Girls gymnastics: H-F’s Adkins ready for season

Updated: November 15, 2011 7:20PM

It’s been a grinding road to recovery for Homewood-Flossmoor’s Ciara Adkins, one in which the gymnast continually has doubts about the condition of her knee after grueling stints in physical therapy.

Now, two years and two surgeries removed from her initial affliction, Adkins owns a newfound confidence in her gymnastic abilities. Perhaps more significant, she’s remained optimistic while becoming healthier than she has felt in years.

“I’m taking hold of my fears of being injured,” Adkins said. “It’s such a good feeling for me to get through this and feel healthy.”

During the sectional meet in her sophomore year, Adkins was walking off the floor when she felt her knee lock up. Adkins suffered a rare injury called Osteochondritis dissecans, which caused a piece of her femur to break off and become lodged in her knee.

Surgery was required, and after rehabilitation, Adkins returned to the team for her junior year. Unfortunately, her knee hadn’t properly healed, resulting in a second surgery and another stint in physical therapy.

Despite these setbacks, Adkins is a three-time sectional qualifier. The senior has her sights on making it to the state meet, something she narrowly missed last season on the balance beam.

“I was really concerned with my knee last season,” Adkins said. “I was limited in some of the moves I wanted to try, and that limited some of the scores I was receiving. Now that I finally feel healthy, I’m hoping I can get downstate in my last year.”

H-F coach Kathryn Stolzenbach has been impressed with Adkins’ resolve. She knows Adkins has dealt with mental boundaries over the past few seasons, and Stolzenbach is proud of the way she’s bounced back and taken a leadership role as one of two seniors on the team.

“I don’t know if you will find anyone who is more likable than Ciara,” Stolzenbach said. “She’s soft-spoken, but people listen to her. She knows how to be a real leader, and it helps that she gets along with everybody on the team.”

And while Stolzenbach admires Adkins’ warm personality, the coach is just as impressed with her senior’s mind.

“She is incredibly intelligent,” Stolzenbach said. “I’m a science teacher, and I can talk physics with specifics to gymnastics with her. She understands those concepts and their relationship very well.”

Adkins’ smarts easily are spotted when looking at H-F’s class rankings. She ranks first in her class of 707 students on an unweighted scale, and second on the weighted. Over the summer she was selected to MIT’s Minority Introduction To Engineering and Sciences program.

One of 80 students who spent six weeks on campus taking a variety of classes, Adkins was selected to stay at the institution from a list of more than 1,400 candidates. And while it can be tough a tough mixture to calculate, Adkins believes she’s found a symmetry between class and gymnastics.

“Academics will always come before athletics,” said Adkins, who also plays softball in the spring. “I might have to stay up a little later during the season, but you just have to push through and balance them.”

She’s hoping she can find that same balance on the beam.

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