By Scott Richey, The News-Gazette
srichey@news-gazette.com
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Brittany Jones didn't make her Illinois women's gymnastics debut until nearly 2 1 / 2 years after she arrived on the Illini campus. She did so in the fall of 2016 healthy, happy and ready to compete.

A series of significant injuries changed all that.

Jones broke her foot on the balance beam right before the start of her freshman season. It required surgery, and that meant her first season at Illinois was over before it even began.

Jones' eventually returned to training near what would have been the end of her freshman year. Two weeks later she broke her hand. Shattered it in nearly every way possible. Another surgery, this one including two plates and 13 screws to repair her injury, sidelined Jones again.

Cue yet another comeback. And another season-ending injury.

Jones had dealt with ankle trouble throughout her time as a gymnast.

This was worse.

The Scottsdale, Ariz., native lost her sophomore season at Illinois when she needed a third surgery in two years after tearing every ligament in her ankle.

That two-year series of setback after setback made Jones' Illinois debut as a junior — she competed on uneven bars at Huff Hall against Penn State — all that more special.

"My freshmen and sophomore years were rough," Jones said. "I was injured a lot and kind of going through a lot. I was really struggling and almost thinking I should just be done.

"I think making my debut so late actually made it so much better. It meant so much more to me because I pushed so hard to get there and went through a ton of struggles to get there. Even besides it being about me, I got to contribute to the team and be there for the team. It was a great experience."

Jones said she feels like she appreciates her final two seasons at Illinois more because her first two seasons were taken away.

"Competing was something I looked forward to forever," she said. "Even before I came into college gymnastics. I just wanted to compete. That being taken away from me the first two years made me more eager to do it. I pushed through all of those injuries and all that stuff that happened. When I finally got to the place I was training to be and recovering to be, it meant way more to me than if I would have come in and competed my freshman year."

Jones is now going through a different type of adversity. Her senior season experienced a startling abrupt ending when the NCAA canceled all remaining winter and spring sports in the wake of the global health threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Illinois might have been down to just a single regular season meet and then postseason competition, but the end was still unexpected.

"It was kind of hard to have a timeline in mind and all of a sudden be like, 'Oh, it's over now,'" Jones said. "I don't think it's fully hit me yet, but I'm trying to find the silver lining in it. I'm trying to think of it as maybe there are things I should be doing now for my future. I'm trying to use all the time I have now to look at opportunities for a career or internships."

Jones will head into the next stage of her life with a strength borne through how she persevered through a college gymnastics career full of ups and downs.

"Brittany had to really work for every bit of it mentally, physically (and) emotionally," Illinois coach Nadalie Walsh said. "It was always so pleasing to be able to watch her go up there and hit her beam routines as a senior and hit her vaults as a junior. Having that be cut short makes me really sad for her because I thought she definitely was on the path of having the best year of her career."

That solid senior season wasn't immune from a little uncertainty, though. Jones wound up competing on vault or balance beam in every meet but two this year, but there was a moment in the fall where Walsh said Jones again wondered if she had reached the end of her gymnastics career.

"It wasn't because of an injury that time," the Illini coach said. "It was just making some decisions on if I want to push through again and have a challenge of going up against more younger classes of freshmen and sophomores that have come in and maybe are ahead of me. We just talked about how she had gained a lot of experience and knowledge and wisdom that they were going to need from her.

"I feel like she made a really good decision to persevere. Not because she had to finish with gymnastics but to let gymnastics be an avenue where she could learn more about who she was going to be after the sport. ? Gymnastics gave her the opportunity to learn more about perseverance and identity. She got to make a choice to have gymnastics be a part of who she was and no longer the identity of all that she knew."

Walsh was able to rely on Jones as a senior leader this season. Jones always brought a steady, calm presence to Illinois' practices at Kenney Gym, but her final season saw her grow as a leader.

"If somebody, let's say they were doing a routine on an event she wasn't even training on that day and they didn't land or finish the way they were supposed to, she would actually yell across the gym and say, 'Hey, go do it again,'" Walsh said. "I know that was huge for Brittany, and it was really huge for me to see Brittany do that. I remember being able to go to her and give her five and say, 'I'm really proud of you for speaking up and knowing the value of your voice and holding your teammates up to the standards you know they need to be at even when they don't want to.' Seeing that growth in her was tremendous, and I think it's really going to make her a stronger career path in whatever she ends up continuing to go down."

Jones credits gymnastics and the lessons it taught her for helping her become the person she is today. Her time at Illinois solidified that — particularly through the hardship of her first two seasons.

"I think it was definitely one of the best experiences I've ever had," Jones said. "One of the main reasons I liked Illinois was because it was so far away from my hometown. I think the reason I came here was because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and go someplace I didn't know anything about and didn't know any people. I kind of came in blind, and I think that doing that really helped me grow as a person."