TONTOGANY, Ohio — Otsego junior track and field athlete Brooke Simon is already the school's most accomplished female thrower.

For such a talented and seemingly natural thrower, it took a while for Simon to find her niche as a well-rounded competitor in the discus, shot put, hammer, and weight throw.

Simon's mother, Shannon Sorosiak, recalls her initial track and field tryouts when Simon looked for a potential fit in every possible event, starting with the running events. After a coach told her in the most polite way possible that the long jump was simply not for her, Simon was just about out of options.

Then when she tried her hand at throwing, something clicked, and she has never looked back.

“I just started doing track in eighth grade and I didn't really know what I wanted to do,” Simon said. “Then I ended up throwing and I was pretty good at it for our league. And it was like, 'Ok, I kind of like this and I want to work on this a little bit'... I just continuously have gotten better at it. It just made me more excited for the sport.”

Simon's high school career has followed a steady, upward trajectory with her most recent accomplishment coming when she shattered her personal record in the shot put with a throw of 40 feet, 5½ inches, setting an Otsego program record, on the way to a third-place finish at the Division 2/3 state indoor meet. She also placed sixth in the weight throw with a throw of 45 feet, 1 inch.

All of this came on the heels of a significant injury ordeal that began with shoulder pain experienced during cheerleading dating back to July or August and resulted in a procedure called biceps tenodesis on Nov. 8, which left Simon's recent indoor accomplishments in serious doubt — so much so that she was initially told she only had a 60 percent chance of ever throwing again.

Knowing that Simon had realistic aspirations of throwing in college, Sorosiak, a single mother of three daughters, did everything in her power to provide Simon with the best care possible as she struggled to figure out the pain she was experiencing.

“Everything I do in life, my first thought is them,” Sorosiak said of her daughters. “What can I do to get them to where they want to be? [Brooke] has blossomed [from throwing] and just become her own person. As a mom that's all I want. I only want my kids to be happy and be successful. If there is anything I can do to help foster that I will. That's why this procedure was so important and why we chose the route we chose because she is so passionate about it.”

Eventually, Sorosiak and Simon zeroed in on an orthopedic surgeon out of the Columbus area, Dr. Joseph Mileti, to perform surgery and a rehab plan that included working with Toledo-area physical therapist Donald “Red” Walendzak.

Simon received best-case-scenario news following her surgery that the initial labral tear wasn’t as bad as indicated on the MRIs. She was in a sling following surgery until Dec. 22.

Immediately after she removed the sling, she was ready to attack her rehabilitation with Walendzak and his team, often to the point where she was worrying Walendzak as they mapped out her recovery routine.

“Brooke was a girl that you can tell is very motivated, so that made things easy,” Walendzak said. “The other part is initially, she didn't understand that 'Well, I don't hurt and I don't feel pain, so why can't I do more?' So we really had to coach her about how it was a process. So there was a challenge that she is easy to work with and then she is hard to work with because of the competing thought processes. Fortunately, once we got past certain time frames, her physician allowed her to do more and allowed her to put her foot on the gas, which then allowed us to accelerate her stuff and say, 'Let's go'.”

Coupled with the support of her mother and guidance of her Otsego track and field coach, Chad McClory, Simon had a team around her that helped her beat her initial prognosis and timetable for recovery in time to compete at the state indoor meet on March 2.

It was an important step in Simon’s rapid progression and has provided her with positive momentum ahead of her spring outdoor season.

McClory saw something in Simon very early in the process and envisioned the high ceiling that Simon has begun to realize as a junior with two full outdoor seasons still remaining in her high school career.

“She doesn't like to lose and she doesn't like to be bad at stuff,” McClory said. “When I saw her in eighth grade, she was a very raw talent. I could see a lot of fast-twitch muscle that would gear towards being explosive, which you need in throwing. She's bought into it and worked and worked. She's matured a lot as an athlete and as a teammate now as a junior. She is very present in the moment and I think that is huge for a high school athlete.”

Early in her high school career, Simon had the opportunity to work with former Otsego track and field standout Keegan Digby, who is now at Ohio Northern and is fresh off a third-place finish in the shot put at the NCAA Division III indoor track and field meet.

The summer between Simon's eighth grade and freshman season, Digby was training at Otsego and Simon worked with him five to six times a week learning everything she could about throwing.

“We often call it the Keegan effect,” Sorosiak said.

After learning her technique from Digby, Simon entered high school with a base knowledge of throwing that was refined by McClory and his staff.

She developed into someone who is gifted in each of the four throwing events, something that isn't always the case for even the best high school athletes.

Simon excelled at the state indoor meet in the shot put and weight throw, and at last year's Division II state outdoor meet, she qualified as a sophomore in the discus after earning a regional title with a throw of 131 feet, 10 inches and then finished fifth in the state hammer meet with a throw of 135 feet, 6 inches.

“There are going to be girls who are maybe better than her at one event, but she is very well-rounded and I think she throws shot put, discus, hammer, and weight — all four of those — extremely well,” McClory said. “It's very rare to see someone throw all of them well. Usually, you see someone excel at one or two very highly but to do all four very well is pretty rare.”

Simon has lofty aspirations of throwing in college and she is starting to hear from some college coaches early in the recruiting process. She also said she has hopes of carving out a professional throwing career if everything breaks right.

Sorosiak said Simon received an all clear from her doctors in Columbus after a recent follow-up and can go full steam ahead with her throwing with no restrictions. It served as a sigh of relief and a sign that Simon’s dreams of throwing in college are that much closer to becoming a reality. During most of the car ride home after the appointment, Sorosiak said Simon was looking up college programs and the distances their current athletes are recording in the throwing events.

While she now knows college throwing could be on the horizon if she continues to progress, Simon remains locked into her training and focused on the present, especially after overcoming her injury scare.

“It definitely made me realize how much I miss throwing and also that I could be taken out of it at any time,” Simon said. “So I have to do what I want to do now and I can't be waiting around. I have to make my mark.”

First Published March 23, 2024, 12:15 p.m.