Unfortunately, after a very successful sophomore year,
things began to go downhill from there. The
high school gymnastics team I was on (Beverly high school) got a new coach my
sophomore year and I was thrilled because it was one of my coaches from the
YMCA team. She obviously knew what I was
capable of doing, and I figured it was going to be a perfect fit. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The last two years of high school gymnastics
were the worst experience in my high school career. My coach was an awesome coach for my YMCA team,
but when she began coaching high school, she was just awful. Because I was on two different teams, I had
to attend two different practices a night.
This meant that I was practicing for five hours a day almost every day,
while also attending competitions on the weekends. After her first year of coaching high
school gymnastics, she began to get power hungry. I was not the only gymnast on her team that
competed for more than one team; in fact 90% of the gymnasts on the team did
this. Because she was my coach for both teams, she knew exactly which events we
did that day, and what skills and routines I completed. However, she had the mentality that she
was “blind” at YMCA practice. This meant
that when high school practice started, she forced me to do all the same routines and skills I did earlier
that day at YMCA practice. After a few
weeks of this, I was getting extremely burnt out and was physically and
emotionally exhausted.
After talking to my parents about this, I went to her to talk to her about a new plan for practices.
My body couldn’t handle that much gymnastics. She basically had no regard for how I was
feeling mentally or physically and pretty much told me “tough luck.” I was furious. I will admit, from that moment on I had a
pretty sour attitude towards her but I couldn’t help it. I felt as if she didn’t care about me as a
person or as her gymnast and I wanted nothing to do with her. However, I knew I had to stick it out because
I wanted to be a captain my senior year.
So, for the entirety of my junior year season I put a fake smile on my
face, practiced as hard as I could for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, and wore
my body to shreds.
When the banquet finally came along at the end of the
season where she would announce the captains for the upcoming season I was
confident that I would receive the captainship.
There were 6 other girls in my grade that I was up against, but my
teammates assured me they were voting for me.
When she announced the two captains, my name was not one of them. To
make it even worse, it was my two best friends. I will never forget the feeling
in that moment. I was absolutely devastated.
When the banquet was over I sped home, went in the shower, and just
cried. I was heartbroken for weeks. To
this day, it hurts for me to talk about because of all the hard work I put in
to that team, and for her. From that moment on, my gymnastics career only went downhill.
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