. Being able to sign up with them has been great.”
She noted that Disrupt the Game will handle her compensation negotiations with colleges, which could encompass direct payments from the recently approved House v. NCAA settlement as well as potential name, image and likeness opportunities.
“It’s hard because I’m not playing right now, but starting that is good,” she said. “That’s a part of the game nowadays, so that way I don’t have to go through the awkward talks myself.”
Talking to Woliczko, it appears that she isn’t significantly influenced by the financial promise of playing at the highest level in college or the WNBA. More than anything, she just wants to get back on the court.
“I hate talking about the business side of it,” she added. “It’s just awkward, and I mean, I’m there to play basketball. I don’t really care about the money.”
And that time is coming very soon.
McKenna Woliczko has a photo taken with her dad Aaron Woliczko and her little brother after a game between the Golden State Valkyries and the Los Angeles Sparks at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
McKenna Woliczko listens to music while running on the track at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
McKenna Woliczko stretches before running on the track at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
McKenna Woliczko runs on the track at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
