Balancing Act: Canton’s Jake Shapiro takes charge of MIT gymnastics

Canton resident Jake Shapiro has been on the MIT gymnastics team for the last three years, but this past season he was also the team’s president, coach, captain and de facto travel agent.  \

Gymnast Jake Shapiro competes on the rings.

At the end of last April, eight of MIT’s 41 varsity sports were cut, including men’s gymnastics. So, as soon as the cuts were announced, Shapiro stepped up and worked to help transition the men’s team from the varsity level to the club level.

“It wasn’t actually that hard for us to register as a club team,” said Shapiro, a junior at MIT and a 2007 graduate of Canton High. “What’s been the hard part is organizing all of our meets and traveling.”

Although he estimates the team spends about the same number of hours in practice each week as it did when it was a varsity sport, Shapiro’s overall time commitment to the program has increased.

Travel arrangements were taken care of by the athletics department when the sport was on the varsity level, but now Shapiro, along with teammate Brett Lazarus, takes care of booking the flights, hotels and rental cars when the team goes on road trips, not to mention booking time in the gym for practices.

“As long as you budget your time, you can do whatever you want to do,” he said.

Shapiro also has the added responsibility of advising his teammates in practice and during meets, although he admits he is looking to hire a coach next season.

“I would be happy to fire myself [as coach],” he joked.

Shapiro has been involved in gymnastics since the age of “4 or 5,” training and competing at the Summersault Gymnastics Center in Stoughton. CHS did not have a varsity boys’ gymnastics team, so Shapiro brought his gymnastics talents to the boys’ soccer team with his “flip” throw-ins. But even with his extensive gymnastics background, MIT was the only college he applied to that had a gymnastics program.

“I probably would have come here anyway, regardless [of whether MIT had a gymnastics team], but just to have it for the first two years and have it taken away was very frustrating,” he said.

Juggling all of his various administrative duties hasn’t kept Shapiro from competing at a high level on the mat. At the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Club (NAIGC) championship at Texas State University earlier this month, Shapiro placed first in the still rings competition; seventh in the pommel horse; and finished with the seventh highest all-around score at the meet. The MIT team finished fourth overall.

“It felt good to get some recognition for what I’ve been doing all year,” he said.

Over 40 teams competed at the NAIGC event. Where the MIT team has only five gymnasts who compete in meets (and just eight overall on the roster), almost everyone has to participate in every event at the various competitions, making versatility a key.

“It makes the meet so much more interesting and you’re so much more involved in the meet,” he said.

Shapiro said only 17 varsity men’s gymnastics programs remain throughout the NCAA. As a result, even at the club level, MIT participates in many of the same meets and competes against many of the same teams it had gone up against when it was a varsity-level sport. The only difference, he noted, is that a club team cannot qualify for the NCAA championships.

The competitive season runs from January to April. The team was funded this year primarily with leftover donations made directly to the gymnastics team. Next year, the team will look to other sources to cover its expenses.

“I just want to make sure the team survives,” Shapiro said. “My MIT experience would have been so much different had there not been a gymnastics team.”

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Posted by Jeffrey Pickette on Apr 29 2010. Filed under Beyond CHS, Features, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.