Last Thursday, two days before the final regular-season meet of her career, Liane Williams sat on a desk inside the gym at the Towson Center, her legs dangling off the edge. Her right ankle, a traitor through much of her sophomore and junior seasons, was wrapped in supportive tape.

Does it still hurt? she was asked.

"Not at all," she replied. "It feels better than ever."

Two years ago, Williams missed three meets of her Towson University gymnastics season because of a stress fracture in her right ankle. She likened the injury to a cracked egg that has yet to split open. Last season, she competed in seven meets before the egg split -- a full-blown ankle fracture on Feb. 26, 1998, ended her season.

Such a setback is not that uncommon in gymnastics, but it certainly isn't conducive to the beatings the joints take during the powerful movements of the floor exercise, which is Williams' forte. She spent seven months out of practice.

When she returned in September, she says, "I didn't know if the motivation was there anymore. All the other girls were honing their skills, perfecting their game. I had to relearn everything."

Lucky for her, she always has been a quick learner -- whether that means in the gymnasium, where she is ranked 24th nationally in the floor exercise, or in the classroom, where she has a 3.03 grade-point average in her final semester as a communication studies major.

To hear her speak is to converse with a 20-year-old who seems well beyond her years. She talks of "growing up fast" and hanging out as a child more with her older brother, Paul, and his friends than girls her age.

She knows what she wants to do after graduation -- go into medical sales, a choice inspired by her aunt, Patricia Williams. ("That's where the money's at," Liane Williams says.)

These days, things are looking up. Her team, at 14-10, is ranked 25th nationally. The Tigers, having won 10 of their last 11, are primed for the East Atlantic Gymnastics League championships (Saturday at Maryland). They are bound for the NCAA regionals. Williams, a key to Towson's success, broke a school record March 13 with a 9.95 score in the floor exercise against Temple. Ankle injury? What ankle injury?

But if things had taken a different turn, Williams would still be in Virginia Beach, Va., living with her mother, whose salary as an assistant teacher does not lend itself to paying for college. Or maybe she would be in her native Philadelphia, like her brother, who lives with their paternal grandmother.

If Williams were someone else, she might have grown bitter long ago -- perhaps during high school. At Bayside High, which Williams is quick to point out sounds a lot better than it is, fights and pregnancies were as much an institution as Sloppy Joe day in the cafeteria. Williams wanted out.

"It's ridiculous," she told her mother. "The girls start fights over their boyfriends. It doesn't make sense."

Williams, who had taken heavy courseloads, realized as a junior in high school that she needed only a senior English class to graduate. She took it during the summer and earned her diploma a year early. Her best friend at the time, Erin Shanley, was an All-American gymnast at Towson. (Her school record in the floor exercise stood until Williams broke it.) Williams decided to follow suit, and she accepted a full athletic scholarship with the Tigers.

If Williams did not have as much talent as she does in gymnastics, Towson likely would have been out of reach. For out-of-state students, one year of tuition, fees, room and board is $15,240. Williams' mother, Velina Johnson (a single parent), makes $14,200 per year.

She got help raising her children from their paternal grandmother and aunt. (Williams says she knows her father, Earl Williams, but never has been close to him.) Johnson sometimes worked two jobs at a time, sometimes relied on food stamps.

But Williams says she never felt underprivileged. "I always had things," she says. "I never knew my mom had such a hard time."

On Williams' 10th birthday, her mother, after noticing her daughter flipping playfully on concrete, introduced her to gymnastics. She signed Williams up for recreation classes at the Gymstrada gym club, and helped coach to offset costs of the expensive sport.

"There were days at the end of the year, I thought, 'I don't know how I did it,' " Johnson says.

Williams was so good so soon that her coaches could hardly believe she had never been trained. Within a month, she was asked to join the club team.

Now, nearing the end of a collegiate career that began with her being named the EAGL's co-Rookie of the Year, Williams is peaking. Her soft step is back. She can dash across the floor on her tiptoes, launch her body into the air with carefully orchestrated twists and land with the confidence that her ankles will support her.

She knows where she came from. She has an idea of where she is going. Asked whether she wonders where she would be if things had gone differently, Williams does not hesitate.

"No," she says with a shrug. "I knew I had gymnastics."

Pub Date: 3/25/99