News

By Emily J. Minor

Stephanie Schappert, 18, started running because it was all in the family — everyone was doing it — and she got lucky.
She’s good at it. And she likes it.
“A lot of people have always thought that we were pressured into running, but that was never the case,” says Schappert, who graduated from Pope John Paul II High School last year and has a full track and cross country scholarship this year at Villanova University.
“I guess I just saw how much fun they (her brother and sister) had with their teams.”
Indeed, if researchers wanted to study the genetics of family athleticism, the Schappert family DNA would be a good place to start.
Ken Schappert, her dad, was a competitive runner in college, also running for Villanova. Stephanie’s brother, Kenny, 28, ran for the University of Tennessee. Sister Nicole, 24, first competed for Wake Forest College, and then Villanova.
And the mom in this coastal Delray Beach household is no slouch. Jane Schappert was a competitive college swimmer for … yes, Villanova.
“I guess it was the eight years of track meets and cross countries I went to with my brother and sister,” Stephanie Schappert says. “I think I’ve watched more than I’ve participated in.”
The baby in the family, Schappert is more than a bit humble. A distance runner who especially loves to compete in the mile and the 800-meter, her personal record is 4:51 for the mile and 2:10 for the 800. In high school, she won six state titles. And this month, she’s one of three area high schools students under consideration for the Palm Beach County Sport Hall of Fame as the Student Athlete of the Year.
The award will be announced at the March 25 banquet and Schappert is up against two Glades football players: William Likely, who plays for Glades Central High School; and Kelvin Taylor, who plays for Glades Day School.
The college freshmen won’t be able to make the dinner and ceremony at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. She’s caught up with her freshman year at Villanova, everything from classes to workouts to traveling for competition.
At Pope John Paul, Schappert worked mostly with coach Kevin Brown, said head coach Nate Robinson. “The last two years, he trained her pretty much himself,” Robinson said.
And now that she’s competing at the college level, Schappert says the dynamic from those days when she trained with coach Brown is completely different.
“I went from training on my own, to being on a team with a bunch of girls and training with a pack,” Schappert says. “I love it. I love my coach. I love my team.”
Still, old habits are hard to break — especially good ones.
“I miss my high school coach and teammates,” she said, “but this is just such a different experience.”