Mott Visits a Thursday Tradition for Three Gymnasts
12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
Dec. 8, 2016
By Caroline Winograd
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Three Michigan women's gymnastics teammates share a passion for helping others and have chosen to spend their Thursday nights at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital helping out the non-profit Michigan From The Heart.
The program enables U-M student-athletes to visit Mott every Thursday night to interact with patients and brighten up their hospital stay. Nicole Artz, Cailee Hills and Paige Zaziski enjoy interacting with the patients every week as part of a break from their hectic schedules.
Both Artz, a senior elementary education major, and Hills, a junior biopsychology, cognition and neuroscience major, learned about Mott visits from older girls on the team when they were freshmen. This year they recruited Zaziski, a junior transfer, when she arrived on campus. Hills and Zaziski were living together and Hills told her all about the program.
"I was interested and tried it out and have been going ever since," said Zaziski. "I liked working with special needs at my home gym and at my previous school. I like doing whatever I can with community service."
For Hills, each visit has a personal meaning. Her father passed away last year from pancreatic cancer. Her father has had a lasting effect on the way she approaches her visits to Mott.
"I never used to go to the cancer floor, but now I go there a lot because I know that a lot of those kids are there for an extended period of time," said Hills. "Chemo can break you down. I've seen it first hand, but having someone come in to talk to you and treat you like their equal, instead of a sick person, can really give them hope."
All three athletes stressed the dual benefit of going to Mott. Not only do the visits cheer up the patients, but they also leave a lasting impression on the student-athletes who go each week.
"It's a benefit both ways," said Artz. "It's nice for the athletes to get a break from what we're doing and just get away for a little bit, but it's also one of the best feelings seeing the patients light up when you're there. You get to put a smile on their faces, which is the best part."
Artz explains, "Our weeks are obviously extremely busy; we are always school, gym, study, school, gym and it's just a really nice time to go put all of that aside and do something that's bigger than yourself for someone else."
Both Hills and Zaziski expressed the same sentiments, citing Thursday nights as much needed breaks in their hectic schedules to do something that makes them smile, while helping out a few kids along the way.
Hills builds the Thursday night visits into her schedule just like she would a class or team commitment. All three girls make sure that their hectic schedules don't get in the way of visiting the kids every week, only occasionally do they have to put other things first like traveling for a meet or studying for a test the next day.
When asked what the most valuable part of the experience is all three echoed the same sentiment of appreciating what you have.
"Appreciate what you have in the moment and know that someone else out there doesn't have it as good as you, but you also have the ability to have a positive impact on their lives," said Artz.
Most importantly, Head Coach Bev Plocki recognizes the importance of her gymnasts' efforts to help others. She is very active in the community herself and organizes several events for the team each year to participate in. This fall the team cheered on runners during the Chad Tough Run and later helped serve pizza at the Buddy Walk to raise acceptance of individuals with Down syndrome. She encourages any student-athletes to follow their own community service interests.
"Bev understands that we have really hard schedules, but she encourages us to, as much as we can, go out in the community and do whatever we can to help out," said Zaziski. "She does a good job of explaining to us how it's valuable to both us and those that we are helping."
Artz, Hills, and Zaziski have grown closer through the program and want to continue to encourage their teammates to take a break and try out going to Mott. They also enjoy the community of student-athletes that participate in the program and how it unifies the athletic programs.
"I've met so many people because they diversify the sports when they split everyone up to visit the rooms," said Hills. "From talking to other student-athletes I think Mott visits mean a lot to several different sports."
For these three gymnasts, the Mott visits are an invaluable part of their student-athlete experience at U-M.
