‘SHE’S A HOME RUN’

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            When Carrie Rubertino-Shearer was looking for someone to fill Baylor's vacancy as head athletic trainer for women's basketball, she turned to one of her former mentors for a recommendation.

             That led to a "home run hire," when the Washington Mystics' Chalisa Fonza shocked Rubertino-Shearer with the news that she might actually be interested in the job.

            "I told her, 'That would be a dream for me, but I didn't really think you would be an option,''' said Rubertino-Shearer, who was one of the students that Fonza oversaw as a grad assistant at Ohio State University nearly 30 years ago.

            "She was a no-brainer. I think she's one of the best in the country. For us, there are so many things – her experience, she likes mentoring students, grad students, she has a heart for student-athletes. So, yes, I think she's a home run."

            In 25 years at the college level, with stops at Cleveland State, Oklahoma State and Ohio State, Fonza enjoyed watching the maturation process of student-athletes growing from freshmen to seniors. "But one thing I really loved about being in college is you're able to teach and give back," she said.

            "I taught a couple of our assistant athletic trainers here: Natalie Phipps is a physical therapist (with football) and Katie Lee is a doctoral student who's a secondary with acrobatics and tumbling," Fonza said. "I had grad assistants in the WNBA, so I could teach that way in the summer, but it's not the same. That was one of the big draws about coming back to college is being able to have students and to just teach and engage and get to know these kids."

            Growing up in Quincy, Ill., directly across the Mississippi River from Mark Twain's boyhood home in Hannibal, Mo., Chalisa was the oldest of three children of Les and Connie Fonza. The Fonzas celebrated their 55^th anniversary last September, with a surprise 75^th birthday party for Connie scheduled for Saturday in Quincy.

            After spending 10 years in Jacksonville, Ill., the family moved back to Quincy before Chalisa's junior year of high school when Les became the band teacher at Quincy High School.

            As a first-year early education major at Illinois State who struggled to get in classes, Chalisa stumbled upon a class in bandaging and taping taught by David Draper "and I kind of fell in love with it," she said.

            "Part of what you had to was observation hours in the training room at Illinois State. And they assigned you to Normal High School, which was right there close to campus," she said. "So, I was doing hours and fell in love with it. Ex-athlete (basketball and track), fell in love with it, and there you go. I was trying to get into (the athletic training) program, but I was not going to be able to get into it for another year."

            Transferring to Western Illinois as a sophomore, she got into the athletic training program there, but it had not been accredited. So, Chalisa actually got her bachelor's degree in recreation, park and tourism administration with an emphasis in athletic training.

            "You had to have a degree in something else in case you didn't pass the (certification) exam, because I had several of my classmates that never passed the exam," she said. "Their degrees on paper say kaskaskia (general studies), and I still don't know what that is."

            After an internship in morale, welfare and recreation at the Naval Air Station in Key West, Fla., Chalisa graduated from Western Illinois and returned home to work as a night supervisor at Chaddock School for behavioral kids and part-time hours at a physical therapy clinic. And if that wasn't enough, she also played basketball at John Wood Community College.

            "I went and played basketball with these 18-, 19-year-old kids," she said. "And I'll just tell you, that was the hardest thing, trying to get back into shape."

            At the National Athletic Trainers' Association convention in the summer of 1993, Chalisa was perusing a job board when Billy Hill asked her what she was looking for. The head athletic trainer for Ohio State football, Hill led her into a room, where she was interviewed on the spot in front of a "group of my now peers, Vince O'Brien, Monica Ball and Bill Davis."

            As one of two graduate assistants for the 32-sport athletics program at The Ohio State University, Chalisa and Chris Mizer helped oversee all the student interns and "the two of us were responsible for being at every home event for the year," she said.

            "Football, you wanted to be there. Everybody wanted to work football," she said. "But swimming, diving, fencing, synchro, we were there. The two assistant trainers would help us with some stuff. Vince O'Brien was over the aquatics facility, which had swimming, gymnastics and wrestling. So, if he wasn't on the road or at championships or whatever, he would help us cover. But that was the job."

            In her final semester at OSU, Chalisa was devastated by the sudden death of Hill in February 1995.

            "That was like, 'Wow!' because he was an African American athletic trainer," she said. "I didn't know any other African American trainers. No one looked like me, so that was hard."

            Chalisa, also an African American, remembers going to a meeting for minorities in athletic training – the precursor to the Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee – "and I was one of probably 20 or 25 (minorities) in athletic training . . . in the country."

            "This was in 1993, and we could all sit around one table," she said. "And now, there are thousands and we have a huge room and we have our own day at NATA."

            Getting her first full-time job at Cleveland State in 1995, Chalisa worked for four yours as the assistant athletic trainer for basketball and women's volleyball, oversaw the student athletic trainer program and handled all of the rehabilitation for the athletic department.

            "We worked with the Cleveland Clinic, which gave me a lot of experience," she said. "The NBA went on strike during my time there (1995), so we had all these NBA guys that were locked out of the arena. They were coming in and working out at the Cleveland Convocation Center, so we took care of them. We had Danny Ferry, Bob Sura and a couple other folks. That was a great time to be there."

            She was also the first athletic trainer for the Cleveland Rockers in 1997, in the inaugural season of the WNBA.

Chalisa Fonza tapes Caitlin Bickle at the Big 12 Tournament

            "I was super young, and there were no assistants at the time, so you kind of learned as you went," Chalisa said. "And at that time, the athletic trainer was the equipment manager, the traveling secretary, basically whatever else you needed. So, we did it all. I had to plan meals, do wake-up calls, get the buses and make sure everyone got on the plane. And if something goes wrong . . . you're dealing with all of that. I don't think people understand what athletic trainers in the NBA had to deal with back then."

            In the summer of 1999, Chalisa went to Europe with the University of Iowa's women's basketball team, with the promise of being the program's first full-time trainer. But when the funding was pulled, she took a job at Oklahoma State as the head women's basketball trainer and football assistant.

            "And then, my best friend who was the first-year GA at Ohio State when I was a second-year, Brian Farr, left at the end of October for the head job for men's basketball under Rick Barnes at Texas," she said. "I was still doing football and then did both men's and women's basketball until we hired the new guy, Brian Luinstra, right after Christmas. But we made it work."

            Returning to Ohio State in 2000, she worked with women's basketball head coaches Beth Burns, Jim Foster and Kevin McGuff through the 2017-18 season, and also had "men's and women's golf, and then it ended up being cheer and dance."

            "And I loved my cheer and dance and Brutus (the OSU mascot)," she said.

            With Vince O'Brien working with men's basketball, Chalisa with women's basketball and a former GA, Jeff Deits, coming back as an assistant trainer, "we were vibing, we were meshing," Chalisa said.

            "If I had a kid that needed something, Vince was there, or Jeff was there; and vice versa if they needed advice for something," she said. "And then, (O'Brien) pulled up and was gone. He was still doing athletic training, but he was in the sports medicine building less than a mile away. And I was just crushed. It was like getting a divorce."

            After meeting with her a couple times during the 2017-18 season, the Washington Mystics offered the position of head athletic trainer and the chance to return to the WNBA. In addition to her stint with the Cleveland Rockers, Chalisa had taken a six-month sabbatical from OSU to work with the Mystics during the 2005 season.

            "It was just good timing," she said. "My sister, Frances, had just taken a job at a megachurch in Clinton, Maryland. So, I lived with my sister. And the money was a lot better than what it was . . . and it had to be a little bit better because just the city itself and the cost of living there."

            In her first two seasons, the Mystics lost to the Seattle Storm in the 2018 finals and then beat the Connecticut Sun in 2019.

            "Mike Thibault is one of the best people I know on the planet," Chalisa said of the Mystics' head coach, who is now the general manager. "Great coach, his family is great. Just very welcoming, made you a part of them. Just great, great people. All the coaches I've worked for have been very good people, which you can't say that about a lot of folks, a lot of times. Especially you see some of the horror stories with some of these coaches out there, but I have been privileged to work with some very nice people."

            Twice, Chalisa felt the Holy Spirit leading her to interview at Louisville, and twice she didn't yield. But when she got the call from Rubertino-Shearer in the summer of 2021, it was a door that she was ready to take.

            "The first couple of calls, I just said, 'What do you got?' because I've got friends asking all the time," Chalisa said. "The third call, I was like, 'What do you got, because I want to consider it.' It was just a summer of spiritual warfare. And once I realized at the all-star break that I was good, that I could stand, that's when Carrie was making those calls.

            "It's women's basketball, it's Baylor, it's still demanding, high-quality athletes. I just wanted to keep my hands in high-level athletics and women's basketball, and that's what I have done."

            Starting her job in November of 2021 as Director of Athletic Training for women's basketball, she also got the chance to teach again and see the development of the student-athletes.

            "I don't think people understand the commitment level and what athletic trainers are really trying to do," she said. "They will go above and beyond and try to do whatever they can to help somebody matriculate through. I think that gets lost a lot of times. And sometimes, we take it home with us. But this is what we love."

            Rubertino-Shearer also likes having another Buckeye around.

            "She's a straight-shooter for me," Rubertino-Shearer said, "so I know if I ask her opinion, I'm going to get an honest answer. She's a friend, a colleague, a peer. If I need a prayer, we've had some stuff we've dealt with at work that I know she's got my prayers covered, praying before meetings."

            Outside of athletic training and doting on her 5-year-old boxer, Coda, Chalisa said she's a "lover of jazz" because her dad is a jazz musician.

            "If I have my headphones in, I'm probably grooving to some kind of jazz," she said. "Because my sister is in the music world, she's got a lot of friends across the country that are playing for the John Legends of the world. So, if they're playing in Dallas or somewhere close, I'll make the trip. I'm just an avid jazz fan."

‘SHE’S A HOME RUN’

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