The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Trying to make sense of the death of Melanie Coleman
Brianna Laggis found out about Melanie Coleman’s horrible injury over the weekend from a girl at Sacred Heart who once did gymnastics with her. Jay Moran heard almost immediately on Friday afternoon. He is the athletic director at Southern Connecticut State and Moran would need to carry the pain inside his heart in order to carry on with his professional duties.
“I was shocked,” Laggis said. “Filled with sadness.”
“Devastated for the family,” Moran said.
Although all the facts surrounding Coleman’s training accident and death have not emerged, we do know the SCSU junior suffered a severe spinal injury when she fell from the uneven bars during a practice at New Era Gymnastics in Hamden. Coleman died Sunday at YaleNew Haven Hospital. She was 20.
As Moran, who lost his own daughter when she was 6, said it is shattering for Melanie’s dad Tom and mom Sue and her two sisters and two brothers. “There’s seven of us, we were the Coleman seven,” Sue told the Associated Press of her large, loving family. “We spent every day together for the past 20 years.”
Laggis and Moran are not among those closest to the Colemans nor do they claim to be. Yet as those in the Milford, Southern Connecticut and gymnastics communities each try to make sense of the unimaginable, perhaps there is perspective to be found in the words of two who have walked in paths parallel to Melanie and the Coleman family.
“I’ve been friends with Mel through gymnastics, not best, best friends if you know what I mean,” Laggis, 19, said. “We competed with each other all our lives. We’ve always been friends.”
They both are Milford girls. Laggis was a Level 10 gymnast, the highest level in the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics Program. So was Coleman. Both were named AllState gymnasts in high school. Both selected nursing majors in college. Helping people, Laggis said, gives her joy and we can only imagine Melanie, whose organs will go to help save the lives of others, would say the same.
“We were not on the same team,” said Laggis, who competed out of Connecticut Gymnastics Academy in Wallingford and Foran High while Coleman competed for New Era and Jonathan Law. “We were always competing at the same level. Her gymnastics coach Pat Simon at Law was my coach for diving. He helped me out here and there for gymnastics.”
Yes, there are parallels. And most haunting among them is Laggis, too, broke
her back in gymnastics training.
Laggis was 14 when she left for New Jersey to train with MG Elite. She was a teammate of Laurie Hernandez, who’d win a gold and silver medal at the 2016 Olympics and expectations were high. Laggis was working on a skill on the beam when it happened.
“I felt something shift in my back,” she said. “I got off the beam and went to put Icy Hot on it and then continued to work out.”
She kept working out for two days until the pain became too much. Laggis had a severe L5 fracture. She would battle back, give up the sport when her body defied her and then would return to it. The hard truth is Laggis never was the same and her goal of competing at a Division I college and dreams of even more were gone.
“This is very scary to think about, because we’ve all been there,” Laggis said. “I don’t know exactly what happened (with Coleman), but every single gymnast has landed on their head before. The smallest little increment and something like this can happen.
“There also have been times when I fell really bad and didn’t get hurt at all. All gymnasts know this. It’s a dangerous sport. I guess you don’t realize how dangerous it is until something like this traumatic happens. It disgusts me to think about it. It’s so awful.”
Ken Sweeten, the sports information director at SCSU, had Coleman in his office recently for a student newspaper article on siblings playing together. Susan Coleman has run the classes at New Era and Melanie, whose name hangs there on a banner, worked with the kids.
“My daughter Kenzie was in basically a 4yearold introductory class,” Sweeten said. “I’d tell her that Melanie was daddy’s friend and she’d go over and give her a high five. It was cool that one of our athletes was teaching my daughter. When Melanie came in for the interview she asked if Kenzie was coming back this year. I said she was and was working on her listening skills. Melanie laughed. She goes. ‘Your daughter is so cute and so much fun. It’s OK, they all act that way.’ She knew exactly what to say.”
Moran has received text messages and emails of condolences from around the country from coaches and athletic administrators. He has been involved in college sports for three decades and this is the first time he has been involved in the loss of a studentathlete. He is shaken.
“You lose someone at such a young age and you’re heartbroken foremost for her parents and siblings and devastated for her teammates and coaches, her second family,” Moran said. “Mel was an honor student. In the gymnastics community, she was a teacher to the young kids.
“She spent her life doing gymnastics. Her mom was a gymnast. Her sister Tiffany was her teammate here last year, graduated and is a nurse. Mel had such a bright future. I’ve watched her compete over the years, watched her practice, watched her interact with her teammates. We’ve lost such a great young woman.”
He pauses and says for the third time how devastated he is for the family.
Jay Moran has borne that cross. His daughter, Julia, died of Hurler syndrome, a rare genetic disease, age 6 in 2005. To this day he wears a Connecticut Children’s Medical Center wrist band to remind him never to forget. The outpouring of care, tangible and intangible, his family received during that time changed his life. It pointed him to public service. His life’s roles are dual now. He is also mayor of Manchester.
A GoFundMe page has already raised more than $60,000 for the Coleman family. In their mourning, they are overwhelmed by the generosity of others.
“As the athletic director, I am most concerned about our student athletes’ welfare,” Moran said. “I have told them to try to do some good things in Mel’s memory, because she would have done a lot of good things for the world.
“The truth of life is our children are supposed to outlive us. I am in the club no one wants to be part of. Unfortunately, I know how painful it is. I’m heartbroken for Mel’s family. You almost feel like a soldier that’s been to war. You know what you’ve been through, but you can’t explain it. All I know is life is fragile.”
All I know is gymnasts, the smallest of our athletes, aren’t. They are tough mentally, officially judged on each apparatus, unofficially on appearance. They throw their bodies around in remarkable ways, defying gravity and fear, as tough physically as any football or hockey player. They get hurt. Thankfully, deaths are rare.
“That’s the one thing I do know about Mel,” Laggis said. “We were the same. We both had very hard times with injuries. Her mom and my mom would always talk at competitions. She was always on and off with injuries and that never stopped her from pursuing what she wanted to do with this sport.”
Even as late as last year, Laggis joined the Sacred Heart club gymnastics team.
“I lasted a week,” she said. “I had to give it up.” The back?
“Yep,” Laggis said softly. So I asked Brianna Laggis this question. Knowing what you know now, after all you have been through, if your back was 100 percent, would you still do gymnastics?
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”