Notre Dame three-sport athlete Maddie Urhahn shows 'heart of the team'

Notre Dame senior Maddie Urhahn is a member of a dwindling fraternity -- the three-sport athlete.

As she has from childhood, she's rotated with the seasons. Since her freshman year, she's gone from playing softball in the fall, moving on to basketball when the weather turns cold and soccer in the spring.

A leader on and off the field, it's not surprising the conversation turns to heart when Urhahn's three head coaches talk about their versatile athlete.

"She's one of those girls that is the heart of the team," varsity soccer coach Matt Vollink said about Urhahn, whom he can play anywhere on the field. "She's an athlete and wants to do very well."

Notre Dame softball coach Jeff Graviett put her powerful bat that belted three home runs her junior year in the heart of his lineup and her durable, sturdy frame at third base on a team that reached the Class 3 state championship game this fall.

Notre Dame's Maddie Urhahn attempts a 3-point shot against St. Joseph's Academy Saturday, Dec. 12, 2015 at Notre Dame Regional High School. (Fred Lynch)

"We were relying on her in the middle of the order, putting some of those slap hitters around her," Graviett said. "People have to drive them in, and she stepped up. And did a good job for us being a leader."

Last Saturday, the 5-foot-9 Urhahn, with her cheeks flushed red, could be found battling inside giving her all in the paint for basketball coach Renee Peters against a St. Joseph Academy team that featured two 6-3 players. The small forward wasn't yielding ground and played nearly the entire first half as Peters attempted to keep her tallest and most physical players on the floor in the uphill battle.

"She is a very physical type player," Peters said. "A lot of that probably comes from her softball training. She played third base, so she's tough-minded anyway to play that position. It's kind of a fearless position, and that's kind of the way she approaches this game. She does not back off of any type of contact. With any type of pressure, she's not going to go, 'I can't do this because I have a pacemaker' or 'I don't want to get hit.' I don't even think that's a consideration."

Timeout.

"Pacemaker?"

Yes, Maddie Urhahn -- pacemaker.

It's a fact coaches and teammates have become accustomed to at Notre Dame. The pacemaker has been part of her equipment since the start of her sophomore year.

"To be honest, I sometimes forget she has a pacemaker," said Peters, whose husband, Tony, just happens to be a pacemaker salesman, something he's done for more than 15 years. "I don't factor that into, 'Oh, she's got to come out, she's been in too long.' It's like she needs to come out because it's time and we're on a four-minute rotation anyway.

"But she is a senior, and sometimes I need her out on the court a little bit more. She's a leader and a positive player out there. She's one of those kids that may skip a rotation and stay out a full quarter. And I do ask her at times, 'How are you doing, what's going on?' She's never not going to tell you she's not fine. She's always like, 'I'm good, I'm good. I'm fine. I can keep going, put me in.'

"So really the pacemaker is not a consideration as far as our rotation. But if she makes too many turnovers, she's coming out, or if she's not taking a good shot, she's coming out, but it's not the pacemaker's fault."

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Notre Dame's Maddie Urhahn poses for a photo Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015 at Notre Dame Regional High School. (Glenn Landberg)

It's part of a learning process, and comfort level, that Urhahn, her family, teammates and coaches have adapted to since she first fainted on a soccer field in Jackson before a game her freshman year.

Urhahn, 14 at the time, had been experiencing some unexplained dizzy spells -- unusual for a person who had been perfectly healthy and fully involved in sports since early childhood.

"We think maybe she had a couple episodes her eighth-grade year but it got more frequent her freshman year," said Sharon Urhahn, Maddie's mother. "But when she completely passed out -- she had passed out a couple times and we had just thought she was overheated -- but the time that she passed out that got everybody's attention was in soccer. She wasn't actually playing. She was going to the game, and she passed out. They had practiced, and she was walking across the field to go to the bench, and she just fell down."

Vollink said he and his trainers were aware Urhahn had been visiting with doctors about dizzy spells. He termed the episode "alarming," but trainers from both teams tending to her didn't deem it as "anything life-threatening."

"After that happened, we were like, 'You can't play anymore until we really figure this one out,'" Vollink said.

Sam Feeney, a current senior teammate on the Bulldogs basketball team and a close friend since the two met before their freshman year, heard the news of the fainting episode as it spread through the halls of Notre Dame.

"I actually hadn't known about her passing out during soccer season because I didn't play soccer, and one day in the hall, I heard, "Yeah, Maddie passed out the other day. 'I said, she passed out?' I was having a hard time, I was like freaking out. So I went up to her and asked, and she said, 'Yeah, it's not a big deal, it'll be alright.' And I was like, 'Alright, OK.' And then a couple weeks later, she was there with a monitor on her back, and I was like, 'This looks a little bit more serious. And it continued on, and later, same thing, we were walking in the hallway and I hadn't talked to Maddie much about her heart, I was like, 'She's fine.' You know, 'She's Maddie Urhahn.'"

Urhan said sugar and heart tests did not detect the problem, and the next step was a 24-hour heart monitor.

"That picked up something, which actually was pretty random because it really wasn't happening that often," Urhahn said.

She then wore a 30-day heart monitor, which picked up multiple heart anomalies.

"She was having total heart lock, which was an electrical thing where her heart would just stop beating," Sharon Urhahn said. "And sometimes it would stop beating for a few seconds, sometimes for five seconds, and sometimes it would be for nine seconds, and that's when she would black out. There was no rhyme or reason why it would do that, and they still don't know why. There's nothing structurally wrong. It was more of an electrical thing."

While the cause for the onset of the condition remained a mystery, as well as whether it would go away on its own, it was decided Maddie would need a pacemaker.

"It was kind of shocking," Maddie said, pausing to laugh at her choice of words. "I wasn't expecting it. I actually remember talking to one of the older girls. And I told her what was wrong, and she was like, "Oh, you're going to have to get a pacemaker, and I was like, 'I don't even know what that is. I don't think so.'

"And then, like, literally a couple weeks later, they were like, 'You need a pacemaker.' And I was like, 'OK, please explain to me what this is and what it does because I have never even heard of it.'"

Notre Dame's Maddie Urhahn holds pacemaker similar to the one she has implanted in her chest Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015 at Notre Dame Regional High School. (Glenn Landberg)

A pacemaker, about the size of a silver dollar, regulates the rhythm of the heart, sending electrical impulses through wires to the muscle of the heart to tell it when to beat.

One of the foremost questions in the family's mind was whether she would be able to continue with her active lifestyle, which at that time included three years of high school sports.

"Sports have always been our life," Sharon said. "Our lives have revolved around sports."

Maddie said she was told her need for a pacemaker was not "super urgent" so she scheduled the surgery for mid-summer so as not to interfere with her plans to play travel softball, which in her mind could have been her final playing days.

For Sharon, a typical mother, it was a long few months to wait for her daughter to have her pacemaker implanted.

While waiting for the surgery, her worries about her daughter's halting heart were not fully comforted by reassuring words. "It was like, 'It will start back up," Sharon said. "And I was like, 'Whattt?'"

To underscore Maddie's love for softball, she participated in her travel team's season-ending tournament in Jackson, Tennessee, on July 21, 2013, and underwent surgery the following day at the St. Louis Children's Hospital, where she spent two nights.

Two weeks of grueling rest, some spent on a beach in California watching others swimming in the ocean, were required for the active child.

"They just wouldn't tell us absolutely that she would be able to go back to sports until after the surgery," Sharon said. "They thought that she would, but depending on how the surgery went and how the placement went, but afterward they said everything looked wonderful and she could go back to sports with no restrictions."

That uncertainty weighed on Maddie throughout the summer.

"When I first got it, because I didn't think they'd let me play, and I was like, 'This is it,'" Maddie said. "That summer was eye-opening. I wanted to do everything right and do the best I could and have fun with it, and then I found out I could play. But then the clock came, and that was another realization that I was taking everything for granted. It opened my eyes, and was like a privilege, I guess, and that I not need to take it for granted."

When practice began for high school, Maddie was ready for her first test in what became a smooth sophomore season.

The main concern was any direct hits to device, which was implanted just below her left shoulder on her chest.

"At first, it was kind of hard because in softball I was kind of scared that the ball would take a bad hop and hit me in the chest, but then I got the pad, [and] then I felt normal after that," Maddie said.

Notre Dame trainer David Enderle addressed the concern by fitting her with a pad to protect the area.

"It's always a concern, but you trust the medical staff, their parents, and we have a tremendous trainer on staff who we have a lot of trust in," Graviett said. "They felt comfortable with it, and it's going to make you feel comfortable as a coach.

"Really, other than her putting the little pad on before practice and stuff, you wouldn't even notice it from our standpoint. A little concern, but once you get going in there and she starts playing, you forget she even has anything like that from a softball perspective. It was kind of an afterthought after the first few times, the first few weeks anyway into it."

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Notre Dame's Maddie Urhahn shoots a basket Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015 at Notre Dame Regional High School. (Glenn Landberg)

After seeing some varsity action in all three sports her sophomore year, she moved into starting roles in all three as a junior.

In softball, she quickly became a core member with a .371 batting average, 20 RBIs, three HRs and 11 stolen bases.

Her junior year of basketball didn't go nearly as well, cut short by a blood clot in the left shoulder just four games into the season.

"She came back from basketball practice, and she complained that her arm felt heavy," Sharon said. "We noticed on that left side that it was swollen, so to make a long story short, she had a blood clot there. So they put her on blood thinner to dissolve the clot, and she was on that for three months, and you can't play while you're on the blood thinner. And she went back for a checkup, and it was completely gone. No residual, and it was completely gone. We were ecstatic about it."

However, the excitement ended a week later when the clot returned, and it remains to this day.

"Her doctor consulted with cardiovascular surgeons all over, and there were so many conflicting stories on what to do because if she stayed on blood thinners, as a parent, I didn't like that because it's so risky, and she would not have been able to play her sport," Sharon said. "And then they talked about moving her pacemaker to the other side, but the vein is still damaged. That wasn't really a good option. What they did is they just left the blood clot, and her body has kind of recirculated around it and found other pathways. Her left arm is always still swollen. Up to shoulder and all the way down is swollen.

"The doctor said the blood clot is attached to the wire of the pacemaker, and so the likelihood of it moving is slim. There still is a likelihood that [the clot] could move, so she has to be aware of all the signs and symptoms of a pulmonary embolism if it were to move. Running or moving around is not going to [increase the risk]. ... They just said to go for it and live your life and don't live in fear of it."

Off of the blood thinner, she returned to play soccer for Vollink last spring.

"Even when that was going on, she didn't want to stop playing," Vollink said about the clots. "That's how committed she is and how much she loves playing. Sports are pretty much a passion for her. Her focus was, 'What do I need to do to be able to play, and what do I need to be able to do to get back as fast as possible?"

Vollink stressed to her that her health was paramount.

"'You're 16 years old, you love the game, but is it worth risking everything?" Vollink said of his conversation with her. "We told her from the very beginning that we were going to take this very, very slowly, So with our trainer, David Enderle, with the doctors, with the parents, we were very, very diligent about making sure that she was safe. She's very realistic, too.

"She wasn't going to risk anything in the grand scheme of things, so she played it very, very smart. There were days, where it was like, 'OK, you're going to have to sit' ... just to make sure we do everything that needs to be done for her safety."

That said, Vollink said she participates in all drills, the same as everyone else does.

"She is one of the hardest working ones in all of that," Vollink said. "Yeah, she is an impressive young lady."

This fall she had another strong softball season, and in basketball, she is one of three seniors on Peters' squad. She has averaged seven points and four rebounds against four tough opponents thus far.

"If she needs it, it's there," Peters said about the pacemaker. "The blood clots scared me last year ... If that would have gone to her heart or lungs, or we would have been on the road ... I'm also a parent, so as a mom, you're like, 'Oh my god, what if, what if, what if,' but we've got an incredible trainer that works with us daily, and the doctors here have been wonderful. That helps us incredibly."

It's been an education for all, evident by Feeney, who recalled the pacemaker news less than three years ago.

"I heard a girl one day say, 'Did you hear Maddie might have to have a pacemaker?' My face went white," Feeney said. "And I was like, 'No, she's not going to get a pacemaker.' And so that time, I was like freaking out. I didn't know what to do.

"But after she got the pacemaker she was back to normal, and she was competing like she always had."

Life inherently has risks. Her family once wondered if a pacemaker was needed in a 14-year-old or if the unexplained condition would pass just as it came. The family is at peace with the decision.

Maddie said she can feel her pacemaker occasionally, and monitor readings also indicate it has been called into action. Now 17 and able to drive, all parties feel fortunate the blackout conditions surfaced when they did.

"Maddie is just that anomaly, a varsity athlete," Peters said "There have been people with congenital heart defects and they don't find out about them, unfortunately, until they pass out on the field or on the court.

"They were able to diagnose this, and hopefully, this is something she's going to work with obviously for the rest of her life, and pacemakers do have to be changed out and batteries need to be replaced, but she's handled it extremely well. Like I said, we sometimes forget she has this sometimes until she takes the pads out of her shirt. She's never skipped a beat."