She’s all that: St. Basil Academy senior Myranda Gormley, a Rhawnhurst native, has excelled both on the softball and field hockey fields, as well as in the classroom for the Panthers. St. Basil was recently eliminated in the state playoff semifinals for softball. Now that Gormley’s done with softball, she’ll be bound for Johns Hopkins University where she hopes to begin studying for a career as an orthopedic surgeon. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTO
When Myranda Gormley first visited an orthopedist for a sports injury when she was in the sixth grade, little did she know then that she was peering into her future.
Fast forward several years later, and Gormley has already graduated from St. Basil Academy, having just completed her senior year as her class valedictorian. The Rhawnhurst native was till tied to the school as the Panthers’ centerfielder and co-captain of the softball team, which recently made history on its current run to the final four of the state tournament.
And now with St. Basil bowing out of the PIAA Class AA semifinals, 4–2 to Holy Redeemer of Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, the real excitement is still yet to come.
About three months ago, Gormley found out that she had been accepted into her dream school, Johns Hopkins University, home to one of the top medical schools in the country. Gormley graduated from Basil’s with a 4.2 grade point average, and as of now, the plans are to go pre-med studying biology with the long-term goal to become an orthopedic surgeon. Genetics, cancer research and the field of oncology also intrigue Gormley, so while there is still some fine-tuning of the details to be done, her future includes helping those who need it.
“My first sports injury was a hairline wrist fracture in sixth grade, and by seventh grade I knew I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon,” Gormley said. “I was interested in what they were doing with my wrist, so I talked to my dad, and he told me then Johns Hopkins was the top school for that particular field. From that moment, I knew I wanted to go there.”
Gormley already knew and loved Maryland because her brother went to school and played lacrosse in the state for college, so relocating from Philly to Baltimore didn’t scare her. With her parents always pushing the importance of academics on her, Gormley graduated top in her class at Greenberg Elementary and entered St. Basil with the mentality that all of the girls were smart and on a similar level to her academically.
“I never necessarily strived to be tops in my class,” she said. “I just wanted to go there and put in the hard work I was already putting in in grade school and get the grades I was used to getting. Being valedictorian was not something that I was working toward. To end up there and to get into the school I wanted to go to shows hard work pays off.”
Gormley found out she was admitted in March, shortly after she had returned from a visit to the University of Pittsburgh. She had enough doubt in her mind about Hopkins that she started telling people she was heading west, not because she doubted her own ability, but rather she was aware that the majority of Hopkins applicants finished tops in their class.
“I understood that,” she said. “I had sold myself on Pitt, which is a great school for medicine, so when I found out I was accepted to Hopkins, I was in shock. I was at school and jumped around the entire parking lot and hugged everybody I could find. I called my mom, and she started crying right away. It was a big deal to reach that goal, which had been set so long ago.”
Whether she ultimately settles on orthopedics, oncology or another concentration of medicine, Gormley knows she wants to be a surgeon because of the direct hands-on approach it allows in helping others. She’s feeling all of the same emotions anyone else who just graduated high school does — excitement, stress, fear, etc. — but the anticipation of the unknown is clearly winning out. Gormley, also a field hockey star, is as goal-oriented a teen as you’re likely to meet, so the prospect of a big challenge never scared her. It’s why she’s a future doctor, and also why she was uch a big part in getting her team to the precipice of a state championship.
“I could tell from the beginning that she was mature beyond her age,” St. Basil softball coach Steve Sonneborn said. “She displays the same exuberance in the classroom that she does on the softball field. Her family stressed the importance of education and she’s just ran with that. During our Senior Day party, the girls voted her as the softball player most likely to cure cancer. That’s how the team feels, and I’m right there with them. I have no doubt that whatever she decides to do, she’ll be the best at what she does.”
St. Basil has a sign they made that each player touches before she takes the field. It reads “Sacrifice or Regret: Your Choice,” and Gormley found solace in that edict when writing her valedictorian speech. She didn’t have to sell her classmates much, because she was living proof of that motto — Gormley herself sacrificed so much to get to where she is, to the point where regret is not an option, nor would it be whether she went to Johns Hopkins or Pitt, whether she won a state championship or fell hort.
“I wanted to make sure the speech had meaning and purpose,” she said. “I wanted it to mean something to the girls who inspired me every day and made me so thankful to be where I am today. I changed it probably 100 times, but I settled on being true to who you are. Focusing on inner beauty and not outer beauty, not stressing over things like what I look like or how I compare to others.
“All that matters is how you are. Success is what we make of it, and it means something different to every person. So I told my class to look at yourselves instead of comparing to others. You’re your own person, and no one can take that from you. That’s the sacrifice or regret part — be who you are and find your passion. It’s your choice, and it comes down to what you do to make you the person you are. In the end, that’s all that matters.” ••
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