By Billy Hull
bhull@staradvertiser.com
It’s not uncommon for girls in the eighth or ninth grade to get scholarship offers in gymnastics from Division I colleges.
So once January rolled around during Kahoku Palafox’s senior year at Maryknoll without any serious interest from schools, it was time to start looking at other options.
“I had started thinking about if nothing happens to me, what am I going to do?” Palafox said.
Fortunately for Palafox, a couple of scholarships opened up late at Arizona State and coaches came to Hawaii to check out a few local gymnasts.
A connection between ASU and Palafox’s club coach at Kokokahi Gymnastics in Kailua got her a look, and within a matter of weeks she went from having no direction to getting school paid for at a reputable Pac-12 college.
“I got really, really lucky,” Palafox said. “I wasn’t as forward with it as I should have been. I wouldn’t suggest to anyone to wait for it to happen like I did.”
More than a decade of hard work paid off as Palafox began her final season on the Sun Devils’ gymnastics team hosting a meet against Oklahoma last weekend.
A graduate student after earning her degree in sustainability, Palafox has an extra year of eligibility after missing the entire 2011 season with a torn ACL.
She’s competed on both the bars and the beam since her freshman season, when she served strictly as a bar specialist.
She scored a career-high 9.900 on bars as a sophomore and came close to equaling it last year with a 9.875 against Illinois.
She’s hit her career high of 9.850 on the beam multiple times, most recently against UCLA in 2012.
But the scores aren’t the motivation behind her final season with the Sun Devils. For Palafox, it’s simply about not having any regrets.
“I don’t want to look back and wish I hadn’t been so nervous or wish I had gone all out or wish I had done this skill instead of that skill,” Palafox said. “I just want to put it all out there and be happy with going all out and leaving it all on the floor.”
She’s been doing that since she was 4 years old and first got into gymnastics after a trip to Windward Mall.
The club she eventually joined was performing inside the mall and it caught her eye almost immediately.
“I saw them doing these exhibitions in the mall and it looked really fun,” Palafox said. “A family friend referred us to the (Kokokahi) gym team and that’s really where I got started.
The club season runs from January to May, but it’s a year-round sport that requires constant attention to improve every small detail so key to a demanding sport.
Even while attending Maryknoll for high school, Palafox remained committed to her club team, making the journey down the Pali Highway to practice day after day.
“After a while it becomes much more of a lifestyle than a sport,” she said. “It definitely takes a level of commitment.”
It’s never been easy. She suffered her season-ending knee injury as a junior just a month before the season was to begin.
But she battled back and helped the Sun Devils beat rival Arizona at home last year for the first time in a meet since 2006.
Now, her simple goal is to enjoy one last collegiate season — a dream that she once thought had escaped her.
“I’m thankful I’ve got this year because it’s all worked out,” she said. “For a while I never thought I’d be able to do this and I think it’s helped me appreciate all of the good times and all the trips and events I’ve been able to be on and compete in.”
