Sports

Gymnastics – Nadia inspires a coach

Just turning 13 during the summer of the 1976 Montreal Olympics, I found my hero and my inspiration. Like most spectators, she had always watched the sport of gymnastics in awe and awe as the gymnasts fell with power and force and then in a split second showed their grace through dance. They would swing on the bars, move from the low bar to the high bar, release and re-grab and dismount with their feet firmly glued to the mat. They then climbed onto the beam and fell as if they were on the ground (sometimes losing sight of the apparatus), flipping and landing on it. The fascination of this was that these small but strong girls performed with incredible ease. At 13 she wanted to experience the victory that Nadia Comaneci and her coach Bela Karolyi got when Nadia scored the first perfect 10 at an Olympics. My dream was to one day meet this amazing and inspiring woman.

A few years after graduating from college, I decided to pursue this gymnastics phenomenon. After training with a few coaches in New York, I took a coaching job at a recreational and competitive gym in Maryland. There are many levels in competitive gymnastics. Generally, you start at level 4 or 5 and work your way up based on your progress. You can be young and rise quickly if you are talented, score well, and your coaches believe you can handle it physically and mentally. As the years passed and my knowledge of the sport became more apparent, I was assigned the head coach of the level 5-6 team. These girls were between 7 and 14 years old. I trained this team 3 days a week for 4 and a half hours a night.

I began to learn and appreciate how special these athletes were. They arrived at the gym right after school, had dinner at 9:00 p.m., did their homework until late, and woke up for school the next morning. They refused to have meetings, movies, parties, and many other social events after school. They all had dreams. Huge dreams. Some wanted to go to the Olympics, some wanted to qualify for Regionals and Nationals, some wanted to get a college athletic scholarship. The discipline they had to show in the gym flowed into academics, and most of the girls were outstanding students with top honors. They were loving, kind, personable and had a sense of team sportsmanship that made me cry. They not only wanted to perform well on their own, but they also wanted the team to benefit from their performances. They also designed cards for each other for competitions, birthdays, injuries and holidays, as well as cards for their coaches.

In addition to physical training, we did a lot of mental training. There were visualization drills, encouragement talks, and just positive reinforcement to boost their confidence. The energy of a coach is felt by the gymnast. If you are having a bad day, it does not benefit your athletes to yell at them and not give them positive feedback. You get tired and exhausted, but when your gymnasts bring home the first place trophy from a gymnastics competition, it’s all worth it.

Although he was not an Olympic coach who coached Olympic athletes, he still felt what Bela Karolyi felt. The smiles on the faces of my gymnasts when they achieved their goals, the cheers and the medals they so well deserved, made me very proud to be their coach. I want every gymnast I trained to know how much my life was touched. I am a better person because of them. I want viewers who see a gymnast on television or on the gym floor to remember that they are not only exceptional athletes, but also winners in all aspects of their lives.

My full circle moment was when I met Nadia Comaneci at the Gymnastics World Championships that I attended in Indianapolis. I was at this incredible event that made history thanks to her. As I was talking to Nadia, taking a photo with her and handing her a collector’s pin of herself, I realized that DREAMS COME TRUE.

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