Softball
Favorite athlete: Carlos Ruiz
Favorite team: Penn State Football
Favorite memory competing in sports: This season during my first high school game back from an injury, I hit a homerun in my first at-bat.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During this season, we were shagging balls in the outfield and a ball was hit – I turned back to try and catch it. All of a sudden I hear everyone yell, “Yanni, watch the fence,” but it was too late. I already hit the fence.
Music on iPod: Country and Pop
Future plans: I will be attending Penn State Altoona. I am majoring in Kinesiology. After I graduate from Penn State, I will be attending another college to get my degree in Physical Therapy.
Words to live by: “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” –John F. Kennedy
One goal before turning 30: To be working as a Physical Therapist and to live in Boston with my own family.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love American history. I enjoy learning about different events in American history. My favorite topics are the Civil War and the Presidency of John F. Kennedy.
By Mary Jane Souder
Call it a triumphant journey for Nicole Yanni.
The North Penn senior – sidelined with a knee injury for the better part of the last three years – probably didn’t have any business playing softball this season. If it had been up to her doctor, she would have called it a career a long time ago. In truth, most athletes would have, but Yanni is not most athletes.
Hers is a story of perseverance and determination, a story of passion for her sport that simply would not let Yanni walk away without one last go-round. And what a go-round it was for the senior second baseman, who batted cleanup for a Maidens’ squad that captured the SOL Continental Conference title.
“As a sophomore, she was going to be a starter for me at second base, but she had a knee problem,” North Penn coach Rick Torresani said. “I told her last year she was going to be a main person as a junior, and that’s why she tried so hard to come back this year.
“She worked so hard in the offseason knowing this would be her last season and knowing that she would be a critical person in our lineup.”
Yanni’s knee injury was not your typical knee injury, and it wasn’t her only injury. She missed both her seventh and eighth grade softball seasons with an ankle injury that was initially misdiagnosed.
The signs of trouble began in ninth grade when her knee popped out after hyperextending her leg during a basketball game that winter.
“The kneecap moved a little bit,” she said. “We got it checked out, but they didn’t see a problem.”
Yanni played with her Harleysville Thunderbirds travel squad that summer, and everything seemed fine.
“Come fall of 10th grade when I was going out for the fall workouts, I dove for a ball, and that’s when it completely popped out,” she said.
It marked the beginning of a long and grueling ordeal that included – in January of that year - surgery for lateral release of the kneecap. She was sidelined her entire sophomore season but was able to play travel softball that summer. Yanni was poised to make her return as a junior, but her knee made it impossible.
“My muscles got really tight and that caused the kneecap to go again, so the doctors advised me not to play, unless I wanted to play through the pain, which was kind of hard for me to do because my muscles were so tight,” she said. “That caused my kneecap to move, so the pain became unbearable.
“We were going to doctor’s appointments, we were doing things like cortisone shots. My doctor told me to shut it down.”
For Yanni, those were fighting words.
“That pushed me and gave me the determination to prove to him that I can play,” she said.
Although she never stepped on the diamond, Yanni was with the varsity as both a junior and senior.
“It was really difficult,” she said. “I have cousins who played high school sports, and they loved it, the camaraderie of the team.
“I didn’t get to help the team like I wanted to. I didn’t get to go out there and play, which was really hard for me because I had played during the summer before my junior year, and I was fine. Then all of a sudden come the fall, and it starts getting tight again. I’m all excited to play and all of a sudden my knee starts giving out again, and I didn’t get to play at all my junior year.”
Determined there would be no reruns this year, Yanni went to work.
“I pushed myself to work harder than I did in the past for rehabbing,” she said. “I made sure I didn’t have the complications I had going into junior year.
“I had no complications in the summer going into senior year, and when I went back for a follow-up in the summer, I told (my doctor) that nothing is going to stop me. He had gotten to a point where there was nothing more he could do. Now it was up to me rehabbing and making sure my muscles aren’t getting tight so my kneecap doesn’t pop. I told him – I’m not missing my senior year. There’s nothing that’s going to stop me.”
Yanni inherited her love for the game from her father, Frank Yanni, the hitting coach for the North Penn baseball squad.
“He’s had baseball in his blood forever, and it’s a similar game,” she said.
Yanni might well have learned her sweet stroke at the plate from her father. In the first varsity at-bat of her career this spring, she hit a ball over the left field fence for a home run, serving notice that she hadn’t lost her touch.
“There’s still pain when I was playing this season, but my doctor told me there’s going to be pain and I’m going to have to deal with it,” she said. “That’s why I stretch before every practice and game, so the pain would be tolerable.
“My knee still pops out, but that’s kind of part of the deal now. That’s part of my package. It’s going to continue to pop out and move, but there’s really nothing more to do about it because they don’t want to do surgery because there would be scar tissue and a lot more complications, so they tell me I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life.”
Yanni’s return to the lineup hit a bump in the road when - in the Maidens’ fourth game of the season at Central Bucks East - she suffered a concussion.
“She slid into third base, and the girl turned around and rifled the ball and hit her in the head,” Torresani said.
Once again, Yanni was sidelined, and once again, she was driven by the singular desire to get back on the field.
“It was frustrating because I know concussions can take a while to heal, and it could mean you’re out for the season,” she said. “I was getting stressed and frustrated because I didn’t want to miss my senior year.
“I did everything I could, everything the doctor told me to do so I could heal faster, and I really did. That week I was out I stayed in my room the whole time. I came out to eat and stuff, but I made sure I was in the dark room and I didn’t do anything that could harm my head. I really pushed myself to make sure I was back. I was cleared a week after I was diagnosed.”
Yanni batted .385 and was a key contributor to the success a Maidens’ squad that closed out its season with a 19-3 record.
“She’s unbelievable,” Torresani said. “This team was just great to be around - it was fun, it was enjoyable.
“Nicole is one of those girls that was one of the leaders. She’s a good student in the classroom, well liked by everybody. She wanted to play softball in college, but she obviously can’t do that.”
Although knee issues will prevent her from playing collegiate softball, those same knee problems led Yanni down a career path where she hopes to one day help others who are struggling with similar injuries.
This fall, she will attend Penn State-Altoona where she will major in kinesiology. Yanni, who did both her rehab and career study at NovaCare Rehab, plans to pursue a career in physical therapy.
“I had a lot of experience with physical therapy between my ankle that I broke in seventh grade and then my knee, so they definitely influenced my career path,” she said. “My injuries have pushed me to help people and to make sure they are doing the activities they want to do.
“I want to go into pediatric physical therapy because I want to help kids go back to doing the activity they want to do and the sports they want to play. My story definitely helped me because I want to help people to make sure they don’t go through what I went through with my knees.”
Yanni walks away from softball with nothing but fond memories of her final days on the diamond.
“This season was really special,” she said. “We had a good group of girls this year. We got along really well on and off the field.
“We worked hard together, we really pushed each other, and we made sure we didn’t sell ourselves short and we played to the best of our abilities. We really worked well together, and we had one of the better seasons for North Penn softball.”
Not a bad ending to a long journey for Yanni.
