ASHLAND – Metaphorically speaking, some athletes are skilled enough to write chapters on the achievements through their sports careers.
Ashland High School senior Frankie Rupsis writes books.
In an age when the top performers in mainstream sports receive supercharged attention and fanfare, Rupsis has quietly, methodically, carved out her own place as one of the greatest talents ever to walk the halls at AHS.
She will graduate June 6 having performed at the state level for the Arrows in five different sports – indoor track, outdoor track, diving, gymnastics and competitive cheerleading.
Because those five largely take place under the radar, Rupsis’ exploits haven’t necessarily found their way under the spotlight.
Ashland athletic director Jason Goings said he only discovered the senior’s achievement when he was putting together slides for Arrow state qualifiers to display in the school’s lobby commons.
“I just kept (adding things) for Frankie and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. How many times is she up here?’” Goings said. “It got to the point where I was just adding to the same slide repeatedly. To find out she was a state qualifier in five different things – that’s crazy.
“No one’s ever done it here. She’s a fierce competitor and just a very gifted athlete.”
Rupsis is committed to compete for the track and field program at Indiana Wesleyan University (NAIA) after making a name for herself last spring as a regional-champion high jumper.
But her jumps coach at Ashland, Sarah LeVeck, said it wasn’t that single event that sold recruiters on her potential.
“I would have college coaches approach me and they would ask me to tell them about her, and I would just say, ‘Well, the story of Frankie isn’t just the story of high-jump Frankie,’” LeVeck said. “… Then I’d go through all the different things she’s (reached state in) and they’d go, ‘Woah.’
“You see this great athlete in this one event, but you know that’s not the end of her capability.”
It got to the point where I was just adding to the same slide repeatedly. To find out she was a state qualifier in five different things – that’s crazy.
Ashland High School athletic director Jason goings
Rupsis is one of just four state-qualifying high jumpers in AHS girls history. She’s likely one of just two divers and one of just two gymnasts to represent the Arrows at state as well.
“I do want to feel (known) for what I have done, but I think I care more about my impact on people and how I come off,” Rupsis said. “It’s such a blessing that I’ve met so many people, so it’s more about how they see me, not just what I can do (in a performance).
“I also hope people can look up to me for my hard work and my abilities and the skills I have.”
Book 1: Cheerleading and a stress fracture
Rupsis was the lone freshman on the Ashland competition cheerleading squad that qualified to the state championships in February 2023.
By that point, she had roughly seven years under her belt as a gymnast – following in the footsteps of her mom, AHS graduate Michele Beasley – and had also dabbled in track at the middle school level.
In cheerleading, she became part of a legacy that has seen the Arrows qualify to state every year since 2015.
Still, her next-level athleticism had yet to fully introduce itself.
“I was never super competitive as a kid; I was always doing things for fun, especially for gymnastics,” Rupsis said. “My dad (John Rupsis, also a multi-sport talent) tried to get me to do softball and basketball but he couldn’t keep a ball in my hand.
“Then as I grew up, I learned how competitive it really gets. Definitely through high school, I learned how fast things can get taken from you; you just have to make the most of what you get.”
Unfortunately, when her sophomore year rolled around, Rupsis suffered a slight stress fracture in her back. She felt she got it from the pounding her body took in competitive cheer and gymnastics, adding that it basically killed off her entire school year as an athlete.
Rupsis was in a hard back brace for roughly two months and worked through physical therapy. The toll it took was easy to see in her high-jumping.
As a freshman, she had cleared 4 feet, 11 inches. When she tried to return late in her sophomore year, she could only top 4-4.
LeVeck, however, said those frustrations laid a foundation for Rupsis’ future development into an Ashland star.
“Her first year we worked a lot with mental toughness, and by her junior year, the mental toughness was there,” LeVeck said. “A lot of it came because of what she went through her sophomore year with the injury.”
Book 2: The 2025 breakthrough
Healthy again as a junior during the 2024-25 school year, Rupsis got her athletic career back on track and had her first individual state breakthrough in a surprising event.
Performing in just her second season as a diver – and again competing in a sport in which her mom had excelled – she placed seventh at the district meet and qualified to state in 1-meter diving.
While watching practice dives in the lead-up to the Division I state meet at Canton’s C.T. Branin Natatorium, Rupsis said she never felt more overmatched by her competition in a sport in her life.
And while she wasn’t among the 20 divers to make the semifinal cut, she said the experience gave her more perspective.
“Doing different types of sports has shown me so many different kinds of coaching and leadership,” Rupsis said. “There’s a lot of people who just stick with one sport their whole life, whether they’re good or not. So for me to experience all these different things, it’s been so eye-opening.”
Three months later, she had qualified to the outdoor track and field state championships in the high jump, winning the Ohio Cardinal Conference title, the district title and the regional title (outdoor personal-best of 5-4) along the way.
At her first event that spring, Rupsis had cleared 5-2. LeVeck wasn’t at the meet, and when coaches kept updating her via text on her junior’s new heights – one year removed from the back injury and a top leap of 4-4 – she asked them if they were sure they were measuring right.
“She’s just very unique; she’s focused and she takes everything she’s doing seriously,” Ashland girls track head coach Gail Walter said. “… Her story is just really cool.”
Walter knows plenty about being a state-level talent. She was part of Ashland’s 4×100-meter relay in 1986 with Mary Steele, Jenny Glaze and Kim Carmen – still the only girls from AHS to win state in a track running event.
Walter said Rupsis’ progression into becoming a great jumper and – this spring – competing among the team’s best sprinters is proof of her improvement.
“It’s a mistake to look at any athlete and think that they’re limited by what they show you as a freshman, because the growth is crazy,” she said. “Her freshman year, I would have never looked at her and said, ‘Oh yeah, she’s gonna run this fast in the 100 or be one of our fastest girls on a relay.’”
Book 3: Big finish on the mat
As far as Rupsis has pushed herself athletically through the years, the roots of her talent will always trace back to gymnastics.
She’s spent more than a decade in the sport, tied to the local program at Adonai of Ashland, then linking up with the Ashland YMCA when Adonai closed a few years ago.
She said she could remember doing flips in her family’s house as a little kid. It was smaller, so she would always slam into things, even cracking her head open against a wall at one point.
“When I was younger I would always go outside and throw cartwheels and back-walkovers,” Rupsis said. “My mom was always supportive about putting me in gymnastics. It wore her body down, so she was kind of hesitant about it, but she was always there for me at every meet.”
Rupsis is in her third year of working with Ashland YMCA gymnastics director Keirsten Proulx, who said the AHS senior initially came off as quiet when they met, but quickly turned her incredible work ethic into big things.
“I think what really makes her stand out is her ability to perform,” Proulx said. “When she’s out there with her floor music she demonstrates incredible artistry.
“That’s something that not every gymnast gets, but it’s in her blood and she’s been great at it.”
Added coach Walter, “Having that total body training (with gymnastics) and being aware of your abilities and movements and being able to control your body to do different things, it’s just made her so versatile.”
It was yet another reason Rupsis was able to reach a new level this year.
While competing in her YMCA season, which runs from October through June, she plugged into her high school gymnastics season from December into March.
Proulx said it takes a higher level of skill and intensity to thrive in the high school format, and Rupsis rose to that challenge, advancing to state out of the OHSAA’s Northwest Gymnastics District Championships by placing second in the floor event.
“Gymnastics is like my base – it’s why I am who I am,” said Rupsis, who became Proulx’s first state qualifier in her seven years as a high school coach. “… That sport just brings so many opportunities and I think that’s the reason I’ve accomplished so many things – just the coaching and experience over the years.”
In the midst of her gymnastics push to state, Rupsis was fine-tuning her high-jump talents during the indoor track and field season as well. Her clearance of 5-5 at the Spire Indoor Games in mid-February was a personal-best height and helped land her in the Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches State Championships.
Gymnastics is like my base – it’s why I am who I am.
ashland senior frankie rupsis
On one busy weekend in early March, she competed at the indoor track and field state meet on a Friday (clearing 5-0), then performed her floor routine at the gymnastics state championships that Sunday.
“For gymnastics at state, that was the best performance I’ve ever had,” Rupsis said. “It didn’t get me on the podium, just because of the competition (20th out of 36 individual qualifiers in the floor event), but I scored a (9.150), which was the highest score in my high school career. … For that to be my last senior routine was great and it was very rewarding.”
Proulx said it was clear her star performer had turned into a leader – not simply through her scores, but through her leadership.
“When people say somebody lights up the room when they walk in, that’s exactly how I would describe Frankie,” the coach said.
This summer, Rupsis will compete for the first time at the YMCA gymnastics national meet in Greensboro, N.C.
Book 4: Closure in the orange and black
By the time this spring’s track season rolled around, the one-of-a-kind capabilities of the Ashland senior were unmistakable.
LeVeck said as much after Rupsis repeated her OCC title in the high jump and was part of the league’s first-place 4×100-meter relay team.
“If we could put her in six or seven events, we would,” the coach said. “Every year it feels like there’s something new that we discover with her because she just grows in strength and ability.”
“I’ve never had a coach that I haven’t been confident about,” Rupsis said. “I’ve just trusted them completely and I know they want the best for me.”
At the district championships, she competed in the high jump, long jump, the 100 and the 4×100.
Every year it feels like there’s something new that we discover with her because she just grows in strength and ability.
sarah leveck, ashland jumps coach
She made the finals in the 100 and helped her relay advance to the regional meet at Lexington. Sadly, though, her push to make a repeat run to state in the high jump stalled with a no-height performance.
It was one of the only snags Rupsis has hit since beginning her state-qualifying odyssey as an Arrow.
“With any field event, anything can happen and it happens in a matter of seconds,” she said. “You can feel your best and still do your worst. … I think it happened for a reason and I still know I’m a good jumper, so it doesn’t define me.”
In the final performance of her high school athletic career Friday night, Rupsis and her 4×100 relay teammates – Alyssa Sampson, Oaklynn Burns and Sadie Walter – ran a season-best 49.54.
The clocking didn’t get the quartet to state, but it landed them on the regional podium in eighth place. It also secured them a spot in the upper tier of AHS history for the event.
It had been nearly 40 years since the Ashland girls had a 4×100 finish in less than 50 seconds. Only Walter’s state-champion quartet in 1986 (48.22) and the foursome of Sterle, Melissa Kelley, Glaze and Carman (48.50) in 1987 have run it faster.
Rupsis said she never would have guessed she would be running in an event at a regional meet.
“With gymnastics and diving and some other sports, you have to be so technical, so I think you can peak very early,” she said. “But with track, it’s full-go, and I would love to be a (multi-event college performer) one day.”
Now, her next performance around a competitive track will come at Indiana Wesleyan, a place she said she’s been drawn to since college recruiters first started reaching out.
Rupsis said she loves the campus and wants to explore pastoral counseling, emphasizing how important her Christian faith has been to her.
“It’s all been such a crazy ride from the start – I would have never guessed I’d be where I am now,” she said. “I’m definitely excited for the future to see where God takes me at IWU. I’m just very grateful for where I am and I wouldn’t have wished for anything different.
“I’m ready for the future and ready to see what more I can do.”
“Whatever she tries (in college), she’s gonna be very good at because she’s very coachable,” Walter said. “… We’ve often thought she could be a thrower just because she’s got the long levers and so much strength. I think the sky’s the limit for her.”
