Humans of East: Claire Rogers

For sophomore Claire Rogers, rushing out of school before sixth hour to go home and change is an everyday occurrence. Changing from sweatpants into a sparkly leotard, trading her north face backpack for her black gym bag. As a level nine gymnast at Eagles Gymnastics in Kansas City, Missouri, Rogers trains 20 hours a week on bar, beam, floor and vault. She leaves before her sixth and seventh start to be able to be at the gym by 2:00 p.m.

Rogers has been leaving school early since seventh grade, heading to the gym at one p.m each day. She quit her other sports, like softball, basketball, soccer and dance for gymnastics.

Rogers found it difficult to quit her other sports, but gymnastics was too much of a commitment for her to continue her other sports Now, she knows this decision only helped her gymnastics career. 

Though Rodgers is an avid gymnast, she isn’t part of East’s gymnastics team due to scheduling conflicts with club gymnastics as she travels around the country to compete each year.

“I’m wanting to do it junior or senior year,” Rogers said. ” I could help out the team and have more fun, and it will be more relaxing.”

Since she doesn’t have a sixth or seventh hour, Rogers takes online classes like financial literacy and a gym elective to make up for the lost hours. This way, she still gets the same amount of credits as if she did being at school.

Though her training requires hours of commitment and sacrifice, she’s never wanted to quit her sport.

“My mom wanted me to quit because she thought it was too much for me,” Rogers said. “[It was] too much money and too much commitment, but I never [have wanted to]”

Rogers would like to continue her gymnastics training in college, hopefully at one of her dream schools.

“My dream is to be a [Division One] gymnast at The University of Oklahoma or Louisiana State University,” Rogers said. “ That’s not very likely so I’ll probably be looking at a couple smaller schools in Texas and Wisconsin.”