Healthy Outlook
Many athletes have pregame routines and superstitions to help them play better.
Lindsay Pavlik’s routine allows her to play, period.
Instead of wearing lucky socks or touching a good-luck statue, Pavlik reads her blood sugar level. An insulin-dependent diabetic since she was 10, Pavlik orchestrates a busy lifestyle around pokes, pumps, catheters and quick-release valves.
Yet none of this has prevented Pavlik, a Mater Dei junior, from helping the Monarchs rise to No. 5 in the Orange County girls’ basketball rankings.
Pavlik has a 4.17 grade-point average, an insatiable appetite for rebounding and a college career ahead of her in volleyball.
“It’s amazing to me that she competes at the level she does,” assistant girls’ basketball coach Geri Campeau said.
Pavlik was the South Coast League’s most valuable player and an All-Southern Section Division II selection in volleyball. She also plays for the Orange County Volleyball Club.
Her efforts last week on the basketball court helped the Monarchs to three victories, including wins over Edison and San Clemente--ranked second and fifth in the county at the time.
“It’s hard enough to juggle two varsity sports with club volleyball and a 4.0 GPA--that’s a lot right there,” Pavlik said. “But what’s so important is that I can’t lose sight of my diabetes or I’ll lose everything.
“It takes a lot out of me, but if I don’t have my diabetes under control, I lose everything else.”
Insulin-producing cells in Pavlik’s pancreas don’t work, “so the only way to survive is to give myself insulin,” she said.
Type 1 diabetics--those who are insulin dependent--are typically adolescents (girls ages 10-12, boys 12-14) when they discover they have the disease, according to the American Diabetes Assn. Between 5% and 10% of the 15.7 million Americans suffering diabetes are Type 1.
Pavlik does charity work, such as fashion shows, speaking engagements and retreats, and instructional videos for Pediatric Adolescence Diabetes Research and Education. Her father, Tom, is PADRE president this year.
Like other diabetics, Pavlik must watch what she eats and monitor her blood-sugar level before meals.
Because she’s so active, Pavlik must check it two or three times during a two-hour basketball practice. During the winter months, she also has club volleyball practice after basketball and there’s even more monitoring.
If she feels lightheaded, she makes a pricking motion on her finger to let girls’ basketball Coach Ollie Martin know it’s time for her to check her levels.
Pavlik said her self-discipline and sense of time management have helped her deal with the diabetes and the limited hours in the day. She credits her parents, Tom and Debi, “for making me earn things, not just giving them to me.”
“They taught me the discipline that’s helped me, especially with all my activities, how to handle it correctly so I don’t crack.”
Pavlik has become a key part of Mater Dei’s success. The Monarchs have physical, scrappy players in Pavlik, a 6-foot forward, Kyra Melville, Kristian Kirkpatrick, Maile Shimoda and Anita Colon, the team’s only senior.
“Everyone is at the same level,” Pavlik said. “There’s not one person who can win a game for us, and not one person who can lose a game for us. We just need to play together.
“We work, and we work hard. We don’t give up. We’re not quitters. And as long as we keep that mentality, keep on plugging away, as time goes on I think we’ll be hard to stop.”
In their 60-56 victory over San Clemente, the Monarchs came back from a 16-point deficit. Pavlik had 13 points, 12 rebounds and six steals.
“She jumps so high and has such great hands, and is so strong with the ball, she can be intimidating to other teams,” Martin said.
Mater Dei is 15-4 overall, 5-1 in the South Coast League. Barring a major upset, the Monarchs will share the league title with seventh-ranked San Clemente. “She’s definitely not a finesse player, she’s a power player, real emotional and competitive, and she’s come through for them in a lot of big games,” San Clemente Coach Mary Mulligan said. “She’s the kind of player every team needs to have because she’s tough. Sometimes you can have talent, but talent sometimes isn’t enough.”
Pavlik’s statistics are modest given her value. She’s averaging 9.3 points and 9.6 rebounds, has 51 steals and is shooting 43% from the field. Though some players could average 9.6 rebounds without much effort, Martin says “the key is the kind of rebounds you’re getting--are you battling 6-1, 6-2 people and crashing the boards getting those rebounds? Lindsay does that.”
Consider this: In 10 games against some of the better teams around--San Clemente, Edison, Huntington Beach, Rosary, Chino Hills Ayala, Riverside North and Los Angeles Palisades, Pavlik averaged 11.1 points and 10 rebounds.
“My offensive game could be a lot sharper if I dedicated as much time to basketball as I do to volleyball,” said Pavlik, who hopes to study law, sports medicine or communications in college.
“I think I lack certain fundamentals, but I’m very aggressive and have a lot of heart, so I think that makes up for it. . . . [Rebounding] is so much fun. It’s what I can bring to the game, to take it over.”