Sports: NFA’s Shea Gendron is The Day’s All-Area Softball Player of the Year
Senior C Shea Gendron establishes NFA’s all-time hits record, all the while fighting an oftentimes debilitating illness
On the outside, Shea Gendron is an all-state catcher, hard-nosed (she once knocked herself out running head first into a pole while chasing a foul ball), the power hitter opposing pitchers are least happy to see.
Among the best players in the Eastern Connecticut Conference, Gendron, a Norwich Free Academy senior, hit .430 this season and was named The Day's 2018 All-Area Softball Player of the Year. NFA's all-time hits leader with 139, she will continue her career at Western Connecticut State University.
On the inside, however, Gendron wages a daily fight in an attempt to make things look normal on the outside.
She often succeeds, making the wide-ranging symptoms of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome — POTS — seem almost imperceptible. The symptoms, which come from the reduced blood volume that occurs when standing up, according to the Mayo Clinic's on-line site, include lightheadedness, fainting and rapid heartbeat, fatigue, inability to exercise, nausea, anxiety and blurred vision.
“There's never a moment in my life I don't feel like I need to lay down,” Gendron said recently, having capped her second straight season earning Class LL all-state honors. “I have an elevator pass (at school). It's just such an inconvenience with everything I do. It's really terrible.
“I'm supposed to outgrow it, but I have a feeling I'm not going to, how hard it's hit me and how hard it's made it for me. It's not something I like about myself. … I've been really good friends with the nurse.”
“There are days it gets to be a lot. Last year in the spring was pretty bad. I just couldn't get out of bed. I thought, ‘I can't live like that. There's things I want to do with my life.'” SHEA GENDRON
Gendron's mom, Amy, was still asleep one morning a few years ago, the first time her daughter passed out and crashed to the ground.
“I wasn't very helpful,” Amy Gendron said. “I was hysterical. But we have great doctors at Boston Children's. … I wish she could be whatever normal is, but it's her battle and she's handling it — not always perfectly. (But) it's been amazing to watch the last few years. It's definitely been ups and downs, but school, they're so supportive. I couldn't ask for a better support team.
“When she feels good, she just really works hard.”
Gendron lives her life with persistence. And yet, as her mother points out, it isn't always perfect.
Gendron, for instance, because of her illness, has a difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. Sometimes, she could make it to school but couldn't drive due to dizziness, with Amy giving her a ride. She missed her first class of the day, DNA science, upwards of 40 times. That's a lot of catching up to do.
Just that last year, after Gendron hit a low point, falling so far behind that she was making up work into the summer months, she changed her outlook.
“There are days it gets to be a lot. Last year in the spring was pretty bad. I just couldn't get out of bed. I thought, 'I can't live like that. There's things I want to do with my life,'” Gendron said. “I just decided, 'This isn't OK. I'm going to be positive. Take every day on its own.' It's useless laying in bed and worrying about it.”
And so Gendron graduated on June 21 having made her best impression at NFA.
Calling her own pitches behind the plate, she guided first-year starting pitchers Bailey Comeau and Sophia DiCocco, leading coach Bryan Burdick's Wildcats to a 20-6 record and an ECC Division I title as the team's lone senior.
Gendron's 129th career hit, to eclipse former program great Caitlin Eaton's all-time record, came on a home run in the third inning against Stonington, May 10. Her final regular-season at-bat at NFA's home field on Senior Night? Also a home run.
A member of NFA's journalism program since her freshman year, Gendron and fellow senior Aleysha Rivera Bocachica won a $2,500 scholarship to share at the FOX 61 Student News Awards Ceremony, May 23. The duo was honored for “Most Compelling Student News Story,” for a video production about a panel discussion which took place at NFA earlier this year regarding suicide.
Gendron plans to major in secondary education and English at Western Connecticut, to perhaps make a difference in a student's life who may be struggling the way she has.
Shea, 17, is the youngest of Amy and Gerry Gendron's five children.
“On NFA and my travel team, I'm surrounded by such amazing people,” Gendron said, summing up her softball experience. “I strike out, but you have Hailee (Schrader, NFA all-state second baseman) up next. You have to have faith in people around you. That's something that makes softball such a great sport.
“I love softball. It makes me so happy. It's brought me so many amazing friendships. … I'm not going to stop (playing). I'm just going to work harder.”