Nervousness filled her body.
After all, this was it. She had finally made it. This was not another vault; this was for THE national championship. But that’s not what she told herself, and why should it be? In the last two meets at the NCAA Championships senior Ashleigh Clare-Kearney nailed her two vault attempts, earning 9.95’s both times.
Her journey to national titles was about to become complete, but it almost ended three years ago before it even really began.
In the first meet of her sophomore season Clare-Kearney stepped onto the floor exercise mat to do her routine not knowing it was the last time she would compete that season. She broke her foot and was forced to sit out the entire season and take a medical redshirt. The news was tough for Clare-Kearney because she had never experienced an injury that would sideline her like this.
“Sitting out that year, I went through a lot,” Clare-Kearney said. “It was more than my foot. I had a wrist injury too. That was tough to overcome. I also had a terrible semester in school.”
Just like that, things seemed to be spiraling downward as she struggled with the weight of the situation. The doctors told her she had a 50-50 chance of ever competing again because of the severity of her foot injury, and it was almost too much to bear.
“But sometimes that’s what has to happen. You have to hit rock bottom to start to pick yourself up and do things you are capable of doing,” Clare-Kearney said. “I’m a very different person.”
Looking back on that year off from gymnastics Clare-Kearney is filled with appreciation because she will be the first to say she matured, grew up and began to understand what it took to be a successful student-athlete.
Bound and determined not only to return to the gym but to come back better than when she left, Clare-Kearney worked tirelessly by doing any exercise her doctor said was acceptable.
When the 2007 season rolled around Clare-Kearney exploded onto the national scene, becoming the nation’s top-ranked all-arounder while securing First Team All-SEC status. Her name quickly spread around the collegiate gymnastics community, and Clare-Kearney’s mentality began to change.
“Before my redshirt sophomore year I just wanted to be in the all-around, contribute and hopefully be an All-American,” she said. “The biggest difference between that year and my junior year was that I knew I could be a national champion and that’s what I wanted.”
Her redshirt sophomore year she became ill at the NCAA Championships in Salt Lake City and had to go to the hospital, missing out on her chance to compete for an individual national championship.
In her junior season in 2008, all eyes were on Clare-Kearney at the NCAA Championships in Athens, Ga., because she entered the championships ranked in the top five on both vault and floor ? her two best events. In the NCAA prelims Clare-Kearney suffered her worst vault of the season, a 9.775 that kept her from competing for the national title. Although she finished tied for fourth on bars at the Individual Event Championships, floor exercise is the event where she was expected to make a run at a title.
Clare-Kearney came up short, finishing 12th on floor with a 9.7625 average. She was crushed and disappointed, but she would not be deterred. She pushed herself all summer and came into her senior season in 2009 with a mentality of unquestioned leadership and confidence.
In her senior season her team made the Super Six for the second straight year, and Clare-Kearney had finally earned a chance to compete for a vault national title as well as a title on bars and floor.
Flash forward to the end of the season ? the NCAA Individual Event Finals ? and we see Clare-Kearney ready to go out on top.
“Don’t try harder; just let it happen, and whatever is meant to be will be,” she told herself when her name was called to step onto the vault runway.
She smiled, saluted the head judge and stared down at the vault. While her teammates right above her cheered wildly and screamed her name and all eyes in the arena squared themselves on her muscular frame, Clare-Kearney muttered two words.
“No expectations.”
With these calming words she cleared her mind, blocked out everything, and took off down the runway. Gaining speed as she ran, Clare-Kearney followed through her typical motions, making sure her arms were by her ears as she hurdled onto the vault. Clare-Kearney flew through the air, feet together as she twisted and turned.
When her feet hit the ground with an enormous force everyone in the stadium gasped because she did not move ? not an inch and not a muscle.
After realizing the near-flawlessness she had just completed Clare-Kearney thought to herself, “OK, I’ll take it. That was pretty good.”
The LSU section was going wild as were the LSU announcers sitting up high in the upper press area because they knew they had just witnessed a championship performance.
The scores flashed: four 10’s and two 9.95’s for an average of 9.9875. She was in the lead.
As she walked back to the beginning of the runway she was met by LSU’s vaulting coach Bob Moore who showed no excitement because Clare-Kearney still had one more vault to do.
In order to win the national championship on vault, a gymnast must compete two different vaults back to back, and Clare-Kearney’s near-perfect vault was her first.
“You take the same run, the same approach and don’t run faster,” Clare-Kearney remembers Moore telling her as she slowly walked back to perform her second vault.
When Clare-Kearney reached head coach D-D Breaux, she received some last second coaching. Clare-Kearney knew she had given herself a nice cushion with her first vault, so for this more difficult attempt she knew all she needed to do was stay on her feet to have a strong chance to be a national champion.
As Clare-Kearney stood on the vault runway for one final time in her career she saluted the judge, stared straight ahead at her destiny and said confidently to herself, “I got this.”
With those words she took off, hurdled onto the pummel horse, but something was wrong. She accidentally bent her arms on the horse, so in order to gain enough momentum to twist her body straight on the way down Clare-Kearney squeezed every muscle in her body like she had never squeezed before.
She landed on her feet, took a small step back but remained standing.
Just like that she had completed the final vault of her career ? the event that she dominated for four years in college. All that was left was to see her final tally and watch the last two competitors perform.
Clare-Kearney’s average flashed: a 9.9 even. She was in the lead, surpassing teammate Susan Jackson who was now in second.
Both gymnasts after Clare-Kearney did not score high enough, and when the final gymnast’s average was shown, Clare-Kearney and Jackson began celebrating while the Tiger faithful cheered incessantly.
Clare-Kearney was a national champion at last!
“D-D told us that I finished first and Susan came in second, so we jumped up and down and were hugging each other while all our fans chanted ?L-S-U.’ It was an amazing feeling,” she said.
But the night wasn’t over. She still had to compete on floor. Being ranked No. 1 in the event most of the season, Clare-Kearney knew she could win the title, but after capturing the vault championship she was on cloud nine and her nervousness was gone. Her mentality going into floor was not that this was her final chance to win a title because she already captured one an hour earlier. Her mentality was to have fun and show everyone on the big stage what she can do on her favorite event.
“I love competing floor, just being able to show my personality on that event,” she said. “I just wanted go out there, compete and do my best because it is the last chance I would ever get to compete. It would be closing a chapter, so I wanted to end on a good note.”
And did she ever end on a good note.
Georgia’s Courtney Kupets finished her floor routine with a 9.9500 average, and no one was able to tie or beat it until the very last competitor took to the floor.
With the LSU fans cheering “A-C-K, A-C-K” Clare-Kearney walked onto the floor exercise mat and took her position. When her floor music started for one final time, she began to perform. As she went through her choreography two of her friends from Florida’s team began doing the moves with her from the sideline.
“When I saw them doing my routine with me, it made me clear my mind and just have fun,” she said. “It made me relax because it was funny but it was also great to see that support from other teams.”
She stuck all of her passes and when she finished her routine the entire crowd began cheering as everyone waited to find out if she could tie or beat Kupets for the national title.
The scores went up and Clare-Kearney came away with a 9.9500 average which tied Kupets and gave Clare-Kearney her second national title of the night.
She began celebrating with her coaches and teammates while the fans cheered her name once more.
She did it. Clare-Kearney’s storybook tale was complete. The gymnast from Manchester, Conn., who was barely recruited out of high school, who had suffered a season-ending injury in which she was only given a 50 percent chance to return, had done it.
Ashleigh Clare-Kearney was a national champion.
Not only that, but she became the first LSU gymnast to win two national titles, and she did it in one meet.
She cemented her name as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, gymnasts in LSU history. She finished her career with more individual event titles than anyone by racking up 114, none bigger than the final two.
She had made it to the top, carried two teams to the Super Six for the first time in LSU history, and she ended her career by winning titles on her two favorite events.
Clare-Kearney will tell anybody if she had to go back to the beginning and start the process all over again that she would not change a thing.
The national champion Clare-Kearney simply says, “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Going Out with a Bang: Clare-Kearney?s Rise to the Top