How gymnast who lost friend in Parkland school shooting came to Iowa and found ways to heal
IOWA CITY, Ia. — Before every competition, Iowa gymnast Alex Greenwald takes a pen in her callused right hand and carefully inscribes three words of inspiration on her left thumb:
“Just Keep Swimming”
It’s the title of a song from the 2003 Disney movie “Finding Nemo.” For Greenwald, it is a way to preserve the memory of a childhood friend who died in a mass murder at their Florida high school, four months before graduation and one week after he had accepted a scholarship to become a college swimmer.
Nick Dworet was 17, and always will be. The dreams that Greenwald and he had nurtured — of pursuing the sports that consumed their young lives to the highest level — were forever stalled for Dworet on Valentine's Day 2018, when an armed intruder fired four bullets into his body while he sat in his Holocaust history class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He was one of 17 students and faculty members who perished in the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.
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For Greenwald, the next big stop would be Iowa City. An elite gymnast from a young age, she had committed years before to compete as a University of Iowa Hawkeye.
In the weeks that followed the shootings, Greenwald attended vigils and marched with her classmates. She saw her hometown of Coral Springs subsumed by sadness. She vowed to leave as soon as she could, thinking everything would be better once she got to Iowa City, where she felt pulled to begin living the perfect future — for Dworet and herself.
On June 3, 2018, Greenwald was one of 764 Marjory Stoneman Douglas seniors to walk across a stage to grasp their high school diplomas. TV talk show host Jimmy Fallon surprised the crowd by showing up to deliver the commencement address. Greenwald posed for photos with her parents and younger sister.
Hours later, she boarded an airplane alone.
“I was looking forward to stepping on campus ever since I committed my freshman year,” Greenwald said. “I thought, ‘Things are going to be so much happier in Iowa City.’ I couldn’t wait to get away.”
Greenwald intended to leave a grieving community behind, but in retrospect was just carrying her own pain to a different place. She may not have known it then, but Greenwald came to Iowa for more than instruction on the vault or floor exercise or uneven bars, for more than a college diploma. She came to Iowa to heal.
Two gymnasts meet in Ohio; a daughter follows their path in Florida
Christine Hiler is from Pennsylvania; Mark Greenwald is a native of Florida. In 1988, they met at Kent State University in Ohio, where both were gymnasts. Hiler specialized in the uneven bars, where upper-body strength is paramount. Greenwald was an expert tumbler, showing off his powerful legs while twisting and flipping gracefully across the mat.
They married and moved to the South Florida warmth of Greenwald’s youth. Alexandra was born July 11, 2000; a second daughter, Gabrielle, soon followed.
Alex took to her parents’ sport immediately. By age 7, she was immersed, training 4½ hours a day, six days a week, at American Twisters Gymnastics.
“We saw that she was willing to put in the work and make the sacrifice, which is more important than the talent, actually,” Mark Greenwald said.
When Alex started kindergarten, Hiler began pedaling the mile to school, Gabrielle strapped to her back while her oldest daughter tottered along the sidewalk on a bicycle of her own. Hiler noticed another blonde mother undertaking the same routine, except her children were both boys. “Mirror images,” she called her family and the Dworets.
Hiler bonded with Annika Dworet during those commutes and soon discovered a mutual passion for endurance running. Annika and her husband, Mitchell Dworet, enjoyed testing themselves in local 5Ks. Mark Greenwald and Hiler had also taken up the sport as a way to fuel their competitive fire once gymnastics ended.
Alex Greenwald and Nick Dworet were the tag-alongs, entertaining themselves on a blanket in the grass while their parents ran. Alex would demonstrate her latest gymnastics routine, laughing as Nick tried to mimic it. He was already into swimming, another sport that requires hours of solo training to master. They supported each other, talking openly about their goals of getting college scholarships one day.
“That was something we bonded over, our drive for success,” Alex said. “Just wanting to be the best that we could.”
By high school, it was evident that it was more than just talk. Alex signed her letter of intent to compete at Iowa in November of her senior year. Nick held a small ceremony at the school Feb. 7, committing to swim at the University of Indianapolis, his specialty the freestyle events. These were moments of pride and promise for the families, a sign that their oldest children were about to make their mark on the world together.
“He was so mature,” Mark Greenwald said of Nick, apologizing for sounding as if he were writing a movie script. “He would be the kid that, if he saw some other boy sitting alone at lunch, he’d go over and make sure he wasn’t by himself. He was just so unique. He was a good-hearted human being in every sense.”
The following Wednesday, Nick was gone. Alex woke to that realization at 5:30 a.m. Feb. 15, googling the list of shooting victims, hoping not to recognize any of the names.
She was shocked to see “Nicholas Dworet.” Shock turned to sadness, then contemplation as happy memories of her days with Nick flashed through her mind. Ice skating together at a local indoor rink. Visiting his house and goofing around with Nerf guns instead of the Barbie dolls she and her sister typically played with. Those long-ago days on the blanket while their parents ran a race.
“He was always laughing, always smiling, always in a good mood,” Alex said.
At age 14, Alex Greenwald sets sights on becoming an Iowa Hawkeye
Alex was a 14-year-old high school freshman when she visited the University of Iowa, already trying to determine where she wanted to spend her college years. She had previously checked out the universities of Denver and Michigan, with her father in tow, as a prized gymnastics recruit.
Alex was looking for somewhere to pursue her goal of a career in health care, but also for a coaching staff that would make her feel comfortable. She said she felt that immediately with Hawkeye coach Larissa Libby. Libby was impressed by how mature Alex was; she asked questions as if she were on a job interview.
Alex wanted to commit to Iowa on the spot, but her parents convinced her to give her decision some more thought.
Alex canceled all other campus visits. A month later, she told Libby that she was coming to Iowa.
“Immediately when I walked on campus, I felt accepted," Alex said. "And I could tell that the coaches cared about me as a person over everything else. That was something that was really a value for me."
“The community here is so focused on ‘Hawkeye this’ and ‘Hawkeye that.’ I loved having that community support behind you.”
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Mark Greenwald knew better than to try to alter his daughter’s thinking. It was her choice to make. Privately, he was excited for Alex because he felt like she was aiming for the same experience he had when he left Florida for four years to enjoy the embrace of a close-knit college town in Ohio.
Alex snapped up all the Hawkeye apparel she could find. Her friends at school would laugh at her for always wearing Iowa gymnastics shirts around town. She followed the competitions of her future team from afar, counting the days until she would perform in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
On Feb. 14, 2018, Alex saw Nick as usual in their morning anatomy class.
“He was his typical goofy self,” she said.
Class ended at 9:10 a.m. Nick left, telling Alex: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
At 2 p.m., Alex left the school grounds as she did every day. A straight-A student, she was allowed to take her final class of the day online. She smiled and waved her thanks to security guard Aaron Feis, a 37-year-old popular with the students, as he let her out. In 25 minutes, he would be among the dead.
Alex’s parents had bought her first car, a Chevy Spark, with the stipulation that she use it to ferry her sister to and from gymnastics lessons. Alex also picked up two girls from another middle school to bring to American Twisters, a 20-minute carpool route that got everybody to the gym in plenty of time for the 2:30 p.m. training.
When Alex arrived at the gym that day, word had just gotten out about some sort of shooting at the high school. There was no initial indication that anyone had been injured. The gymnasts got to work. So did Hiler, who is a sports psychologist at the facility, with appointments in 30-minute blocks.
In between, Hiler kept monitoring the news from the high school. By midway through that day’s practice session, it was known that there were fatalities. By the time it was over at 7 p.m., the tally of 17 dead had been made public, although the names weren’t known.
The family drove home and turned on the TV. Nick’s picture appeared as one of the students unaccounted for. There was confusion because Alex Dworet, his brother, was among the 17 people wounded in the attack. The freshman was in a classroom across the hall from Nick. A bullet grazed the back of his head.
Hiler had heard that Alex Dworet was in the hospital but was expected to recover. Maybe the TV news crew had mixed up the brothers?
That’s what Alex wanted to believe as she finally fell asleep at 2 a.m.
“I felt like it was such a big school, and I don’t think you’re able to comprehend the severity of something like that,” she said. “Your brain tries to protect you and tell you, ‘No, everything’s fine.’ ”
Hours later, she learned the truth. Nick Dworet was among those slain when former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz came to the campus armed with a semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines. (His trial has still not started, meaning the school has been considered a crime scene for three years, even as classes have resumed amid the yellow tape.)
Alex attended a vigil for the victims Feb. 15. She went to a gathering at the home of an English teacher who wanted to give students an opportunity to see one another and sort through their feelings. At another gathering, she heard a survivor of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado speak about that experience.
CNN came to town for a show devoted to the Parkland shooting. Alex was there. She marched with her fellow students in an effort “to turn our frustration and anger into something good.” She wrote a letter about America’s gun laws to Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, and got no response.
Alex paid her respects at Nick’s funeral the week after the shooting. It was delayed so that his relatives from Sweden could fly over. It was a draining experience for her, seeing so many people she didn’t know, mourners surrounded by television cameras, and, ultimately, coming face to face with her friend’s mortality.
“It was open casket, so that’s obviously as real as it can get. You see him and he’s not smiling, not breathing,” Alex said. “Everyone was speaking so highly of him, but also so upset about the event. I felt like there was so much sadness and so much pain on that day.”
Alex did not feel the need to take advantage of the free counseling that was, and still is, offered by the school. She felt like she could sort through her emotions on her own.
Gymnastics helped.
Three days after the shooting, Alex competed in the Magical Classic in Altamonte Springs, Florida. There were 2,146 gymnasts; she finished 23rd.
“I was so grateful to have some sense of normalcy back in my life,” she said.
Added Hiler: “Alex kept her practice routine as well. She could let the aggression out by vaulting, or just forget about it for a while. Gymnastics was a godsend.”
Alex’s last competition before coming to Iowa was the Junior Olympics in Indianapolis in May 2018. She finished second in the nation on the uneven bars.
In Iowa, Alex Greenwald finds a confidante in coach Larissa Libby
Larissa Libby has been the head gymnastics coach at Iowa for 17 seasons. She competed in the sport for her native Canada in the 1998 Olympics. She is 48 years old, with two daughters of her own. She does not mince words.
In the aftermath of the shooting, it was Libby that Alex chose to confide in. Libby said she was so nervous about Alex's phone calls that she consulted with psychologists on the Hawkeye staff first, fearful that she might otherwise deliver the wrong message to her future athlete.
Libby was so dedicated to her role that she slept with her phone under her pillow, wanting to be available whenever Alex might call in search of a friendly voice.
“My God, no child should see that,” Libby said of the trauma Alex was coping with at age 17. “A lot of the time, I just let her talk. She would be quiet at first, but that’s her nature. Maybe I was an ‘out’ for her where she felt safe saying, ‘I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to get out of bed.’ ”
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The phone calls often lasted an hour. Alex’s parents would watch her retreat to her bedroom, never asking what she and Libby discussed.
“I could tell by the way (Alex) was when she rejoined the family that she was in a better place,” Hiler said. “Whatever Larissa did, even if it was just listening, it seemed to help.”
Libby encouraged Alex to participate in as many events as possible with her classmates, just to be around people. She gently tried to dissuade her from coming to Iowa immediately after graduation. But Alex would not relent on that point.
“The one thing that bothered me about that was it felt like she was running away from it,” Libby said. “I was worried that being here would keep her removed enough that she would never heal.”
Libby is accustomed to dealing with athletes that are broken in some way. Gymnastics is a constant strain on young sinews and psyches. The physical toll is enormous, but the mental strength required to excel may be even greater. Each event begins with perfection (a score of 10) and punishes the competitor with deductions for every slight mistake.
But Libby had never inherited a gymnast who was damaged in the way Alex was. She arrived on campus “blocked off” to everybody but Libby. It frustrated her new teammates and the other coaches. Libby advised them to give the newest Hawkeye some time.
“This was bigger than gymnastics, and I committed to helping her through this, knowing she may never do gymnastics because of this,” Libby said. “But that’s not her fault. She didn’t ask for that.”
Libby saw the scars Alex was carrying firsthand that Fourth of July when the noise of the fireworks bothered her. Alex tried to conceal her tears. Libby took note.
She wasn’t the same gymnast that Libby had recruited, either; she struggled to keep up as a freshman. The only event Alex was able to compete in that year was the vault, where Iowa had the greatest need. That had historically been her worst apparatus. During one childhood competition, her daughter even got a zero on it, Hiler remembers.
But at least it was something.
By the end of the season, Libby believed she needed to take a firmer stance with Alex. She believed their relationship was strong enough that Alex wouldn't resent it when she told her: “You are not valuing Nick’s life and your friendship with him by hanging on to all those negative feelings. He would be pissed if he knew you were not living your own life.”
Alex realized it, too. She went home that summer and returned to Iowa a more confident gymnast. She worked her way into the rotation on the floor exercise, her leg muscles developing the way her father’s had.
She tried to back off from the obligation she felt to live out Nick’s dream and her own simultaneously.
The first meet of the season, in January 2020, was moved from Mexico to Orlando, Florida, as the COVID-19 pandemic first started making headlines. That meant Annika and Mitchell Dworet could drive up to watch Alex compete for the first time since Nick's death.
Alex had remained close with Nick’s parents. But Hiler felt the occasion was a breakthrough for her daughter in easing some of the "survivor’s guilt" she was carrying.
Alex knows she's not alone among her high school classmates in wondering: "These (victims) were all such good people. So why did this happen to them and not me?"
She knows that unanswerable question will likely be with her forever:
"But I also understand that I should be grateful for the opportunity that I have," Alex said.
The two families gathered and smiled for photos after the competition like old times.
“I think for Alex, knowing that (the Dworets) were there and they were just so proud of her, I hope in some way unlocked that a little bit for her,” Hiler said. “Because there was no pressure, nothing but love from them. She performed very well that day. Maybe that was the beginning of knowing that, ‘It’s OK now. Just go out and do your gymnastics.’ ”
The pandemic cut Iowa’s season short last year. There were no Big Ten Conference championships, NCAA regionals or nationals.
But this season has been the Hawkeyes’ most promising yet. And Alex has been in the middle of that surge.
Alex joins in the fun on 'obnoxious' Hawkeye team, attacks uneven bars
Libby refers to her current group of Hawkeye gymnasts as “obnoxious.” She means that as a compliment.
They dance and joke and make sure their presence is felt at every competition. Along the way, Iowa earned its first Big Ten championship and was ranked as high as seventh nationally, its best showing ever.
“They don’t care if people think that they’re loud or if people think that they laugh too much,” Libby said.
Alex is allowing herself to be part of the silliness, a member of the “volleyball squad” that stages an impromptu game before each meet, convinced that their performance in that sport will predict the scores they receive when the gymnastics begins. It is not a natural part of her personality, and Libby is thrilled to see it emerging.
"I'll always be connected to her in this way," Libby said of the three years she's spent helping Alex become a better gymnast while also trying to move on from unspeakable tragedy. "I worry about her, as a mom would worry. I think she's strong enough, but you always worry."
Alex said it’s the moments of camaraderie that she’ll remember when she thinks back about her time as a Hawkeye gymnast.
“The stupid things in between the gymnastics competitions or the dancing and singing that we do. The hours spent on buses or waiting in airports,” she said. “We definitely build off each other’s energy and are always laughing and having a good time.”
Hiler sees the change in Alex in her posture, the way she stands straighter at the beginning of her floor routine, as if commanding the room.
“She doesn’t do a cheerleader, smiley-type routine,” Mark Greenwald noted with approval.
“I get chills,” Hiler said. “I can see the things that she’s been through and her inner strength. It’s as if she’s saying, ‘I’m going to survive. Nothing’s going to hold me down.’
“She did come to Iowa to heal. It’s always going to be part of her.”
Alex is posting her best scores on the floor exercise this season, including a 9.925 in a Feb. 13 home meet against Minnesota and Maryland.
Libby realizes that Alex’s struggles may be subsiding but have not disappeared. Alex still won’t commit to wearing headphones over both ears, for example, always wanting to keep one ear uncovered so she can be in tune with her surroundings.
“Sometimes, she doesn’t need people to talk to her. She needs to sit on your couch for four hours," Libby said. "Just let her do her homework and feel safe.”
The day after the Minnesota and Maryland meet was the third anniversary of the shooting.
“Valentine’s Day was tough for her," Libby said. "I had to tell her, ‘You cannot stop living because it’s Valentine’s Day, and something bad happened on that day.’ ”
Alex’s favorite event has always been the uneven bars. It’s the most difficult gymnastics discipline to teach, Mark Greenwald said, because its foremost requirement is the proper genetics.
Alex got those from Hiler: Powerful shoulder muscles. Hands so strong that her father usually turns to her for help when he needs a jar opened.
As a freshman at Iowa, Alex found herself failing on the bars for the first time in her life. She was unable to crack the Hawkeye rotation.
She went back to work. This season, she has added the bars to the vault and floor, competing routinely in three events.
On Saturday, when the Hawkeyes defeated Illinois in their final home meet of the season, Alex earned a 9.750 on the vault, 9.775 on the bars, 9.875 on the floor. Iowa is ranked second in the nation on the floor heading into the last meet of the regular season this weekend at Nebraska.
Alex writes the “Just keep swimming” motto on her left thumb with a Sharpie so that the ink can withstand the sweat and strain of the bars competition. She wants the words, like her friend’s legacy, to be indelible.
“I get this opportunity, and he doesn’t,” Alex said. “I feel like I’m getting to maybe help him live on and continue spreading his story and his name, and everything that was so great about him.”
Excellence on the uneven bars requires a natural ability to swing gracefully, to time your maneuvers perfectly, to achieve the maximum amplitude so you can hit your handstands at the proper angle. There can be no hesitation, or the routine is doomed. Hours of practice leave competitors with callused hands and aching muscles.
The bars are made of fiberglass with a wood coating, placed 6 feet apart, with a 2½-foot difference in elevation. Elite gymnasts like Alex report the sensation of flying when gliding between them.
Grip is everything. In the course of 45 seconds, Alex’s hands go from supporting her weight upright to preventing the tug of gravity from sending her to the mat below. Over and over.
Just keep swimming. Just keep swinging.
As her routine ends, Alex’s thumbs burrow into the bar for one final second.
And then it’s time to let go.
Mark Emmert covers the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Register. Reach him at memmert@registermedia.com or 319-339-7367. Follow him on Twitter at @MarkEmmert.