DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Spontaneous.

Kyle Evans knows the word all too well. It’s not because he’s the goalkeeper for the Newport Harbor High boys’ soccer team and deals with spontaneity each game.

Evans, a junior at Newport Harbor, knows what spontaneous is all about from the pain he felt last May. That was when his left lung collapsed. Three times. He knew life would never be the same after that. How could it be when he came so close to death?

“It’s not really common at all,” Evans said of his lung spontaneously collapsing. “It only happens with tall, skinny males. I fit the category perfect. I’m 6-foot-4, 160 pounds ... My torso is too skinny and my lungs are so long and they pushed together and it collapsed.”

But, Evans, determined, made his way back to soccer. That’s all he wanted, to play the game again and be the goalie for the Sailors.

In the past three games, Evans has allowed just one goal, as Newport Harbor surges in the tough Sunset League. He had seven saves in a 1-0 win against Fountain Valley Monday, that moved the Sailors (8-6-3, 2-3-1 in league) into third place.

Evans is a different person than last year, but that has little to do with the game. While playing soccer, he actually doesn’t want to think of all he had to endure with the collapsed lung.

“I have cool scars from [the surgeries] and I can look at them and remember them,” said Evans, who leads the Sailors against Los Alamitos at Laurel High today at 3 p.m. “I don’t feel any stronger or any weaker from [dealing with a collapsed lung]. I don’t let it affect me.

“Mentally, sometimes it psyches me out. I have a pain and I think that’s the same feeling and that it is going to happen again. But I remember I had surgeries to prevent it.”

When the initial pain all of a sudden came to Evans, he didn’t know what to think. He didn’t quite know how to react. This was unfamiliar territory, not like when he’s in goal, ready to leave his feet to close in on a shot.

While riding his bike home after bowling with friends, Evans’ left side started to ache. The sting was sharp. When he arrived at home, he told his mother, Leann Montiel, that he was experiencing shortness of breath.

“I woke up in the middle of the night,” Evans said. “I told her I couldn’t handle it and she took me to the hospital.”

Evans didn’t leave Fountain Valley Hospital for a month, as doctors performed three surgeries on him. Tubes were surgically placed in his chest to help him breathe. Doctors had to break a rib to work on his lung.

At one point, Evans endured an emergency surgery, which left his mother weeping.

“It never really crossed my mind that one of my kids could die,” Montiel said. “I feel very fortunate that it was nothing but a bad experience.”

It was horrible for Evans.

There where times when he questioned, why me?

It’s impossible to be prepared for spontaneity, so naturally Evans believed the ordeal could not have come at a worse time. He was so close to finishing his sophomore year at Harbor. Even when his mother brought homework to his hospital room, Evans had no clue how to complete it. He couldn’t when there were at least three different medication drips for him near his bed.

But all the days weren’t bad. During his stay, he made friends with the doctors and nurses.

“I got what I wanted,” Evans said.

But he didn’t get what he wanted to hear as he left the hospital. He was told he could not be involved in an activity for the next six months.

He couldn’t ride his bike.

He couldn’t run across the street to train on the soccer fields at Kaiser Elementary.

All those friends who visited him while he lay in the hospital, he couldn’t hang out with them, not even for a day at the beach during this past summer.

Yet, Evans knew and believed he would make his way back to the pitch. He was determined to wear those big gloves once again and stop shots for the Sailors.

What was his driving force? All the adversity from the collapsed lung? Not necessarily.

Evans was also out to prove himself.

His sophomore season marred by injury, Evans played but two games and then suffered a broken kneecap after a collision during practice in December of 2007. He was out for seven weeks.

His first varsity year didn’t go as planned.

Yes, Evans knows spontaneous. But he also knew he would return to the game. Even after he was out of shape after being idle for seven months.

“I really love playing soccer,” Evans said. “When I made varsity last year I didn’t get a chance to play and this year I wanted to play and show everyone what I could do.”

Evans’ mother also knew her son would go back to being a goalie for Newport Harbor. Dealing with the adversity actually turned out to be a good thing for her son, she said.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said. “It helps making the kid he is ... He’s such in a better place now. His attitude is better. It bounced him back to where his priorities should be. He knows he has to perform the best he can. He can’t take it for granted. He’s much more focused after having gone through that.”

Newport Harbor first-year coach Mike Ditta has seen a change in Evans during this season. Ditta has seen a rapid rise in his goalie ever since the winter break. Evans has had 40 saves in eight games and two shutouts, Ditta said.

“He has a strong presence,” Ditta said of Evans. “He is very determined and has shown a lot perseverance. He’s shown a lot of determination, for sure. And, he’s determined to be successful.”

The hurt hasn’t totally subsided for Evans. He still experiences growing pains, but there’s hardly any sting left from the collapsed lung. He tries to avoid any collisions.

If the pain does return, he’ll be ready.

“I have to carry an inhaler around in case something happens,” he said. “But I haven’t had to use it.”

He hopes he’ll never need to use it.

STEVE VIRGEN may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or by e-mail at [email protected].