All great athletes have to figure out ways to stay on top of their sports. There are trials and tribulations and injuries that they cannot control.
Park City High School’s Megan Glasmann is learning that the hard way.
A star thrower on the Miner track & field team, Glasmann, a junior, suffered a vicious blow to the jaw during a high school basketball game on Nov. 29, 2011. An opponent grabbed a rebound and flung her head backward, right into the right side of Glasmann’s jaw.
She suffered a fracture and, on a more serious note, a concussion. Six months later, Megan Glasmann is still reeling from the symptoms, which returned at random in early May.
She can’t focus in class the way she’d like to. Sunlight can trigger headaches. Loud noises throw her off. She’s had to wear earplugs to class to try to battle the simplest of sounds. Taking tests cause dizziness.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the fight for Glasmann has been the impact of the concussion-related symptoms on her training.
“I’m fighting for it,” she said. “I don’t get the chance to train very often. I can’t do much of anything.”
As her mother, Niki Glasmann, explained, the symptoms returned, around the time of the Region 10 championship meet in Heber City. Megan took a couple tests and became dizzy. After throwing discus at region on May 10, she didn’t practice again until the day before the state meet a week later.
She said she described the feeling to a group of friends at school this way: “When you have a toy and you put batteries in it, it works, but it doesn’t work right. If it’s supposed to say something, it doesn’t say it the right way. I go to class, and even though I’m there and listening, I can’t do it the same way I could earlier.”
She took a concussion impact test on Dec. 30, 2011, but since there was no initial impact test following the concussion, there was no baseline data to compare the results to.
“It’s just an injury that really prohibited any growth this season,” she said.
However, her performances beg to differ.
On April 23, she set a new 3A state record in the girls’ javelin at the Taylorsville Invitational, throwing 143 feet and six inches.
Three weeks later, she did one better. At the 3A state track & field championships, she threw 149.025 feet, topping the entire field by more than 18 feet and setting new personal and state records.
Prior to her last javelin throw, Niki, her mother and lifelong coach, told Megan that this was her opportunity. “She was looking good, felt good — and it all came together,” Niki said.
Glasmann won the 3A girls’ discus championship as well, repeating the double state championship she won a year ago as a sophomore.
On paper and in the trophy case, her accomplishments are astounding. Park City track coach Jeff Wyant has called her “one of the best athletes to ever come through the high school.”
But for Glasmann, the fight continues — dealing with the symptoms of a lingering concussion and wrestling with becoming the best she can be.
“Even though a throw is considered exercise, it is very short-lived,” she said. “This summer is going to be a lot of rebuilding once I get better.”
The summer is when Glasmann’s real season begins. She is scheduled to make multiple stops at prestigious track & field meets around the nation.
One big competition is on her mind and the minds of the whole Glasmann clan: the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., in late June. To qualify for the Trials, javelin throwers have to meet the A standard of throwing 55 meters, which is roughly 180 feet, or the B standard of 50 meters, roughly 165 feet. A thrower who meets that A standard automatically qualifies for the trials. Hitting the B standard means you’re on the bubble.
“I find if you’re humble and you underestimate yourself, you’re more willing to go out there and try your best,” she said. “Because you don’t expect to be good. Granted, I might be the best in the state right now. I don’t look at the state as my standard. My goal is to make that Olympic-qualifying standard. I can’t compare myself to the state, even though there are incredible throwers at the state level.
“Nationally, I have to look at it and I have to be that caliber.”
Trying to get to that standard will be a challenge, but so will warding off younger sister Chrissy, a freshman, as their careers move forward. Right now, 15-year-old Chrissy is farther along in throws than Megan, 17, was at her age.
Last week, UCLA, a school that has kept in contact with Megan, sent a questionnaire letter to the Glasmann residence addressed to Chrissy. The family thought it was a mistake.
Turns out the Bruins already have the younger Glasmann on their radar.
“I’m a freshman, so I’m doing my best,” Chrissy said.
Added Megan: “I have to thrower farther than her, always.”
Megan said she keeps in contact with a number of schools including: Stanford, Duke, Yale, Brown, UCLA, New Mexico State, Princeton and a few others.
According to Niki, once July 1 rolls around, schools can officially call the Glasmann household and give their best pitch.
“I wonder what will happen July 1,” she said, laughing.
Dealing with the peaks and valleys of concussion-related symptoms has presented a stiff challenge for Megan Glasmann, but she said trying her best to move forward is the only way to go.
And recognition from some of the best schools in the country doesn’t hurt, either.
“I’m just thrilled to see them happy with the way I’m performing because, for me, I’m sometimes disappointed with how I’m doing, and to have that reassurance by other people is sometimes nice to keep me going,” she said. “As an athlete, you always want that.”