Rosary pounds 69 Kills for Kylie
There were so many cheers during Monday’s Rosary-Montini varsity volleyball match, which was won 25-11, 25-22 by the host Royals.
But one of the most heartfelt rounds of applause came just before the sophomore match when former Rosary star Kylie Schalz walked into the gym with her parents Bill and Robin.
It’s not that Kylie Schalz hadn’t ever been in the gym before. She was a standout volleyball, basketball and softball player prior to her 2008 graduation. But the fact that she was mobile at all was something everyone on the home side was aware of, and the visitors all seemed to know too.
Kylie Schalz suffered paralysis from the neck down while undergoing a June surgery to resolve excessive curvature of her spine. At the time, she was paralyzed from the chest down. Monday she was able to walk with a cane and orthotics to a chair festooned with balloons in Rosary’s blue and white as well as the gold and black of Oakland (Mich.) University, where she played softball prior to her surgery and where she aims to play her senior season in 2013.
“It’s really nice that my old school is doing something for me,” Schalz said. “I didn’t expect it to be this elaborate. It makes me feel good that I’m remembered and appreciated. It brings back a lot of memories. I remember waiting in the
corner of the gym for the other levels to get done and I remember running onto the court with all my friends.”
The theme of the evening was Kills for Kylie and students had been collecting pledges in the days leading to the match. Both kills and aces counted on those pledge sheets, and when the evening ended, the Royals had recorded 69 kills and 9 aces across three levels of competition. Schalz was a kill machine at Rosary.
She had a school record 133 kills as a senior.
“At the beginning of the season, I told the girls that this was why you have to play every game like it’s your last,” Rosary coach Lisa Kasper said. “This could take away her softball career, and hopefully it won’t. If anyone is going to
succeed at getting better and going back and playing softball, it is going to be Kylie.”
The teams gathered prior to the varsity match to hear Rosary athletic director Mary Lou Kunold speak about what Schalz had endured and what she meant to Rosary, both past and present. Then athletes and coaches from both teams viewed a video made by Bill Schalz from Kylie’s time at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where she went for her initial recovery.
“It’s good for teenagers nowadays, with the world the way it is, to see stories like that happen,” Montini coach Steve Dowjotas said.
No one did more on-court to advance to total raised in the fundraiser than senior Amelia Wegman, who finished with 14 Royals’ kills. Rosary improved to 20-7 and 5-2 in the Suburban Christian Conference while Montini slipped to 7-14, 2-7.
“I watched Rosary a lot when I was in seventh and eighth grade, so I saw her play when she was here,” Wegman said. “It is really inspiring, her whole story. It’s really awesome that she came here tonight and it’s cool that we got to do
this for her.”
Schalz said the improvements continue as she prepares to return to school at the end of this month. She is currently taking her classes online in preparation for her trip back to college.
“It is very nice,” Schalz said. “It is definitely more difficult online. It’ll be a lot better when I get back there.”
As she got ready to leave the gym, Kylie Schalz was told that perhaps she could prepare to make laps around the gym the next time she returns to Rosary.
“I’ll do it running,” was Schalz’s response.
If support from friends and her high school community count for anything, she could do it flying.