Twenty-one. Young. Alive. Savy King survived the unthinkable in 2025. Mid-match against Utah Royals. Dizziness hits. She collapsed.
Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles became her temporary home. Open-heart surgery wasn’t optional, it was life-saving. Cardiac arrest strikes, but Savy didn’t go down.
Fast forward to today. More than a year later, she’s back on the pitch. Playing soccer again. The dream isn’t dead; it’s just heavier now.
“I knew that I was going to do everyday in my power to continue to do chase my dreams.” She said this on the latest Strong Like episode. A lot of people face cardiac events. Scary stuff. If her story pushes others to keep moving, that’s the silver lining. The best thing out of it, maybe.
Does she treat herself like glass?
No. She sweats six days a week. Five days of hard training. Two lifting sessions specifically. One for pulling, one for pressing. The weekend match caps it off. Her routine? Looks just like the rest of the team’s.
“Training for me right now looks exactly like it does to everybody else.”
She’s not the “girl with the bad heart” anymore. Just a normal athlete. Treating herself differently would only hold her back. So she trains like a machine.
Arm days? Those are her favorite.
The results show up. Dumbbell bench presses. TRX rows. Landmine push presses. Med ball throws. The work is brutal, deliberate. It works.
Her perspective has shifted though. Nothing is free anymore. Every single day in that facility? Amazing. Every kick of the ball? A gift.
“Every single day that I gets to come play soccer is just an amazing day.”
Not taking it for granted isn’t a phrase on a poster here. It’s her baseline.
Savy King is back. Not perfectly healthy, perhaps. But present. Active. Real.
Go listen to her talk about it. Press play on Strong Like. See what resilience looks like when it doesn’t have a finish line. 🎧
Video Credits:
– Executive Producer: Dorenna Newton
– Producer: Angel Lenise Pyles
– Director of Photography: Danny Dwyer
