Humphrey retires from gymnastics

TUSCALOOSA | Two-time Olympic silver medalist and two-time NCAA event champion Terin Humphrey is hanging up her leotard and retiring from gymnastics.

The senior from Bates City, Mo., who has only performed four routines this season for the University of Alabama, will not compete the rest of the season after suffering setbacks in her ongoing recovery from back problems that have plagued her from the start of the year. She isn’t sure if she will travel with the team in the postseason.

“It’s kind of time to retire,” she said Tuesday. “It’s kind of sad. “This being my senior year I was really looking forward to it and summer was going great and then all of a sudden, setbacks. There’s nothing I could do. It’s disappointing but I had a great career.”

Crimson Tide head coach Sarah Patterson pronounced the chances of Humphrey returning to competition this season as bleak.

“I think at this point they’re slim and none,” Patterson said. “It’s been so long since she’s trained.”

Patterson said Humphrey, who did not dress out for last weekend’s meet against Penn State and did not travel to California the previous weekend for two meets, will dress out for Friday’s meet and be honored even though she will not compete.

“I just think it’s unfortunate that she won’t be able to be out there performing Senior Night,” Patterson said. “It doesn’t diminish the contribution that she’s given to the program. The success in her career came earlier on.”

Humphrey won a team silver medal with the U.S. at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, and also took silver on the uneven parallel bars. At Alabama, she won the bars title at the NCAA Championships as both a freshman and last season as a junior. She has won 10 All-America honors in her career.

Humphrey has only competed on bars this season, and last performed on Feb. 29 against Florida.

Patterson is clearly planning to move into the upcoming postseason without Humphrey in the lineup.

“At this point we have moved on to the point that we are going to compete with the ladies we have available,” the coach said. “Anything else would be additional. Mentally you have to get to that point where this is our team and this is what we’re capable of.”

Humphrey said her back problems have been diagnosed as a nerve condition that developed into a muscle problem when the muscles tried to compensate to relieve the pain from the nerve condition. She developed headaches last week after a nerve block and had blood taken from her arm and injected into her back on Monday to relieve the headaches.

Humphrey left the door open to trying to make a return before the NCAA Championships, scheduled for April 24-26 in Athens, Ga., but isn’t hopeful.

“Because of all my [medical] tests before I can’t really train right now," she said, “so if I do it will be later. It’s highly likely it’s over."

Tommy Deas can be reached at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.