Zoe Jarrett-Schmertzler '10
The Scholar Athlete
Zoe Jarrett-Schmertzler is a smiling, friendly person who is easy to like, so it’s surprising to hear her call herself arrogant. But she is arrogant, if only briefly, and it works for her. As she begins her floor routine in gymnastics meets, she says to herself, “Silent arrogance,” and it gives her the confidence she needs to do her best.
“You have to tell yourself, ‘This is mine,’” she explains. “You really do have to be arrogant about it or the judge and the people watching it are not going to buy it.” She pauses and smiles, then adds, “I hope I’m not really an arrogant person.”
Zoe’s absorption in what she is doing is not self-adulation but simply intense focus. When she is doing cartwheels on a 4-inch beam, a momentary flicker of distraction can lead to a fall. As she approaches the beam, she stares down at the planks in the gym floor going over her four C’s: “Confidence, Control, Conviction, Calm.”
Through gymnastics she learned to focus on a goal and give up anything that will stand in the way of that goal. Ironically, that turned out to be gymnastics itself. As much as she loves gymnastics, she decided that she gets even more satisfaction from intellectual activities. First she chose to come to OES even though she knew a less rigorous academic environment would allow her to devote herself more fully to gymnastics. Then, having achieved Level 9 status, she could have given it her all to make Level 10, which would give her a shot at gymnastics programs at Division I schools. But that would have meant compromising her studies, and what Zoe wanted most was to go to the best college she could. Instead of pursuing the top tier of gymnastics, she set her sights on attending Stanford University, where she now studies.
“I knew that education will always be important, but someday you have to stop gymnastics,” she said. “There’s a point where you have to decide. I got a lot out of gymnastics even though I didn’t make it to the top level. If I had given gymnastics my all, then I wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to Stanford.”
Although Stanford is a Division I school, Zoe isn't on the gymnastics team there. She placed third in the nation in Level 9 balance beam in her senior year in high school, but Stanford gymnasts compete at Level 10.
“I want to learn,” she declares. “I love languages—I’ve studied French and Spanish extensively, and Arabic a little—and I love creative writing. Science is probably where I’ll end up career-wise, but artsy stuff is always fun to do, too.”
Life requires choices. Zoe made hers, and she doesn’t regret it one bit.
