Kylie Bridenhagen/Winonan

Since she was four years old, gymnastics has been a huge part of Katie Seehusen’s life. With the end of the Winona State University gymnastics team’s 2013-2014 season, comes the end of an era for the team’s lone senior.

Seehusen started gymnastics in recreational classes with her brother and moved up the ranks on her club gymnastics team, North Crest, finishing level ten before coming to Winona State. Level ten the highest level a gymnast can achieve before becoming an elite prior to a college career.

Seehusen said she did not just want to stop the sport during college, so she gave college gymnastics a try.

“Gymnastics isn’t a sport you can just stop,” Seehusen said. “No gymnast has an easy time stopping, so I just knew I wanted to do it as long as I could.”

Watching her older teammates who went on to further their gymnastics careers in college, she said, “They had great experiences, so it was something I wanted to try too.”

Seehusen had looked at some other schools before Winona State, but after a few visits, she fell in love with Winona State.

During her first campus visit, she met with head coach Beckie Rolbiecki, and they immediately formed a close bond.

Then, a couple months later, Seehusen came back to visit the campus and see more about the life of student-athletes at Winona State.

“I did an overnight visit with some girls on the team and got to see into the actual life of a student-athlete. I just fell in love with the campus. I fell in love with the team and the coach,” Seehusen said. “I just knew it was where I belonged.”

Once becoming a Warrior, Seehusen decided to declare two majors—biochemistry and Spanish. Being a student-athlete, you could imagine how much less time she may have had when classes and homework rolled along. But, she said, “Winona State does a really good job working with student-athletes.”

She was also fortunate to come to school with extra credits, so she picked up a second major.

In gymnastics, Seehusen is known as an event specialist, meaning she works primarily on only some of the events, as opposed to all four. At Winona State, she competed on the vault, uneven bars and floor exercise. She said those three events are her favorite to compete and perform routines in.

“I like competing floor the best because you get to play with the crowd, but I also like vault and bars a lot,” Seehusen said.

During Seehusen’s sophomore year, she tore a ligament in her thumb, requiring it to be surgically repaired. This sidelined her training for a few months and caused her to miss the first meet of the year.

“I was in a cast for like a month, had surgery in October and then got out of it in early January,” she said. “I just missed the first meet and was back in.”

During the same season, one of Seehusen’s most memorable and proudest moments of her career happened—she qualified for the NCGA Championship meet with six other teammates.

“Making it to Nationals my sophomore year was a great experience. We got to travel to New York, so that was really fun,” Seehusen said.

During her freshman year, the Winona State gymnastics team was able to defeat their rival school, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, twice.

“Those were super fun, loud meets to have,” she said.

Another favorite career memory happened at her final meet of the season. Although the team was unable to advance to the National meet, she thought the team did great.

“This year regionals, my senior year, we had a great meet, and even though we didn’t end up where we wanted to in the standings, it was super fun to go out with a great meet,” Seehusen said.

Seehusen expressed how the team atmosphere and being on a sports team in college was a great experience.

“We always say coming in as a freshman in a sport you are so lucky because you automatically have like 20 other friends. You don’t have to go through the period of ‘oh my gosh I know no one here’ because you are surrounded by people who have the same hobbies as you, love to do what you love to do, so that makes it super great,” she said.

“I would say we are family—we are with each other more than anyone else, and I would say throughout the day—an hour of lifting in the morning, three hours of practice later and then go to study tables together, and you eat together,” Seehusen said. “You are just there all the time with each other.”

Seehsuen plans to start the Peace Corps in the summer.

“I was supposed to leave in July, but it’s getting pushed back now, but sometime this year,” she said.

Seehusen said she will likely be placed somewhere in Africa, teaching high school chemistry. After the two-year stint with the Peace Corps, she is thinking about continuing her education at grad school. And after that she said she’d like to teach.

No matter where her life takes her, Seehusen wants to remain involved in a sport she has been doing for her entire life, mainly with coaching.

“Coaching is something I’ve always loved and want to do. The more I think of it, being a coach, whether it be at the
collegiate level or not, is something I will end up doing or want to pursue,” Seehusen said. “This summer I’ll probably coach at home while I await my placement for the Peace Corps.”

“I just had a great experience at Winona State. I encourage anyone who’s thinking about college gymnastics to give it a try, and if they think it’s something they seriously want to pursue, than Winona State is a great option, and it was perfect for me,” Seehusen said.