Finn Bedell

Freshman Tessa Brocker claps her hands together on Nov. 19, 2025 in Room 151

Freshman Tessa Brocker left the first gymnastics meet of her 2025 season limping. 

Her Achilles tendon had been bothering her for a couple of years, but it was starting to hurt worse and worse. 

Her doctor recommended a platelet-rich plasma procedure, during which they would take blood from her arm and inject it into her Achilles.

But with four more weeks before her second meet, Brocker was starting to have doubts it would even work. 

She had to keep herself healthy — another injury like the fracture she had three years ago could be career ending, and she couldn’t afford that.  She’s a level 10 gymnast — which means she’s among the best of the best. The only place to go is up: which is a Division-1 college team, then the Olympics. 

Thirty hours a week of constant practice, leaving school early just so she could drive out to Gage gym in Springfield, Mo. to receive the best possible training. That was her life then, and she never wanted to give it up again. 

***

“Do you know what your name is?” a coach yelled. 

People were starting to crowd around her. The shock of hitting the ground stunned Brocker, then a sixth-grader, into silence. 

Then the pain started shooting up her neck.  

Days prior, in March 2021, Brocker arrived in Las Vegas, ready for her next gymnastics competition — a warm-up meet to prepare for nationals later that year.

She and her mom shopped and explored the city. They walked past the flashing lights of the Las Vegas Strip and ate at a Mexican restaurant. Brocker sat in their hotel room while her mom slicked back her hair into the perfect bun. Then the whole team met up to carpool to the competition.

“I wanted to go first, to get out of the way,” Brocker said. 

Her first swing went perfectly, her body smoothly twisting around the bar. 

The second swing was different. She had just learned a new skill, a blind change into a front giant, a 360-swing over the bar.  

This was the first competition it would be used in. 

“When I went to the back, my grip slipped,” Brocker said.

Brocker’s coach tried to catch her, but wasn’t quick enough.

She flew head-first toward the ground. Brocker’s face slammed into the blue mat first, body flipping over, contorting her into a backwards C. 

An immediate pain shot through her neck, and she felt completely paralyzed. 

A coach asked if she knew her name, and concerned spectators crowded around.

“Can I come down there?” Brocker’s mom yelled from the audience. 

“Yes, get down here now,” her coach said. 

After a couple of minutes of deliberation, that’s when Brocker heard it. 

They weren’t going to call the ambulance.  

“Whenever you have a meet with high levels, you’re supposed to have a doctor, but the meet was so small they didn’t have one,” Brocker said.

She was told the gym didn’t want to get in trouble for it, so they wouldn’t call the ambulance.

So Brocker and her mom left the meet and took an Uber to the hospital. 

It wasn’t until they were in the car she realized there was still a piece of the mat stuck in her teeth. 

*** 

Brocker’s mom held her head, trying to keep it steady while the car threw them back and forth. Brocker sobbed. They were being rocked up and down while flashing lights bombarded the windows. It burned her eyes.

At the hospital, Brocker was guided into the nearest wheelchair and told to wait while they prepared some medical tests. 

First it was an MRI scan, then she was carted back and forth from tests to waiting rooms to doctors. During a particularly long waiting period, Brocker stood up from her wheelchair to go to the bathroom.

“We don’t want her standing,” a passing nurse said. “She has a neck fracture.” 

The news was dropped so casually. 

Brocker’s mom immediately started crying. A neck fracture was enough to put a gymnast out for good. 

Brocker fell asleep that night in a hospital bed held by her mother, her body tightly packed into a metal brace.

***

The next morning, they booked a flight back to Kansas City. On the plane, the brace dug into her shoulders.

She was able to see a spine doctor and learned that she fractured the C3 bone, the best bone to fracture, they said, if she wanted to continue doing gymnastics. 

“I was really happy because it was a sport that I had done my whole life and was good at, so I didn’t want to give it up,” Brocker said. “But I was also terrified of all the bad things that could have happened, just kept going through my head. There was a time my mom wanted me to quit. I kinda wanted to quit.” 

Because she was going to be out for a while, Brocker decided to take time to decide if she would continue on with gymnastics. 

Six-weeks after the fall, Brocker attempted her first real practice. She was finally able to go upside down. Still, in the back of her mind was that unrelenting fear, that even though she was progressing and healing, she would never be as good, and she would lose the sport she fell in love with at six years old. 

“It was always something I knew I could do,” Brocker said. “All of a sudden, I had to figure out what else I could do.” 

Some months later, Brocker was asked to try the skill she failed in Vegas. Shaking, she approached the bars and grabbed the steady wood poles and swung herself upside down. 

All she had to do was keep her body straight, then the landing would go perfectly. She let out a long breath and quieted her mind. 

Brocker released her hands from the bar and her feet landed softly on the mat when her teeth had once sunk into one before. 

“That’s when I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll keep doing gymnastics.’” 

***

Three days before the second meet of her 2025 season, Tessa was rigorously running her floor routine. 

Flipping backwards, her feet pushed into the mats out of her back handspring, and it felt as if the floor underneath her shattered. Whirling through the air, Tessa completely lost where she was and slammed into the tumbling mats below. 

The pain was always there, but now it was blazing up her leg. She was stuck, unable to move as her coach picked her up, and ran her to the ice bucket. 

The doctors started with an ultrasound to check for tears, but her ankle was too swollen to tell, so the next step was an MRI. 

Then the news came swift and concise, she had torn her Achilles tendon and required surgery. 

“When I went to the doctor, he said he’s never seen a 15-year-old tear their Achilles all the way before,” Brocker said. 

The fear piled onto Tessa’s shoulders. This would be her first surgery, and recovering from it would be a nightmare, but finally her Achilles would be fixed and she wouldn’t be in as much pain. 

Now, Tessa would be leaving gymnastics for the second time, with a fully torn Achilles tendon. Which means she would be out for six months; the rest of her season. 

No more state, no more regionals, no more nationals. She’d be walking on crutches until summer. 

She still has hope beyond the doubts and fear.