Gymnast Schuller balances demands of sports, biomedical engineering studies

UNIVERSITY PARK - Peyton Schuller wakes up early on a Monday morning. She has to get to conditioning practice by 6 a.m., head to an 8 a.m. math class, followed by three hours of physics class.After physics, Schuller heads straight to the White Building for gymnastics practice until 4:45 p.m. She quickly tries to grab a bite to eat after practice before starting hours of homework and squeezing in time to meet with tutors to help her get caught up on work.This is the life of a student athlete majoring in biomedical engineering."It's definitely been difficult. More so than what they have been in the past because in high school, classes just came easy to me," Schuller said. "Here, I have to really work, so that's been a challenge to get used to, but I think I have learned to manage my schedule now so it's not as overwhelming, but it's still definitely difficult."Most freshmen that plan to major in one of Penn State's most challenging majors worry about taking organic chemistry and upper-level calculus classes, but Schuller's wanted to take on more.When Schuller received her Penn State acceptance letter, she was not yet on the Penn State gymnastics team. She had competed throughout high school, but had not been recruited by Penn State. Schuller's mother decided to email Penn State head coach Jeff Thompson to see if he would be interested in a walk-on gymnast."Typically, you can go to YouTube and you can find clips of kids," Thompson said. "So I went to YouTube and her videos weren't very flattering and the skill level on the videos wasn't really where the team was. So, I told her mom we were full."Schuller's mother was not ready to back down. She asked Thompson if he would be at an upcoming regional competition and when he said that he would, she asked if he could keep an eye out for Peyton."We went and watched her and her personality came out in the live performance," Thompson said. "We said that this kid can help us on the floor and beam for sure even though she might never compete vault for us or train bars. We know she can make an impression on this team. And we've never been happier with a decision because she's amazing."Schuller then officially committed to Penn State and began a hectic academic schedule of balancing classes, tutors, study hall hours and once-a-week adviser meetings on top of a rigorous gymnastics schedule.Just when life couldn't seem to get more hectic, another variable was thrown into the equation.Schuller experienced some discomfort in her knee over the fall season. When she returned to school after the holiday break, her knee swelled up and she decided to go to the doctor after a painful first meet. After they scoped her knee, they found a slight tear in her meniscus that had to be cleaned up immediately."I have never had surgery before, so I didn't know what to expect. I actually came back from it much faster than I thought I would," Schuller said. "It was really hard to be in the gym and not be able to do stuff. I mostly just did exercises to get motion back in my knee and had to strengthen my quad."Schuller returned to the Penn State floor lineup seven weeks later in the quad meet against Alabama, Cornell and Denver. Since her return, she's posted a 9.725, 9.750 and 9.825 on the floor exercise.