“Savy. Stay with us.”
The medic’s hands slap her face. It’s a hard, urgent motion. The ambulance is tearing through LA traffic, heading to Cedars-Sinai. This is the last thing she hears. Then nothing. Black out.
It was May 9, 2025. She had been playing for Angel City FC. Her twin mom, her single mom—both were there, screaming her name from the stands. Mother’s Day. Perfect weather. Perfect start.
Until the 74th minute
She had just helped score a goal. Then the dizziness hit. Not a little sway. A total tilt of the world. She looked up at the crowd—20,000 people staring. No hiding. No fading away gracefully. Just falling.
“I grabbed my calf,” she says now. Distracting herself. Trying to ground it. “I wasn’t doing well.”
Her body went limp. Teamed swarmed. Hollie Walusz, the head athletic trainer, jumped into action. CPR. Fast. Hard. Life-saving. Without Walusz, there is no article. There is no Savy King standing in front of you today.
She woke up May 13. The surgery was over. Open-heart. One thought echoed in her skull.
Can I play again?
Born For It
Savy King doesn’t do things by half. Her moms are athletes—Karrie King ran, Kim Parker King played hoops. Savy and her brother Parker did it all. Flag football. Track. Soccer.
She tried soccer because her best friend did. She liked it immediately. “Yeah,” she said to herself. “This is the one.”
Fast forward. She was 18. Third youngest ever drafted into the NWSL. Went to UNC Chapel Hill. Drafted second overall by Bay FC.
She didn’t stay there long. Fit issues. So she requested a transfer back to home. Angel City FC. Playing alongside icons like Crystal Dunn and Sydney Leroux. Living minutes from her old house in Thousand Oaks. The drive to practice is the same drive she used for school.
I watched her warm up in 2026. Spring sun. Blue sky. Her moves were effortless. Precise. Like dance.
On my left, Kim leans in.
“Can you believe she had open-heart surgery last year?”
I can’t.
I just saw her crush a strength session an hour before this. She looks like everyone else. She moves like a champion. Hard to reconcile with the woman lying on a stretcher, gasping for air, eleven months prior.
The Wrong Tube
The tests at Cedars-Sinai were a nightmare of uncertainty. No prior issues. No caffeine. No alcohol. She was healthy. 20 years old. Strong.
Doctors were confused.
Turns out, her heart was wired wrong. Born this way. Anomalous coronary artery. The left artery wasn’t where it should be. It narrowed. It choked off blood flow.
Surgery fixed it. Cut the tension. Corrected the course.
It could have happened sooner. On the track. In gym class. But it happened when it happened. And she’s alive to thank the trainers who didn’t blink.
Slow Is The Only Way
Recovery wasn’t heroic. It was boring. It was painful. It was slow.
Two miles per hour. That’s how fast she walked. Ten minutes max. Per day.
She couldn’t sweat. Couldn’t strain. Had to sleep on her back. Rode in the backseat of cars with a pillow over her chest—just in case of impact. Couldn’t even shower alone.
Three months of cardiac rehab. Monitoring. Heart rates checked. Monitors beeped.
She hated being away. Away from the locker room. Away from the grass. August finally came. Clearance granted. Practice returned. She said she could “finally breathe.”
But you don’t just sprint back. You crawl.
“It went against every instinct,” Savy says. The competitive drive screamed push. The body whispered stop.
She talked to teammates with ACL tears. Learned their pain. Borrowed their patience. Prayed. A lot. “God has a plan,” she’d say. Trusting the process when the process felt like prison.
Nine months post-surgery, she’s on the field. Worrying about the ball hitting her chest. Taping up extra padding just to feel safe.
March 2026 arrives. Home opener. She’s ready.
Nervous? Yes. Happy? Yes. But mostly, she’s back.
Making It Count
She doesn’t want to be known as the girl who passed out. She wants to be the player who scored. But she isn’t ignoring what happened.
She launched Savy King of Hearts. A nonprofit. Why?
Because CPR saved her. And maybe it can save others.
They worked with the AHA and NWSL. Every staff member. Every player. CPR certified. The first pro league in America to mandate it. Then they teamed up with Walgreens for ads. Awareness.
She met Damar Hamlin. The Buffalo Bills player. His arrest happened in 2023. Different game, same scare. Same lesson. They worked together at the Super Bowl. Connecting the dots.
“It was awesome to meet someone who went through something similar.”
Just Savy
At 21, she has perspective that people chase for decades. Life isn’t guaranteed. Not on Sundays. Not on Saturdays. Not in practice.
She wants to travel. Australia. Europe. Learn guitar. Write a book.
She used to be shy. Now she advocates. Speaks out. Talks about the hard stuff.
“Little Savy” would have kept going. She didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
Is the future certain? No. But she’s playing the ball now. Watching where it goes. Taking each pass.
Who knows where the next one lands?
