I Refused for a Long Time

In 1995, I was a sophomore in high school, and in my second year of Level 10. My coaches had just asked me if I wanted to try to go elite, and I had told them “no.” I wasn’t cut out for the elite path; I wanted to continue enjoying the sport rather than adding more pressure to my career.

That same year, author Joan Ryan published a book called Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. It was a groundbreaking book exposing the destructive behavior and tendencies in elite gymnastics and figure skating. I had no experience like the ones I heard were in the book. I didn’t believe that there were more than just a few. I believed that Ryan was simply trying to capitalize on some bad apples; I refused to read the book.

In 1997 I entered college, and as I’ve stated before, I learned that a great many of gymnasts on my team either disliked our sport or vowed to never put their future children in the sport. I didn’t fully understand why, but they had given me hints of stories of what they had gone through as gymnasts. While appalling, I refused to believe that most of gymnastics was like what they described. But it did remind me of Ryan’s exposé. I still refused to read it, believing that at only represented a small faction of the sport.

After college, I still hadn’t read the book. When I was 28, I met a co-worker, and when he learned that I had been a gymnast, he said he had a book for me to read. He brought it to me at work, and insisted that I keep it. It was a copy of Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. I finally read the book in 2006, and I was deeply saddened to read the stories. But again, I refused to believe that these experiences were typical of anyone but an elite athlete. If anything, it reassured me that I had made the right decision in high school when I decided against going elite.

As years went on, I experienced more and more having to do with competitive gymnastics at all levels. I saw the reflection of the elite mentality of coaching trickle down into the lower levels of competition — even in the beginning compulsory levels of competition. The way that some coaches handled their gymnasts at meets and in practices was worrisome to me, and I began to understand that it could be possible that the gymnastics culture could be as tainted as Ryan demonstrated in her book.

I also came to learn first-hand of many gymnasts, who were not elite athletes, who had poignant and distressing stories to tell of their experiences. In January of 2018, I read the book again. This time I didn’t believe that Ryan had gone far enough in her analysis.

For one, Ryan only concentrated on elite gymnastics; she didn’t mention the fact that many of these things happened, too, to the Everyday Gymnast. The other thing that bothered me was that she continually mentioned that “USA Gymnastics has no teeth” to do anything to the coaches or gyms who commit the atrocities against their gymnasts. In light of all that we have since learned about USA Gymnastics, it’s not that they didn’t have any teeth, it was that they were the teeth and mouth that chewed and swallowed — it wasn’t that they couldn’t do anything about these coaches, it’s that they wouldn’t do anything about them.

After all, the top of the USA Gymnastics mission statement was “Win Medals.” And that’s what they did at all costs.

What gymnastics needs isn’t a culture CHANGE, what it needs is a brand NEW culture. And we can do this one gymnast at a time, starting with YOUR gymnast.