Gymnastics' Iovino lands on her feet

When Jenn Iovino dismounted the balance beam Sunday, she did something that was once routine for the 21-year-old Terrapin gymnast: She stuck her landing.

But as the senior's feet hit the mat inside Comcast Center, something felt different.

"I just remember feeling an amazing sense of fulfillment," Iovino said Tuesday.

That fulfillment ran deep for the former top-five recruit. Deeper than the career-best 9.825 score she received. Even deeper than the meet's result — a dominating Terp sweep of Bridgeport, Temple and William & Mary.

"It was like every up and down I've had was leading up to that specific moment," Iovino said. "That feeling's what I've been working so hard for."

And for much of the past three and a half years, it seemed as though that feeling would never come for Iovino.

After competing for three years at the International Elite level, reserved for Olympic-caliber talent, the Olney resident decided in her junior year she would attend Alabama.

For the all-around winner at the 2006 Junior Olympic nationals, the four-time national champion Crimson Tide seemed a perfect fit.

"She could've gone anywhere she wanted," said Terp coach Brett Nelligan, who unsuccessfully recruited Iovino as an assistant five years ago. "She was that phenomenally good."

But a month after arriving in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Iovino's dream became what she called a "living hell."

She began feeling weak and lost her appetite. The 4-foot-11 Iovino lost 20 pounds in five months. She grew so exhausted that she needed help walking to the bathroom. She fainted regularly, sometimes as often as four times a week.

But living in the rural South, Iovino couldn't find a specialist able to provide her with any answers.

She spent eight months desperately searching for a diagnosis, her father flying in almost every weekend to accompany her to various doctor appointments across the state.

Finally, in April 2008, a Birmingham doctor gave Iovino the news that changed her life: She had dysautonomia, an extremely rare disease of the autonomic nervous system.

The condition affected her ability to carry out the processes most people take for granted, such as blinking. Iovino's doctor deemed her case "severe," ruling out any possibility of a return to gymnastics.

For someone who trained 40 hours a week during high school, adjusting to a life without the sport she loved wasn't easy.

"I had no closure," Iovino said. "It was like I woke up one day, and suddenly everything I knew was being taken away from me."

While her teammates began their competition schedule, Iovino struggled to get out of bed. She spent evenings crying on the phone with her little sister, Ali, as she grappled with her new reality more than 800 miles away from family and friends.

"It was so hard because I felt like there was nothing I could do," said Ali, a freshman on the Terrapin competitive cheer team. "I remember that I used to always ask her the same question: ‘When you really dig deep down, do you still have that same love for the sport?'"

Her answer was always yes.

Even while Iovino was placed on a medical scholarship, which allowed her to attend Alabama for free without competing in gymnastics, she couldn't shake her passion for the sport she took up as a 3-year-old.

"No matter what anyone told me, I never really thought my gymnastics career was completely over," she said. "Maybe I just wasn't fully willing to accept the severity of my situation, but I always wanted to compete again."

And then, in March of her sophomore year, the unexpected happened: She started feeling better. No longer in constant fear of fainting, she began exercising casually during the summer of 2009.

When she transferred to this university the following semester, her expectations were modest.

"When I came back home, my goal was just to be a normal student," Iovino said. "I wanted to earn my degree while focusing on getting my health back to where it needed to be."

Despite her best intentions, however, Iovino couldn't stop contemplating a return to gymnastics.

"I knew I wanted to give gymnastics a shot, but I had very basic ideas of what I would be able to do," she said. "It wasn't about being the best anymore, it was just about doing it because I love it."

So she called Nelligan — the same coach whose phone calls she ignored years before and who had just taken over the Terp program — and asked for an opportunity to join the team.

"When she called me, I was really excited," Nelligan said. "I mean, I already knew that she had this great gymnast inside of her. It was just going to be a matter of finding it again."

But for Iovino, "finding it" required more than getting back into shape or relearning a few routines. It meant a complete adjustment in how she approached day-to-day life.

A self-described perfectionist, she learned to be patient with herself.

"A lot of times, when I first got back into the sport, I got really frustrated with myself," Iovino said. "I would remember what I used to be able to do, and that'd cause me to get ahead of myself. I had to learn how to slow down, to take one step at a time."

After competing regularly on vault last year, Iovino is one of the No. 31 Terps' key contributors this season. While continuing to score consistently on vault, she's become one of Nelligan's top performers on beam — a fact evidenced by Sunday's 9.825.

"I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason," Iovino said. "If I hadn't gotten sick, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be the person I am today."

Iovino again stood firmly on the Comcast Center mat Sunday, both feet planted on the ground. For someone who was restricted to a hospital bed less than two years ago, it was quite the perfect landing.

letourneau@umdbk.com