Growing up as a young girl in California, Maranda Smith had her heart set on going to UCLA as a gymnast at a young age.
She watched in 2004 as her club teammate Christie Tedmon won a national championship with the Bruins.
A little more than a year later, Smith signed a grant-in-aid to attend UCLA, and she graduated high school a half-year early to get her career started with the Bruins.
Five and a half years later, Smith finds herself more than 2,400 miles from California and about to compete in her final competition as a college gymnast.
Needless to say, it’s been a long journey.
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After enrolling at UCLA on Dec. 27, 2005, Smith’s dream had finally come true.
She had made it.
Years of preparation and training had finally paid off, and UCLA went to Hawaii to compete in its season opener, where Smith would make her collegiate debut.
She was suffering from stress fractures in her right shin, but that wouldn’t keep her from competing on the islands.
In her first floor routine as a collegiate athlete, Smith was impressive. She finished third, and her career looked promising.
But a minor mishap on the floor would change her career forever.
On a tumbling pass, Smith landed awkwardly. At the time, she didn’t think much of it.
She competed a few days later against Utah. While the third-ranked Bruins lost to the second-ranked Utes, Smith improved her floor score by a tenth, posting a 9.775.
But something was wrong.
Smith’s shin pain was getting nearly unbearable.
“My shin hurt, but I wasn’t really too vocal about it at first,” she said. “After our second meet, my shin really hurt so I got an X-ray done. I found out that I had a big fracture in my shin.”
When time off and rest didn’t result in the fracture mending, surgery was needed.
Devastated, Smith went through with the surgery. Doctors put a titanium rod into the middle of her tibia to hold it together.
She wasn’t sure if she’d ever compete again.
“At one point I never thought I was going to be able to,” she said Tuesday. “It was tough. Words can’t describe it. There were many lows where I thought I would never be able to do my sport again.”
But a fortuitous chain of events – and Smith’s unrelenting hard work and passion for the sport – would eventually get her back in the gym.
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The Florida Gators football team had just finished its 2007 season with a resounding 45-12 win over in-state rival Florida State.
The season was a disappointing one, but that final win had some significance in Smith’s life.
Senior wide receiver Andre Caldwell, one of the best receivers in school history, was graduating. His departure left a hole for the Gators at wide receiver.
One of their top recruiting targets was Carl Moore, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound prospect from Sierra Community College in California.
Moore had visited for the Florida State game and was thoroughly impressed with the atmosphere at the game.
Smith was his girlfriend at the time.
On Dec. 7, 2007, Moore committed to Florida with a surprise announcement: His girlfriend was coming with him – on a gymnastics scholarship.
After her surgery, Smith had enrolled in Sierra Community College and begun her rehab at her club gym.
Florida was one of the schools that had recruited her before she ever got to UCLA, so Smith stayed in contact with Gators coach Rhonda Faehn during her rehab, sending video tapes of her practice sessions to show she could still compete.
And, while she stayed in contact with several college coaches, none showed as much interest as Faehn after her major surgery.
Her hard work paid off, as Faehn noticed her grim determination and a work ethic that wouldn’t be denied.
“She had a lot of things she wanted to accomplish, she had a lot of love for the sport that she didn’t make use of and had a lot of things she still wanted to do,” Faehn told the St. Petersburg Times last year. “And that, to me, showed her heart.”
With her boyfriend also joining the Florida football team, moving to Gainesville and restarting her gymnastics career was an easy decision.
It’s one she doesn’t regret.
Smith arrived on Christmas Day in 2007, and her Florida career started.
But the gymnast’s journey was far from over.
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During her first season at Florida, Smith noticed some pain in her right shoulder. She had experienced the pain before at UCLA, but it seemed minor compared to the pain in her shin.
So she kept competing.
Smith finished the 2008 season, winning Florida’s Newcomer of the Year award at the team’s annual awards ceremony.
The pain lingered into the 2009 season, but still Smith kept competing.
Despite the pain, she blossomed into one of Florida’s best gymnasts in 2009, capturing All-American honors in all-around, vault and floor exercise.
But the pain lingered.
She had a torn labrum in her shoulder. In the offseason, she opted to have surgery on it.
For many gymnasts, that surgery is a career killer.
For Smith, it was just another hurdle to overcome.
And overcome it she did.
“There are athletes who don’t come back to gymnastics after that surgery,” Faehn told the St. Petersburg Times. “It’s really unbelievable.”
Through it all, Smith just kept working. She’s been an inspiration to her teammates, coaches and her fans.
To her, that makes it all worth it.
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When Smith stepped off the plane in Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday, she did so knowing it’s her final trip for a competition as a collegiate gymnast.
After six years, two major surgeries and a medical hardship granted by the NCAA giving her an extra year to compete, her career is officially over after this weekend.
The Gators are at the national championships as the fifth seed, hoping to bring home the school’s first NCAA Gymnastics championship.
While a team championship is one of Smith’s goals, it’s not the only one.
“My goal is just to enjoy one last time competing,” she said. “When I first came here I had really no big expectations put on myself because I was coming back from an injury. My goal when I first came was just to compete again.”
Smith will compete one last time for the Gators this weekend, but she’ll do it the same way she has throughout her career – in pain.
She’s dealt with severe Achilles tendinitis throughout the year, an excruciatingly painful injury for someone who puts so much pressure on her legs.
In practice, Smith is limited by the injury. She’s kept from training as much as the other gymnasts so she can still compete when it counts.
Her toughness and warrior-like mentality is something that has earned her the respect of all her teammates and coaches.
“If everyone only knew the pain that she is in daily,” coach Faehn said. “She has just been such a leader – an outstanding representative of Florida. I’m proud that she’s able to have another year here to really enjoy and give her that second chance of relishing all the moments. I know that she’s going to have a great national championship.”
Smith’s experiences in the gym have helped shape her life – and the lives of some who have watched her – outside of it.
That’s something she wouldn’t trade for anything.
“From the experiences I’ve had, I’ve just grown as a person,” she said. “That’s the most amazing thing coming away from this whole experience. I’ve learned and changed as a person.
“Coming away with an SEC Championship (in 2010) and four All-American honors, that’s an amazing thing that I never thought I would have accomplished. It just proves to me that hard work can definitely pay off and whatever I set my mind to, I can achieve if I really, really want it.”
And while Smith’s main goal is to enjoy every last moment in Cleveland this weekend and see her team capture a national championship, she’s also got a personal goal she wants to accomplish.
“I would love to make event finals on floor,” she said. “I’ve never made it on floor. It’s my favorite event. It would be fun on Sunday to just be able to go out there and do my floor routine one last time.”
If anyone deserves it, it’s Smith.
She’s had one heck of a journey to get here.
“It’s been a great journey,” she said. “It was a lot of fighting, a lot of tears and sweat and pain. It’s all been worth it to be here with this group of girls and going to nationals. It makes all of those years of hard work definitely worth it.”