Baranek: Stagg’s Sarah Mussalem a three-sport star
Tony Baranek tbaranek@southtownstar.com | (708) 633-5947 May 17, 2012 8:10PM
Stagg's Sarah Mussallem is a three-sport athlete in soccer, track and volleyball. | Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media
MAKING IT WORK
How does one manage to compete in two spring sports on a full-time basis? Stagg senior Sarah Mussallem explains.
“Soccer, being more of the team sport, it’s more important for me to be there, especially being a captain. I’ll go to the beginning of track practice and do warmup drills, and then I’ll head to soccer. And my teammates have always been so supportive. I don’t know what I would have done if they weren’t.”
Updated: June 29, 2012 9:05AM
If there were three of Sarah Mussallem, Saturday could have been the busiest day a Southland high school athlete has ever had.
The senior from Stagg would be competing for the school’s 400-meter relay team at the state finals in Charleston.
She would be competing for the school’s girls soccer team in a Class 3A regional final against Mother McAuley.
She would be one of the gymnasts representing Illinois at the Senior Showcase Invitational in Myers Beach, Fla.
As it is, she’ll only be doing one — although which one is yet to be determined.
If Stagg’s relay team is successful on Friday, she’ll be staying in Charleston for Saturday’s finals.
If they aren’t, she’ll zoom back to Palos Hills and be ready to suit up for the soccer team in the noon match at McAuley.
Or, if Stagg soccer coach Mike Kealy had his way ...
“Maybe the IHSA could move the (400-meter relay) to 7 a.m. so she can get back just in time to suit up,” Kealy said. “That would be cool.”
But seriously ...
“I want Sarah to do her best and represent Stagg well, as I know she will,” Kealy said of Mussallem, who is making her third track appearance at state. As a freshman and junior she competed in the 200-meter dash.
This kid really is something else. My experience watching her was as a vaulter for the Sandburg co-op gymnastics team. Over a pretty stellar career in that sport, Mussallem has been to state three times — as a member of a team qualifier her freshman season, and as an individual as a junior and senior.
She hasn’t always had happy endings. A broken leg suffered during club soccer kept her on the bench when the gymnastics team went to state in 2009. In 2011, she was doing her final warmup vault before Friday’s preliminaries when she came up short and jarred both of her feet so badly she couldn’t compete.
This year she finished 27th in the vaulting competition, but was still chosen to represent Illinois at the aforementioned national, seniors-only meet in Florida.
“I’m sad that (gymnastics) is over, but I was so happy to go out like that,” she said. “I finally got to compete, and to qualify for the national team was really exciting and made me proud.”
Gymnastics during the winter is just a warmup for Mussallem. In the spring she splits her time between the soccer and track teams at Stagg.
“I played club soccer since age 7 and I enjoyed running track in middle school,” Mussallem said. “My freshman year, my mom and I went to talk to the track coach (Matt Seibt) about the possibility that I could do both sports. Then we talked to coach Kealy about it as well and he was like, ‘Yeah, sure. Why not? We can make up a schedule.’”
And that’s how it’s been during the past four years for Stagg’s busiest spring athlete.
Game conflicts, according to Mussallem, have been few and far between. Making practices has been a bit dicier, but not to the point of distraction.
“My coaches are really awesome about it,” she said. “They make me a schedule where I can go to both on some days, and then there are some days when I can go to either one of them.
“Soccer, being more of the team sport, it’s more important for me to be there, especially being a captain. I’ll go to the beginning of track practice and do warmup drills, and then I’ll head to soccer. And my teammates have always been so supportive. I don’t know what I would have done if they weren’t.”
The soccer team would definitely miss her on Saturday if she’s still running with the relay team in Charleston. Mussallem, who had a goal and two assists in Wednesday’s 7-0 regional semifinal victory over Eisenhower, leads the team in both categories with 14 and 12, respectively. She was selected as an IHSSA All-Sectional player.
Mussallem’s athletic future will be in track, as a freshman walk-on at Illinois State University, where she will pursue a degree in elementary education.
Oh, yes. She’s already a teacher, too, as a counselor at Camp Tecumseh in Brookston, Ind.
“She’s an all-around amazing young woman,” Kealy said. “We will really miss her at Stagg. She’s the best of the best.”
Meanwhile, there is this two-sport freshman athlete at Stagg named Hannah Mussallem ...
