Imagine your favorite activity, be it sport, hobby or pastime.

Now imagine you are young, healthy by all appearances and ready to represent your hometown college team in your lifelong passion. Great, right?

Just one problem: You’ve just been told by a doctor you can’t do that activity any more. Not this month, this year or even the next few years. Period, game over.

That’s the sad story of Janelle Nomura, a 21-year-old senior point guard with the Hawaii women’s basketball team. A history of concussions — eight total and five in four years since she went off to Cal State Northridge from Punahou in 2009 — has robbed her of the ability to play without fear of permanent brain damage.

"I think it’s hitting me more and more every day," she said. "At first I was kind of just shocked."

She suffered the most recent blow to the head while going for a rebound in a Rainbow Wahine open gym session over the summer. A teammate collided either head-to-head or elbow-to-head with her — Nomura wasn’t sure which. After finishing that game and playing one more, she became woozy and needed teammates’ help getting back to the locker room.

"A bummer," first-year coach Laura Beeman said. "She was looking good in April in our individual (workouts). Then she took that hit, and I was concerned when she took it that she was going to be shut down."

Some time later, they knew for sure. "The team doctor wanted a second opinion, so I went to see a neurologist at Straub," Nomura said. "And when he asked about my concussion history, he just, his whole body language. … He was just shaking his head. After I was done (being evaluated) he just plainly just put it like, ‘I’m not going to clear you to play ever again. Any contact sports ever again.’

"I can’t really put into words what I felt. But yeah, my heart just dropped."

The 5-foot-4 guard hasn’t played an official game since midway through her sophomore year at CSUN, thanks to a bout with pneumonia in Big West play that season. But the prevailing thought among the team was that Nomura, a walk-on, could contribute and share time at the point with newcomers Monica DeAngelis and Marissa Wimbley once she shook the rust off. The two-time state champ at Punahou earned BWC All-Freshman honors and started 27 games over two seasons with the Matadors.

Nomura will go through the program without playing a game for the Rainbow Wahine, a crushing fact for a player who came home to play in front of her family — specifically her grandparents and uncle, diehard UH sports fans. She was on the team last season but had to sit out as a Division I transfer and also while she rehabbed a shoulder injury.

UH junior Shawna Kuehu would joke with Nomura about being a part of the "Black Squad" together last year. That’s the group of players at the end of the bench in black sweatpants who must sit out game action.

The joke is harder to execute these days for the former Buffanblu teammates.

"It sucks because in life we always want our options. To get one of them, and probably the main one for her, taken away, I can’t imagine how she feels," Kuehu said. "I know she was really depressed about it in the beginning. But me and Ash (Karaitiana) pretty much had her back, saying (stay) on the team, at least have a spot in basketball, have some presence in basketball, even though you can’t be on the court."

Nomura has since transitioned into a managerial role for the Wahine. On Monday, she operated the team video camera while the team practiced for its upcoming exhibition vs. Hawaii-Hilo on Oct. 26.

"Whatever I can do to help out, non-contact. Hopefully I can get in some passing drills and be a passer," Nomura said with a laugh. "But I think all the action I’m going to get is manager work."

Beeman could empathize to an extent. She blew out a knee before her senior year of high school and was told by a doctor she probably wouldn’t play again. But she worked her way back eventually to play at Cal State San Bernardino.

"I remember the moment I was told that. It was gut-wrenching, because that was my passion, it’s what I wanted to do," Beeman said.

"The girls enjoy Janelle. Janelle enjoys them. We’re a family. So we’ll keep her around in any capacity that we can. … I think she’ll be a positive voice on the bench for us, and I think she’ll be a good person to throw reminders out there."

Nomura can see herself getting into coaching one day, or at least helping out at the Kalakaua basketball clinics for starters.

For now, she’ll watch from the sideline and contemplate the what-ifs.

"It was just a series of totally unfortunate events," she said.