Injuries inspired career choice

Editor’s note: This story is the fourth in our summer series about local 2021 graduates’ plans after high school. It will run on Saturdays through August. If you have a suggestion of someone to include, email details to [email protected].



In eighth grade, Maria Hartings was playing in a club volleyball match when a ball spiraled toward the ground in front of her. Diving, suddenly her shoulder collapsed.

She had injured her rotator cuff.

It was the third-to-last volleyball game of her sophomore year at Fort Recovery High School when, once again, Hartings dived for a ball and the same shoulder collapsed. She not only injured her rotator cuff again, but also tore her labrum.

“My ability to play volleyball was gone and, without knowing it, I had played my last game of volleyball,” said Hartings, who graduated from FRHS in May.

Having grown up with a volleyball in her hand, as her mother was a volleyball coach, adjusting to the sidelines proved difficult for Hartings. Her physical therapist inspired Hartings to keep moving forward.

“She helped me discover who I wanted to be without the game of volleyball,” Hartings said. “She inspired me to do everything I didn’t think I could do, and she pushed me to be the best person I could be.”

Now, she wants to pass that feeling along to others going through a similar ordeal. This fall, she will be attending the University of Cincinnati to pursue an education in health sciences. She hopes to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy.

Hartings assisted FRHS athletic trainer Jill Schneider with the football and boys’ basketball teams for three years. During that time, she was able to explore injuries and recovery with her classmates.

“That was hands-down the best experience that happened to me while in high school,” said Hartings, who was also president of her 4-H club, secretary of the National Honor Society chapter and a member of student council and Spanish Club while working part-time jobs at Romer’s Catering in St. Henry, Ohio, and Cooper Farms in Fort Recovery and St. Henry. She also took dual-credit courses through Rhodes Community College.

She credited the community, as well as her parents — Maggie, the village’s former chief of police and now the secretary at Fort Recovery Middle School, and Ken, who works for Nicholas Schlarman Construction — with instilling a work ethic that she feels has her ready to work toward her dream career.

“I’ve seen the success they’ve had and the life they’ve built for themselves and for me and my younger sister, and I knew I wanted to work just as hard in not harder,” she said. “Especially in the world now, we live with COVID and uncertainties and things like that, it just made me realize how important it is to work hard because no day is guaranteed next. So, you just have to give everything.”