The mid-October sun plays peekaboo through a layer of broken clouds as a piercing wind whistles through the dazzling golden leaves of a gnarled oak tree, under which Noah Sgambellone and his Lexington cross country teammates have momentarily sought refuge.
A storm is building on the horizon, but neither the sudden chill in the air nor the imminent threat of rain can deflate the Minutemen on this Rockwellian autumn afternoon.
“I had a good day,” Sgambellone understates as his teammates resume their enthusiastic march toward the team tent, set up in its traditional spot near the starting line at Galion’s Amann Reservoir Park.
Considering everything Sgambellone has endured in the past two years, any day not spent under a surgeon’s blade or in a hospital recovery room qualifies as a good day.
That Sgambellone will compete in his fourth state meet Saturday at National Trail Raceway is a testament to his talent. That he will make his fourth appearance eight months after undergoing a second spinal fusion surgery is proof of his indomitable will.
“He has just as much passion as anyone I’ve ever coached,” says Lexington’s Denise Benson, whose program churns out Division I college prospects year after year. “We are so proud of him.”
The youngest of Milo and Lisa Sgambellone’s three children and the couple’s only son, Noah was diagnosed with idiopathic kyphoscoliosis when he was 4 years old. His spine had irregular curvatures along both the saggital (side-to-side) and coronal (front-to-back) planes.
The family pediatrician, Dr. Diana Timperman, detected the irregularity during a routine visit. Timperman referred the Sgambellones to Dr. Ryan Goodwin, a Cleveland-based orthopedic surgeon and spine deformity specialist.
The prognosis wasn’t good.
“It was hard to hear he may need to have back surgery. He was so young at the time,” says Noah’s mother, a nurse practitioner with Avita Health Systems.
As debilitating as the condition can be, it didn’t sideline young Noah. Like his older sisters — Hannah is a senior at Xavier University in Cincinnati and Private First Class Mia Sgambellone is an airborne paralegal specialist in the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Fort Bragg, N.C. — Noah took to running immediately.
“Both of Noah’s sisters ran cross country,” Lisa says, “and that’s what got him interested in running.”
Noah’s parents held out hope that their son wouldn’t need to undergo surgery. As he got older, however, his symptoms became more pronounced.
“We could tell when he was around 10 that (surgery) was inevitable,” Lisa says. “He had visible changes.”
His worsening symptoms didn’t derail Noah’s budding cross country career. He was the seventh man on Lexington’s state championship team as a freshman and was the No. 4 man the following year as the Minutemen returned to the podium as state runners-up in November of 2016.
Three days later, Noah underwent a procedure to fuse together several of the vertebrae in his upper back. Rods were inserted on either side of his spine for stabilization. The surgery, performed at the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus, lasted almost 11 hours.
“It’s major surgery, there’s no two ways about it,” says Dr. Bohdan Chopko, a board certified neurosurgeon at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital (Editor’s Note: Dr. Chopko is not Noah Sgambellone’s physician and did not perform surgery on Sgambellone). “Even though we have more advanced ways of doing surgery, it’s a big, big operation.
“Children are very healthy, typically, so they weather it much better than an 80 year old, but it’s just as complicated, potentially, as what we do in 70 or 80 year olds.”
Noah’s surgery was performed on a Tuesday. He came home the following Saturday, but wouldn’t return to school until after the holiday break. Six months of rehabilitation followed.
“All I could do for six months was ride a stationary bike,” Noah says. “Mentally I was pretty low. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to run again.”
Rehab went better than expected and Noah was cleared to run again in May 2017. He was back to full strength in time to help Lex win its second state championship in three seasons last fall, finishing 66th overall in 17:00.3.
The paint had barely dried on last year’s state title when Noah’s world came crashing down again. He was jumping rope last December when he felt a pop in his back. An X-ray confirmed Noah’s worst fear: one of the rods inserted alongside his spine had snapped.
“According to the surgeon, there was one place on Noah’s spine that was difficult to get to,” Lisa says. “Most likely it didn’t fuse in the first place.”
Whatever the cause, a second surgery would be necessary. It took place on March 28, when the Cleveland Clinic surgeon inserted two additional rods and a synthetic bone growth.
Dark days followed.
“Laying in the recovery room, I didn’t think I would run again. I was devastated,” Noah says. “I thought it was over.”
That despair wasn’t his to bear alone.
“The second surgery was harder emotionally,” Lisa says. “The first surgery was more physically taxing on him but the second surgery was devastating for all of us because he worked so hard to get back.”
Noah’s second round of rehabilitation began in earnest shortly after the corrective procedure. He was eventually cleared to cross-train and returned to running during the final week of July.
“He’s had two major surgeries in the past year-and-a-half,” says Benson, Lexington’s beloved cross country coach. “He’s had to put that frustration aside and take baby steps and it hasn’t always been easy for him.
“The hardest thing is to tell him, ‘We’re not ready for that yet. We’ve got to do a little bit at a time.’ ”
Noah missed the season-opening OHSAA Early Season Invitational in mid-August. In his first meet of the season, at the Seneca East Tiger Classic on Aug. 25, he finished in 43rd place. His time of 18 minutes, 37.47 seconds was almost two minutes off his personal record.
“It has been frustrating,” Noah says. “I couldn’t start running until the end of July, so I have been playing catch-up the whole season.”
A week after his season debut, at the Granville Invitational on Sept. 1, Noah finished seventh in 17 minutes, 27 seconds. Two weeks later, at the Galion Cross Country Carnival, he shaved another 24 seconds off of his season best.
Then two weeks ago, back at Galion for the Division II district meet, Noah had a breakthrough. His time of 16 minutes, 41.2 seconds was a new PR and good for eighth place overall. He followed that performance up with a 15th-place showing of 16:55.7 at the Tiffin regional meet.
“Am I surprised to see him running this well? Not at all,” says teammate and classmate Kyle Johnston, who is on the short list of runners who will compete for the Division II individual title when the rain-delayed state meet goes off Saturday. “He’s got the motivation and once he puts his mind to something, he’s going to do it. It’s very cool to see.
“The kid’s gone through two back surgeries and to see where he is now, it is absolutely inspiring and motivating. I couldn’t be happier for him.”