Boardman graduate Brager argues athletes are smart in ‘Meathead’

May 6, 2015 at 12:09a.m.

With 37 years as a teacher, coach and now athletic director, Denise Gorski has to flip through her voluminous file cabinet or search deep into her archives to remember many former Boardman High athletes and recall certain school and individual records.

That is not the case with protege Allison Brager, a 2003 graduate and Gorski’s first standout female pole vaulter-turned-longtime friend.

“I called her the pioneer of women’s pole vault for Boardman and I think Mahoning County,” said Gorski, who helped the Spartans launch the event in the spring of 2002. The operation would not have taken flight without large investments and support from Boardman schools, a shared vision from both Boardman and rival Fitch, and Brager’s dedication.

“She wanted to win,” Gorski said. “But for her, it was an achievement to bring an event like that along when people weren’t sure if she would even be pole vaulting at that time. Everything in her life — she just has this drive and grit and determination. I’ll never forget watching her come down the runway and she just had this look on her face; she has the will to compete, and compete hard.”

Brager, now a post-doctoral fellow academic researcher in neurobiology at Morehouse College (Ga.) and a CrossFit Games competitor, has channeled those attributes into writing.

The Brown University alumnus and Kent State Ph.D. honoree has authored “Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain,” which has just recently hit bookshelves.

The title and one theme of the book can be traced back to her time at Boardman and later Brown.

“Boardman was very different in that the athletic culture was very embraced,” said Brager, who was a 4.0 honors student while becoming two-time All-Ohio selection in the pole vault. “Most people were either an athlete or they were in the band. There was no stigma or stereotypes associated with doing athletics, but that was very different when I went to the Ivy League.

“At the time, [the Ivy League] reduced the academic standards a little in order to get Division I-level athletes, which would make total sense.”

Some Brown classmates were not as keen on the duality of brains and brawn.

“’The only reason you got into Brown was because you’re good at track or you’re good at football,’ which is ironic because all of my friends from college in their professional careers are doing way better and are way more successful than any of my friends from college who were not athletes,” said Brager, who balanced a formidable course load with competition and frequent travel.

“Even now, where I work, most of [my colleagues] have never been athletes. We have very different lifestyles. That’s what motivated me: proving to people that I’m not a ‘dumb jock’ and that the term doesn’t even make sense because athletes are very smart. There’s not just one form of intelligence. Everyone thinks there’s just academic intelligence, but there’s emotional intelligence and I touch on that in the book; how well you get along with people or how well you react to someone else’s emotional state. And the same with social intelligence — how you behave in public and how you perceive yourself and others. And obviously motor intelligence — athletes have way better fine-motor skills across the board than most people. Those are the types of intelligence that no one ever thinks about.

“I would say half the book is more or less — I wouldn’t call it a manifesto — like stating a position and the second half of the book is a recovery manual: the importance and the benefits of sleep and recovery and performing well and I also talk a lot about [the science behind] performance-enhancing drugs.”

Brager’s book is also an ode to her hometown and mentors.

She asked Adriane Blewitt-Wilson — a 1998 Boardman graduate, Ashland University record-holder and four-time Olympic Trials shot put hopeful — to write the foreword.

“I just love the topic in how it breaks down the mental process an athlete goes through both on and off the field and also the fact that she wanted to dedicate it to ‘Mrs. G.,’ said Blewitt-Wilson, who befriended Brager when she returned home to help Gorski. “It really struck home because [Gorksi] has been such a huge support in my life. It was just a small way for me to show her how much I care and how much I appreciate her hard work. It was an honor.”

Gorski was humbled to have the book, Brager’s second project, dedicated to her.

“She inspired my life as much as I inspired hers,” said Gorski, who spoke of driving Brager to Columbus to train and facilitating 6 a.m. practices to oversee her work. “She made me become a better coach as I feel a lot of my athletes did. She wanted to learn so badly and wanted to do so well at it and just that perseverance of, ‘I’m just going to be the best at this event.’

“You wanted to do it just because they were so motivated.”

Said Brager: “I’ve had a lot of coaches since high school and now in CrossFit. They’ve all affected me in their own ways, but they’ve never touched me inspirationally in the ways Denise has.”