March 25, 1998
Spirit of a champion
Sixth-grader battles back from spinal column injury
By Eric Dick
Herald editor
She walks, awkwardly, with a crutch, her bony legs dipping and swerving with each step as if dancing during an earthquake.
But Elissa Preseau, an Immaculate Conception sixth-grader, serves volleyball like a champion. There is no overhand smash. Aces are more common in a deck of cards.
Elissa drops the ball on the court floor and then pops it after the bounce in an effort to make it over the net. Many times she is successful. Many times she is not.
She is a champion, nevertheless, because her spirit for the game - and for life - shines brighter than the gleam off any championship trophy. She strives each day for her ultimate prize: to be able to walk freely again.
"It's unbelievable," said Immaculate Conception volleyball coach Joann Droste. "She's got more courage than anyone I know."
Elissa has spina bifida, a congenital defect that affects the spinal column. A few years ago she played softball much like any other kid, running, jumping and throwing. But her scoliosis was worsening, so her family opted for a delicate surgery to straighten her spine.
The surgery was expected to improve her life. Make things better. It failed.
The surgery, in 1995, injured her spine, leaving her unable to walk. Physical therapy followed, moving her from wheelchair to forearm crutches.
She walks now, with difficulty, with the crutches. Last year she sat on the Immaculate Conception basketball team as their statistician. But this year she is a member of the volleyball team, taking her spot in the rotation just like the other players.
"This volleyball year has been a real tremendous lift to her because she is just physically able to get in the game," said her mother, Janell Preseau of Peninsula Township. "She does have quite the unique personality, and she doesn't let this (handicap) hinder her in the least."
Saturday at the Traverse City Elementary Athletic Boosters all-city coed volleyball championships at West Senior High, Elissa and her undefeated team (5-0-2) faced off against the rest of the sixth-graders in the district. The teams allow for her unorthodox serving style, and she relishes the opportunity to participate.
"It makes me feel a lot better than just sitting on the bench and watching my friends play," Elissa said.
She serves then follows along in the eight-player rotation until her time on the bench. Other players do look to help out in her zone, but she is hardly singled out for preferential treatment.
In practice the other day, players who botched their serve had to drop down for push-ups, coach Droste said. "And she was doing one-handed ones and she was doing better than anyone else."
Efforts toward inclusion always have been foremost in Elissa's young life. Be like everybody else. Avoid the special treatment.
"I had a doctor a long time ago tell me, 'Don't adapt your lifestyle to her; adapt her to your lifestyle,'" her mother, Janell Preseau, said. "And I think that has always been the key."
The philosophy seems to be working. And working well. At the all-city volleyball championships Saturday, Elissa, when playing, was fixed in concentration. While on the bench, she was rooting on her teammates.
A reporter asked her before the game, rather bluntly, why she does not succumb to the couch and video games? In a setting where opponents may taunt you for the shoes you wear let alone your obvious handicap, why participate? Why, when you once walked freely and now limp to get around, do you expose yourself to such frustration?
"Because I could lose what I've already gained," the sixth-grader said. "I'm learning how to walk again and getting my life back to normal."
On her first serve in the first match she scored, and smiled.
She botched her second serve. And still she smiled. Like a champion.
"She has just not let it get her down," her mother said. "Her attitude is, she will walk again independently, and that's her goal."