New Trier’s Emma Jane Rohrer, seen here in earlier action this season, claimed a silver medal on the balance beam at the state meet. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER
Emma Jane Rohrer’s feet hit a mat at the state gymnastics meet last weekend. Thud. It was a good thud, a clean landing, the ending of another fine balance beam routine. The New Trier sophomore cracked a wide smile and raised her arms, striking a pose for the judges. The spectators at Palatine High School started to applaud.
Rohrer’s show, though, wasn’t over on Feb. 20. It was time to dance and celebrate and smile harder. Rohrer jumped straight up, her arms swaying on the way up and on the way down. The Trevian then hopped, hopped, hopped toward her coach, Jennifer Pistorius. The coach caught the gymnast. They hugged. Rohrer hopped some more before finding Loyola Academy senior Claire Sullivan, another state finalist on the balance beam and Rohrer’s good friend and Wilmette Gymnastics teammate. The two embraced.
“We call that her ‘Little dance of joy,’ ” Pistorius said of Rohrer’s post-routine reaction. “It’s silly. She’s silly. She’s also bubbly and genuine, totally genuine.”
Rohrer, a first-year high school gymnast, had another excellent excuse for displaying pure joy after the conclusion of the beam segment of the finals session. Her score of 9.45 tied two others for second place. The only other Trevian to have earned a silver medal in an event at a girls state gymnastics meet was Kathie Orwig, back in 1985, and she bowed for two of them (beam, all-around).
“I thought it would be worse, tougher, everybody watching me as I competed [in the finals],” Rohrer, still jumpy, still beaming, said after receiving her medal. “That doesn’t happen at club meets. What helped was hearing so many people cheer for me, not just [Pistorius], not just Claire. I heard Carmel’s team and DeKalb’s team supporting me.”
Rohrer nailed her beam gig at a regional meet on Feb. 2, scoring a 9.675. Dancing ensued. She received a 9.125 at a sectional, a 9.25 in the state preliminaries on Feb. 19. Sullivan had also advanced to the beam finals with a 9.25. The two buddies conversed and laughed during the beam finals warm-up session, significantly lightening up what could have been tension-filled minutes.
Sheli Sullivan, Claire’s mother/LA coach, sat in a bank of bleachers during the warm-up session, dealing with sweaty palms and heartfelt pride for a daughter that was impossible to measure.
“Right now,” Sheli, her eyes welling up, said, “I’m trying to savor every moment. I am so grateful to have been able to share this journey with Claire. The sport of gymnastics has done so much for my daughter. I look at her at meets like this, and I see confidence, see her surrounded by so many good people, so much kindness.”
Rohrer mounted the beam, finally. The waiting was over. She was laser-focused and serious on the unforgiving log, dead serious. She executed tricks, tricky maneuvers. How often did she visualize executing those tricky maneuvers before falling asleep during the season? Rohrer (13th in the all-around, 36.775, last weekend) looked clean from the start, strong and confident and smooth.
“I remember thinking, near the end of my routine, I’ve got this,” Rohrer, also a flutist and a badminton player, recalled. “But I couldn’t get too excited, because I had my back tuck coming up.”
She hit that. She hit everything.
“Emma killed her beam routine,” Claire Sullivan, a three-time state qualifier, said. “Amazing. That little ball of energy was amazing.”
Sullivan placed ninth (9.15) on beam, a fall-free routine, a year after falling once and finishing 10th at state in the same event. Her smile following her routine last weekend was Emma Jane Rohrer-ish. Lasting. And highly contagious.
Three journalists approached Rohrer, sporting her shiny prize, after Rohrer had descended from a podium step. Startled at first, she settled down, nodded a lot, answered every question, bounced a little. Each journalist extended his right hand to congratulate her after she answered the final question.
Rohrer shrugged and said, “So many hands.”
She shook them all and then took off, looking for friends and other finalists and other familiar faces. Claire Sullivan was one of Rohrer’s many friends.
“If the state gave out an award for goofiness, Emma Jane and I would probably tie for first place,” Sullivan said. “We’d be up there on a podium, laughing and waiting for our medals. Then she would push me off the podium.”