by Adrienne J. Mullikin
Fifteen career scores of 9.9 or higher. Six all-East Atlantic
Gymnastics League selections on floor, bars, and beam. A
four-time National Association
of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches Scholastic all-American. A two-time
GTE/College Sports Information Directors of America District
II second team all-American.
All of these accolades belong to WVU gymnast Jessica Nonnemacher.
Unfortunately, this impressive sequence of awards and honors came to a devastating halt on March 6, 1998.
The Mountaineer gymnastics team was competing at Arizona State that day with Ball State and Central Michigan. Nonnemacher had already scored a team-high 9.85 after an exquisite floor routine, tying her for second overall. When the Mountaineers headed to bars, Nonnemacher was slated third in the rotation.
"Right before I started the routine, I said to Jay [Ronayne, assistant gymnastics coach], This is gonna be huge!" Nonnemacher recalled. "He said, OK, Jess, just make it safe."
"I learned this trick [a reverse hecht] when I was very little, and got scared of it, and I came to college and said, Ya know, Jay, I think I can do that. So I learned it and he put it in my routine and it was great. I loved making it huge.
"I remember going and thinking, This is going to be the best routine. I threw the bar, and I looked down, and I could see the bar, and I was like, Yes! This is going to be huge! My fingertips touched, and Jay moved back, thinking I had the bar, and I just went crashing into the ground.
"At that point people had heard snaps and stuff and I didn't know what had happened. I was just stunned that I didn't catch this trick. I was stiff on the floor, and I looked down and my right leg was deformed.
When I saw that, I screamed. At that point everyone was quiet."
The original diagnosis was a torn posterior cruciate ligament [PCL] in her right knee, which would not require surgery. But when Nonnemacher tried to stand up, she discovered that her left leg hurt just as much.
"They put me in a wheelchair, called my parents, and we stayed there for a couple more days," Nonnemacher said. "I had to lie in the aisle of the plane because I couldn't sit since my leg was immobilized.
"When I got back I saw Dr. [David] Stohl [the team doctor], and he said, I have good news! It's not your PCL. The bad news was, I had torn both my anterior cruciate ligaments, my middle cruciate ligament and cartilage in my right knee, and lateral cruciate ligament and cartilage in my left knee."
Nonnemacher had set
career highs on all five events including the all-around that
year, but the resulting double knee surgery forced the graceful
gymnast to miss the remainder of her junior year. She soon realized
that as a result of the terrible fall, it was not a question
of when was she going to compete for the Mountaineers again,
but how soon would she be able to walk again.
"I decided that I had to rehabilitate and get my muscles strong," Nonnemacher recalled. "I didn't want to miss school. So I finished the semester and decided, the sooner the better to get into surgery. I backed up my finals to dead week and had surgery finals week.
"I had seen another doctor in Pennsylvania and he told me do it one knee at a time. And I said, Well why not two? I want to get back fast! I ended up getting both done at the same time, and thank God I did, because if I had done it one at a time, you wouldn't have gotten me in there for the other one! It was terrible.
"I was in two immobilizers and people called me Robocop," Nonnemacher said, laughing. "I had keys to all the elevators and I had a handicapped pass. Then, I went through surgery for about six weeks until I was running. It was still an awkward run on the treadmill at the football stadium, and I just kept progressing. Dave Kerns [the head football trainer] convinced me to run for the first time.
"Dave had me in tears one day because when you go through this surgery you come out with your legs completely straight and you're not allowed to move your knees. So they took the immobilizers off, and he had to teach me to walk again. I took them off and I was like, All right, let's walk! And I stood up, and I was like a deer in headlights.
"He held out his arms and said, Walk to me, like parents do to their children, and I didn't think he was serious. He kept encouraging me and I had to remember to pick up one foot, put it down, and by the time I got to him I was so tired. He kept encouraging me to try to walk back and I didn't know if I could.
"It's a whole learning process again. So going from that first day, to six weeks later running on that treadmill was amazing. The trainers were amazed at that. It was a struggle for both of us, but I made a close friend there."
Head Coach Linda Burdette expected nothing less from Nonnemacher.
"Jess will do anything she puts her mind to," said Burdette. "She's very goal-oriented and she sets her sights high. I advised her to just get back to normal and not to worry about gymnastics. I think that's because I'm a mother. I can't imagine having my daughter go through what she's gone through."
Nonnemacher returned for a fifth year, and when WVU traveled to Penn State in February, she exhibitioned on bars for the first time in nearly two years. Though she scored only a 9.65, the Penn State Athletic Department presented her with the Anne Carr Most Inspirational Performance Award, normally given to a Penn State gymnast.
The very next week, Nonnemacher returned to the bars lineup at the Nebraska Masters Classic, scoring a 9.7. She saw action in each of the next four meets, two of which fulfilled her goal of performing before the home crowd again.
After placing second at the Region 2 championship in Minneapolis, Minn., the gymnastics team qualified for a second straight trip to the national championship in Boise, Idaho. For the third time in as many tries the Mountaineers finished 12th. Nonnemacher posted a 9.6 on bars in the final performance of her collegiate career.
"I'm not the kind of person that it's going to keep me down," said Nonnemacher of the strain she endured the past two years. "Maybe that's why I had to have this year, as a closure kind of a thing. I just want to be me, and gymnastics will always be a part of me."
The Reading, Pa., native graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in public relations.
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