Gophers gymnast knows the art of falling - and rising

In 2009, Alexis Russell's goal of making the NCAA championships crashed to the mat when she slipped off the balance beam at the regional meet. It wasn't the first time the Gophers gymnast had fallen, nor was it her hardest landing.

That happened years earlier, when Russell's painful tumble from her sport's highest level caused her to walk away from gymnastics at age 14. Her physical and emotional healing took nearly two years, but that long journey back gave Russell the strength to complete her more recent resurgence. The girl who once packed up her medals to avoid any reminder of the gym is now the confident, committed woman who will end her career at this week's NCAA championships.

Russell learned as a kid that even the most gifted athletes can be stung by sports' unforgiving nature. Instead of leaving her embittered, the experience helped her gain the one thing she lacked the first time around: emotional fortitude. That set up her big finish at the NCAA meet, where the senior will compete in the all-around Thursday in Gainesville, Fla.

"I'm just now peaking as a gymnast, which is crazy," said Russell, a Tartan High graduate from Maplewood. "A lot of people would think I would have peaked when I was a lot younger. But right now, I'm the best competitor I've ever been, because I can be mentally strong as well as physically strong.

"Before, I was so mentally weak, I wasn't consistent. Now I know I'm not going to give up. You're going to go through hard times, and things might not always happen as you want them to. But I've learned you have to keep pushing and make the best of it."

Gophers coach Meg Stephenson first saw her years ago, before Russell moved to Kansas City to train with a club that has produced Olympians and national team members. Stephenson remembers her husband, Jim, predicting that Russell would be the best gymnast ever to come from Minnesota.

By age 13, Russell had risen to the elite level -- the highest in the sport -- and was invited to join the noted Dragon Gymnastics program. She moved to Missouri with her mother, Barbara. Her dad, Anthony, and her two brothers stayed in Minnesota.

Russell trained six hours a day, six days a week. Her appealing combination of grace and power allowed her to keep up with teammates Terin Humphrey and Courtney McCool, who would compete in the 2004 Olympics. But two stress fractures in her back were followed by a torn stomach muscle and sciatic nerve damage in her calf. She wasn't comfortable in her new school, and she missed her dad and brothers.

Combined with the pressure of a hyper-intense training environment, it all became too much.

"At the end of the school year, we packed up our stuff and left," Russell said. "It wasn't fun any more, and I was hurting so bad, it was like God was saying, 'Alexis, you've got to go home.' I made up my mind that I was done with gymnastics."

Back at Tartan, Russell ran track and cross country and enjoyed the social life she'd missed during all those hours in the gym. One day, she saw a college gymnastics meet on ESPN and thought: I can do those skills. The team environment looked like fun, so she decided to give high school gymnastics a try.

The act of returning on her own terms, for her own fulfillment, rekindled the spark. And once Russell got rolling, she realized how much she missed being really, really good. Though she was entering the college recruiting process late in the game, she began contacting schools and resumed serious training with the Perpetual Motion club team in Woodbury.

Meg and Jim Stephenson hadn't seen Russell since she was 12, and they had no idea what had happened to her -- until they spotted her competing as a high school junior. "Jim said, 'Meg, do you know who that is?'"' Meg Stephenson recalled. "We were excited to see her. In a sense, we took a chance on her. But we knew her potential."

Finding the strength to try again, and working her way back into high-level competition, inspired Russell to strive even harder over the past two seasons. After falling just short of qualifying for the NCAA championships last year, she wrote down 40 goals for this season and developed a focused, disciplined plan to achieve them. Russell has devoted hours to studying her competition, scrutinized her form to the smallest detail and bypassed parties to spend more time in the gym.

Chapter 2 of her gymnastics career ends this week. Like the previous one, it will always be part of her.

"Having that chance to do something and making it happen, that makes me so excited for life," Russell said. "I've grown so much and learned so much and proven so much to myself. I feel like I'm ready for anything."

Rachel Blount • rblount@startribune.com