If Keely McNeer hadn’t shadowed an OB-GYN, she wouldn’t have realized she wants to eventually study neonatology. She didn’t like being with the mother after she gave birth. She itched to go take care of the newborn.

Only a year separates the University of Alabama gymnast from starting down that career path with med school, which she is in the process of applying for now.

“Maybe I’ll get ambitious and apply to Stanford,” McNeer said. “I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.”

Others believe she could do it. Writing a letter of recommendation for McNeer was one of the easiest things UA head coach Dana Duckworth has done. In a way, it wrote itself. Being a perfect 4.0 student majoring in chemical engineering and a three-time Scholastic All-American will do that.

It’s not just her impressive academics record that sets McNeer apart. It’s her character.

“Keely is going to go on to the next chapter of life and she is going to be very successful,” Duckworth said, “because she is very steady, very consistent in her approach to everything.”

That stability has built a strong bond between Duckworth and McNeer, so much so that McNeer is Alabama’s go-to leadoff gymnast. She has been the first to go on nine of the 16 events this season. She normally leads off on the vault, uneven bars and balance beam.

It has been that way for as long as Duckworth can remember. She knew she could rely on McNeer during her first year as the head coach in 2014.

“I don’t know who else I would trust to be that exclamation point,” Duckworth said.

Since this is McNeer’s senior season, Duckworth will have to find another option. To test the waters, Wynter Childers, Maddie Desch and Jenna Bressette split the initial routines at Arkansas on Friday, where Alabama lost, 195.825 to 195.325.

McNeer still competed. She thinks it’s an honor to set the tone for her team when she can and wants what's best.

Most of the time that’s her.

“She’s such a rock and we depend on her so much,” junior Nickie Guerrero said. “You kind of forget about it in a way because she’s just always there in the first spot.”

There’s a good chance McNeer resumes the position Sunday against Auburn for the third-annual Elevate the Stage meet in Legacy Arena. The team is comfortable with her there.

Not much that rattles McNeer. People ask how she balances everything, and she doesn’t have a straightforward answer.

A shrug suffices.

“It’s that kind of deep rooted faith that everything is happening the way it’s supposed to happen,” she said.

Even when McNeer is feeling the weight of it all, she channels it into her training. That’s how she is wired. She is a self-motivated person.

It’s pretty simple. Her coach has said it, her teammates have said it: McNeer is an example to everyone.

“When you want to say pass the torch, continue the legacy, you need to have Keely McNeers,” Duckworth said.