It’s early morning on Friday, March 6.
Madison Kocian woke up feeling just … OK. Her right shoulder was sore, probably from sleeping on it, but the decision to ignore the discomfort and go to practice was easy.
At this point in the season, there were a handful of meets left for the 2020 UCLA gymnastics team. After 18 years in gymnastics, including the last four as a Bruin, Kocian’s career would be ending mid-April.
That was what she expected on this particular Friday morning practice.
She pulled herself up onto the uneven bars and swung a couple times. The soreness in her shoulder was now sharp and unignorable. She pretended she didn’t feel it and forced herself to keep going.
The pain became intolerable. Her body begged her to stop.
She couldn’t make it through her routine before jumping down.
This was not the senior season Kocian envisioned.
“It’s really frustrating when you have a plan and all your goals and a path and journey that you want to have, especially your senior year, and then now, I just never know what kind of pain I’m going to wake up with,” she said after practice ended.
Kocian didn’t expect to tear the labrum in her shoulder. She didn’t expect the injury to become as bad, and as painful, as it did. And there is no way she could have expected the final weeks of her last season at UCLA to be canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was hard to accept at first, but just looking back at everything from what I was able to accomplish in Elite and then going into UCLA, I’m definitely very satisfied with my career and how it started and how it finished and everything in between,” she said earlier this week.
Kocian was in her bedroom in Westwood when teammate Felicia Hano walked in to tell her their season was finished. The NCAA and Pac-12 had canceled all sporting events during the weekend of March 13 due to the spread of COVID-19.
Kocian went numb inside. Everything was coming at her so fast without warning.
“It felt like I was in a nightmare,” she said.
Just like that, no more gymnastics. No senior-day celebration. No taste of the postseason one final time as a Bruin.
Despite all the pain of dealing with her shoulder and the abrupt end to her athletic career, Kocian not only has a new source of motivation, but used her injuries to discover a passion in the medical field that excites her for life away from the mat.
“I didn’t want to end on another injury, but I feel like it kinda tells my story of gymnastics,” Kocian said. “Going through so many obstacles and then still trying to come out of it with a positive light.”
More than an injury
Kocian ended that Friday’s practice early.
She walked to the opposite side of the gym and laid down on a table where a trainer began massaging her shoulder. Too many times this season, Kocian found herself lying in pain, watching her team practice from afar.
In September, Kocian was practicing on the balance beam when her right shoulder popped out during her dismount.
“I tried to shake it off a little bit, but it definitely kept getting tighter and tighter,” she said. “It felt like something was stuck in my joint.”
A diagnosis showed Kocian had torn the labrum. She had two options. Choose to undergo surgery to fix the torn piece of cartilage and sit out until late March, or put off surgery and continue training while limiting herself in competition.
“We really didn’t know how much she’d be able to do,” UCLA coach Chris Waller said. “I talked with her a lot about the fact that, ‘We don’t know if you’re going to get to do gymnastics, but we do know that you have another year to be with this team.’”
It wasn’t the first time Kocian had to make this decision.
On the second day of the 2016 Olympic Trials, she tore the labrum in her left shoulder performing on the bars. She could hardly move her arm, but had no intentions of giving up.
“She was not going to allow the pain to get in her way of achieving her dream of competing in the Olympics,” Thomas Kocian said of his daughter.
Managing the pain with injections of platelet-rich plasma, Kocian won a silver medal on bars and helped USA win gold in the team competition in Rio.
She joined UCLA gymnastics that fall and competed with the injured shoulder. She became a four-time All-American and scored her first career perfect-10.
After her freshman season concluded, the reality of her injury sunk in. The pain became unbearable as her left bicep had also torn. She needed surgery and wanted to be careful about finding a doctor she could trust.
Kocian was one of more than 160 women sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. The idea of placing her body in the hands of someone new was frightening.
“I definitely did have fear because that was when I was processing everything,” Kocian said. “I knew it was going to be hard to gain trust from someone again.”
She found trust in Dr. Neal ElAttrache.
The renowned surgeon emphasized the procedure was her choice, and only hers, to make. It made Kocian feel in charge of her treatment — something she hadn’t felt with previous doctors. She and UCLA teammate Kyla Ross later went public about being abused by Nassar on CBS This Morning.
In August 2017, she had the surgery. With the physical training she did beforehand, she fastracked her recovery from nine months to six, allowing her to compete her sophomore year. Her 9.9375 on bars at the NCAA Championships helped UCLA win the 2018 national title.
Fast forward to the start of her senior season this past fall when she dismounted the beam.
With the risk of missing her final collegiate season, Kocian chose to put off surgery and continue the year monitoring the pain.
Her motivation
Back at the early March practice, Nia Dennis walked across the gym and stood to the left of Kocian. She reached out to hold her teammate’s hand while the trainer continued working on her shoulder.
The Bruins have been aware of Kocian’s injury and witnessed the pain she has endured to be with them.
After sitting out the first two meets of the season, she competed in seven of UCLA’s last eight meets. Each time, she battled pain and discomfort, the routines lasting up to a minute and a half.
“It’s a really tough thing when you can anticipate pain that’s coming whenever you do a certain thing. She does it and doesn’t flinch,” Dr. ElAttrache said.
While her scores weren’t as high as they used to be, they still helped the team’s overall score.
“It’s really inspiring to not only me, but all our teammates to see how much she’s willing to give for each and every one of us,” Ross said of her former Olympic teammate.
When Kocian wasn’t competing, she offered corrections and gave teammates pep talks and fist bumps before they performed, followed by high-fives and hugs when they finished.
“She makes me want to do it for the team and for her,” UCLA freshman gymnast Kaylany Steele said. “She could be worrying about her injuries and all that, but the fact that she’s taking the time to really help a freshman, it’s really awesome.”
Kocian said her teammates are the reason she pushed through the pain.
“It’s been kinda like a rollercoaster, like emotionally and just hard working through the pain,” Kocian said. “But I’m trying to just stay engaged with my teammates. That kinda distracts me sometimes, anything that I can do to get my mind off of it, that’s usually what helps me keep going.”
Life off the mat
The pain follows Kocian outside of the gym. She feels it every time she lifts something heavy or reaches for a top shelf. The nerves in her hand twitch along with her bicep.
She takes anti-inflammatory and nerve medication and tapes her shoulder to stimulate blood flow and support. She knows she needs surgery again.
“She sets the culture that you can have injuries or little knicks and that you know when to stop and you also know when to keep pushing,” UCLA senior gymnast Mercedez Sanchez said.
It’s through her injuries that Kocian has found a new passion.
After shadowing Dr. ElAttrache last summer, Kocian is pursuing a career in the medical field with plans to apply to school to become a physician assistant. She enjoys the problem-solving aspect of working with injured athletes.
“I feel like it’s a different challenge, but also I feel comfortable with it because I’ve always had some different injury,” she said. “Anyway I can help someone else using my experiences that I went through, that’s what makes me most happy.”
While the sudden end to her final season remains hard to process, it doesn’t compare to all the moments she’s shared with her team the past four years. Every laugh, hug and good-luck fist bump have made all the days, even the most painful, worth it.
“My career has definitely had its ups and downs,” she said. “But at the same time, I’m really thankful that I got all the opportunities that I had and I’m just excited for what the future holds.”
