Prep Zone: Shanel’s true pain comes from not competing

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The pain was so searing, Katie Shanel had to force herself to listen to reason.

She had to quit.

Shanel, one of the standouts on the St. Charles co-op gymnastics team, left the team in January because she no longer could justify showcasing her graceful, precise movements when her back howled in agony.

She walked away for six days, then she was back.

The pain didn’t go away. Shanel just realized the other pain, the kind caused by leaving the sport she had adored since she was a toddler, was worse.

“I came in and I said ‘I’m done,’ and I don’t think anyone took me seriously,” Shanel said. “I don’t even think I took myself seriously.”

Shanel missed a pair of competitions before deciding to return for the rest of her senior season – a season that will end this weekend, when Shanel and her St. Charles teammates compete as a team at the IHSA State Gymnastics Meet in Palatine.

Shanel saw multiple doctors before it was determined early this season that she had a pars defect – stress fractures in her lower back.

She tries to treat the discomfort by applying heat, or popping Tylenol. The best treatment, she knows, would be to give gymnastics a rest, but that’s not a concession she’s willing to make.

“I come home and I’m like ‘What am I doing, this is the body I have to live with for the rest of my life,’ ” said Shanel, who realizes competing could further aggravate her injury. “Then I say I only have a month, then I only have three weeks. Now I only have three days.”

To tolerate such severe discomfort, you’d better love what you’re doing. That’s certainly the case with Shanel.

Why such devotion?

“The fact that not everyone can do it, and I’ve put my tears and sweat into the sport,” said Shanel, a team captain. “I love finishing a routine, and you know you nailed that routine, and you just feel so good about yourself. It’s such a rush. I just love it. It’s an amazing sport, and I know when I’m 50 years old, I’m going to watch those Olympic girls and be like, ‘I used to be that.’ ”

Shanel considers vault and floor exercise her top events, but she posted qualifying scores for the state meet in floor exercise and balance beam.

St. Charles coach Amy Lill said she was unsure where her team – also led by standouts Liz Fairweather, Stephanie de la Torriente and Danielle Goebbert – would stack up against the elite competition in Palatine.

Lill, though, expects St. Charles to be calmer than at last week’s sectional meet, when the pressure to advance to the state meet was intense after missing out last year.

“I’m hoping they can relax a little bit and just do what they’ve been doing all along,” Lill said.

There will be relief when the state meet is over, Shanel acknowledges, because she finally can give her ailing back the rest it craves. But the St. Charles East senior, who plans to attend college at Indiana University, said there was no regret in her decision to return for a few final weeks on the mat.

If she’s an inspiration to her teammates, Shanel said her friends had returned the favor.

“I guess I can be at times, but I know that they push me, too,” Shanel said. “I see them doing their skills and I’m like ‘They’re great, we’re great. We need to keep this up.’ ”

– Jay Schwab is sports editor of the Kane County Chronicle. He can be reached at 630-845-5382 or jschwab@kcchronicle.com.