After overcoming back injury, Vestavia Hills gymnast Calyie Basselin wins Alabama diving title

For more than 13 years, Calyie Basselin dedicated a part of her life to gymnastics.

The Vestavia Hills High School junior was spending about 30 hours a week in the gym training and was visiting colleges with hopes of competing at the next level.

But in late 2018, Basselin pulled her hamstring in the gym. That injury was followed by a much more serious back injury in March 2019 that gave her two degenerative discs in her back and ultimately forced her to quit gymnastics in December 2019.

While gymnastics was no longer an option, Basselin quickly picked up the sport of diving in 2020. Diving, she was told, would allow her to compete athletically without hurting her back.

Basselin first practiced diving when the new Wald Park pool opened up at the Vestavia Hills Aquatic Complex last fall and found that it was something she could do without hurting her back, she said.

Fast forward to December 2020, less than six months after she took up the sport, and Basselin outperformed every other girl in the state to win the Alabama state championship.

“Honestly, it was very unexpected,” Basselin said. “When I found out that I won, I was so excited and just super thankful for my coaches and teammates because I could not have done it without them.”

Basselin realized about halfway through the meet that she was down by 30 points, but she was able to come back and win by five points.

Before competing at state, Basselin went to several smaller events, where she also placed first. She said the state championship was an amazing experience and she had a lot of fun there.

When she realized she could not do gymnastics anymore, she initially tried for months to work through the injury, but the intense, “pounding” pain proved to be too much.

The injury is something she said she is still overcoming, but her experience helps her today.

“I’m so thankful to have the gymnastics background so that my diving transferred over very easily,” Basselin said. “My back … has not affected my diving very much because it is so much less impact than gymnastics.”

Basselin’s mother, Jenny, said diving has been nice because the family was “so serious” with gymnastics. Taking more of a laidback, fun approach with diving has helped the family, she said.

Jenny said it made her happy to see her daughter take home a state championship, given that at one point her daughter asked if she’d ever be able to run without her back hurting.

“It’s fun and encouraging to see,” she said.

Looking toward the future, as she wraps up her junior year at Vestavia, Basselin said she was planning to start club diving in January and would love to apply her dedication and discipline to the sport in college.

“I can’t wait to see where I am in a year because I still have so much to learn and improve on.”