NCAA title hopes placed on hold
Douglassville gymnast Natalie Wojcik, a sophomore at Michigan, will be at home this weekend instead of competing in the NCAA Championships
Natalie Wojcik is back home in Douglassville, where reminders of her past achievements are all around.
Trophies on her dresser. Medals decorating her walls. There isn’t enough room for all the awards she has won through the years. Some were put in storage.
Wojcik didn’t expect these to be her surroundings this weekend. She was supposed to be at the NCAA Championships at Fort Worth, Texas. Those plans, like everything in sports, were canceled by the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the best gymnasts in the nation is taking classes online and sitting in her house like everyone else.
The story of how the University of Michigan sophomore discovered gymnastics has followed her through the ranks.
Wojcik was turning a back handspring in her living room and fell on her head. She assured her mom she was OK and was soon enrolled in a class.
There were other sports along the way. Soccer and swimming. Dancing until she was 13. Gymnastics was always the one.
“I liked the competitiveness,” Wojcik said. “Every day presents new challenges. It’s almost like a game for me to beat myself each day and get better.”
Wojcik, who attended 21st Century Cyber Charter School, has a list of club accomplishments a mile long. She qualified for the Nastia Liukin Cup three times, was twice a member of the Junior Olympic National team with four wins in four events and earned seven regional titles.
During that time, she trained at Berks Gymnastic Academy in Reading and Stallone Gymnastics in Temple.
One of her teammates was Lauren Diggan, a Gov. Mifflin grad who’s competing at the University of New Hampshire. They’ve known each other for years.
“I could tell she was a very graceful type of gymnast and she had a bright future ahead,” Diggan said. “She’s like my role model. Her skills are incredible.”
Wojcik’s success continued through a banner freshman season at Michigan. She was an NCAA champion on the balance beam, All-American in the all-around and scored the school’s first perfect 10 on the vault in eight years.
While all of the individual accolades are great, Wojcik went to Ann Arbor for something else.
“I love that in college it has more of a team feel,” she said. “So you can rely on your teammates to have your back. You’re in it together.”
Michigan won the Big Ten championship last season. The Wolverines didn’t get a chance to defend their title.
Wojcik said she believes her team had a chance for a national championship. That was the goal for this weekend.
“We take a lot of pride in our postseason,” she said. “It was definitely sad. For our seniors, I felt really bad because they put in a lot of work to get to this point. To see it just end was heartbreaking.”
Wojcik has two more years to chase that NCAA team title. She plans to retire after graduation and pursue a grad degree in speech pathology. She wants to be a speech therapist.
Ordinarily, she’d spend the summer at Michigan to keep training and help with camps. All of that is on hold at this point.
It turned out Wojcik started a family tradition with those back handsprings. She has three younger sisters, Nicole, Nadia and Noelle, who are gymnasts. Nicole is a high school senior who will compete at Lindenwood University near St. Louis.
Even with all those trophies in her room, Wojcik still gets a rush from the meets. That’s something she misses right now.
“Every single competition is just so exciting, so much fun,” Wojcik said. “Especially in the college atmosphere. Everyone cheers really loud. It’s fun to have big crowds and compete for your school.”