Exception to Exceptional
When I was in college (1998–2001), I was on the gymnastics team at the University of Arizona. I had received a full scholarship for all the work I had put into the great sport for the previous 14 years of my life. I was so excited to be on a team where I shared a love of the sport with so many others…
…or so I thought.
I quickly realized that many of my teammates didn’t love gymnastics the way I did. In fact, many of them actually hated the sport, and vowed to never put their children in it. I had no idea how they could feel this way; gymnastics had given me so much over the years, and I loved it. I just wanted to get better and do well for my new team.
Over time, I came to realize that my gymnastics experience was the exception to the rule. I had a positive gymnastics experience. I had caring and thoughtful coaches who truly had my best interest at heart. Many of my teammates had horror stories about their coaches and their gyms. I was appalled to learn that mine was the experience that not many successful gymnasts had. I was so sad that the greatest gymnasts in the sport couldn’t take much good away from it.
I loved the sport because no one took that love away from me; they cultivated it instead.
I decided that I was going to be a gymnastics coach so I could help as many kids as possible be successful in gymnastics in a positive environment. After all, I was living proof that great success could be achieved in a positive gymnastics environment.
I worked as a program director right out of college, and I was fortunate enough to have gym owners who really wanted my input in how their gym was run. I was able to get my philosophy across throughout the program. The problem that we ran into was the culture shock that hit us at meets. We had to deal with the toxic gymnastics culture that was permeating USA Gymnastics and the gyms we competed against.
This problem continued as time went on, but I was able to work within the. confines of the culture (gyms not following rules about mandate scores, USAG looking the other way when gyms don’t follow the rules, etc.)
When my husband and I opened our own gym, we weren’t planning on competing for a couple of years, so I wasn’t too concerned about the outside culture. However, I had a gymnast that I had coached years earlier contact me about competing. She was at the end of the rope at her current gym, and she was likely to quit if I didn’t take her into my program.
I welcomed her in. But that also meant that I needed to deal with the culture.
Our gym competed the traditional way (Junior Olympic compulsory and optional gymnastics) for the first four years after we opened. My philosophy worked in the gym, but at meets is where it didn’t jive with the culture. I didn’t believe in mandate scores. I didn’t believe in holding kids back until they scored a 37.5 AND were on top of the podium. I refused to believe (and teach) that one meet made or broke a child athlete. (After all, if all those “rules” were imposed on me, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing about this right now; I wouldn’t have made it anywhere near level 10 or college gymnastics.)
It was the 2016 Level 5 State Meet that changed my perspective forever. My husband and I were at home, and my coach who was with the kids competing called me frantic. “How do you inquire a score?” “You go to the head table and ask for a form. What happened?” “One of our kids got a 5 on bars.” “What? A 5? Did she fall?” “No.” She sent me a video of the routine. It wasn’t the best bar routine that this particular gymnast had ever done, but it wasn’t worth a 5. “Inquire. Let me know what they say.”
I got a call back. “They won’t change it. They didn’t give her credit for her free hip.” (This is where video replay would be helpful. I certainly saw a free hip in the gymnast’s routine. And fast forward 2 months, we showed the video to one of the judges who was judging bars that day, and she said that yes, indeed, she should have gotten credit for the skill!)
So one of my gymnasts got a 5 at her Level 5 State Meet. I didn’t care for me or my gym, I cared for her. She did not deserve that score; she did the work. She put in the effort. What happened was that the judges sent me a message loud and clear that they were not in this for the kids. They were not interested in giving a child the benefit of the doubt. They could have easily given the gymnast a point to a point and a half higher, and it would not have affected her ranking in any way. These people were the systemic problem in the culture; they were perpetuating the problem. They were not allowing me to follow my own philosophy that was working very well in my gym.
I felt like I had failed my gymnasts.
Right then and there, my husband and I vowed to remove our gymnasts from the toxic culture (in this case USA Gymnastics) and join a different league. I revamped my curriculum and developed a fully “individual first” program in our gym. That allowed us to focus on each individual gymnast and help her reach her goals. We could help our gymnasts reach their own definition of success.
In the end, we created a whole new gymnastics culture, one gymnast at a time.
When all is said and done, I was able to create a program where our gymnasts thrived. In the end, all of this means that I can help these girls find success in a positive gymnastics environment, just like I did growing up. And I can help these girls become strong, independent, and confident young women, and they can be a part of a gymnastics culture that they can be proud of.
