COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- When the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team won the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games local gyms were flooded with phone calls from parents wanting to enroll their children in gymnastics classes. Aerials Gymnastics owner Tom Forster says he hasn’t seen that kind of boost in business since Mary Lou Retton won gold in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
“It’s really quite exciting,” said Forster. “We’re the type of program that can handle athletes of every ability, from beginners to those who have Olympic dreams.”
Gyms like Aerials look for talented kids in their recreational programs to groom for competition. “We have some really good young kids who have a lot of great potential,” said Forster. “We even have kids who are training to qualify for the National Team.”
Over the years, dozens of Aerials’ team gymnasts have earned college scholarships and one gymnast,Theresa Kulikowski, even became the 1996 Olympic Alternate. It’s that kind of success that draws many young girls to the gym in hopes of making the team. Several of them drive four to five nights a week from the Denver area to train in Colorado Springs.
“It feels really good to see all their hard work pay off and to get that college scholarship that they really wanted,” said Aerials coach Kathy Vigil. “When you spend thirty hours a week with them you become very attached and close to these kids.”
All the current team girls, age seven to seventeen, train thirteen to thirty hours a week, depending on their level.
“You miss a lot of your childhood when you give up that much time,” said Jacqueline Teets.
Teets has one daughter on the team right now, and another who is at Stanford on a gymnastics scholarship. “I had no idea the time commitment and family hardship that this sport entails,” says Teets.
Most of the advanced girls are, or have been, home schooled to accommodate their training schedule. Others have sought out schools that are supportive of the sport and its demands, since most gymnasts will miss at least one morning of school each week. For example, several high school students only take core classes at school and are excused from electives and physical education. Any classes the athletes are forced to miss are often made up online.
“My daughter makes up school work during recess and lunch time,” says one parent. “She also catches up with homework on the weekends and does extra work over the summer to stay ahead of her studies.”
All the time in the gym also affects the family dynamics. Things like “family dinner time” don’t exist on most evenings.
“It can be a challenge,” said Gaby Larson. “Sometimes we don’t see her until 9:00 at night.” At age seven, Larson’s daughter, Maddie, is the youngest on the team. “We’ve always told her that as long as her grades are good we will do whatever we need to do to continue in the sport.”
Competitive gymnastics is also expensive. Not only are there monthly dues and competition fees, many of the meets for the upper level teams are out of state. But beyond the cost and commitment, parents say supporting their daughter is their number one responsibility.
“When things don’t go well at practice or at a meet they can come home and we are there for them no matter what score they got or how well they performed,” said Sothy Steele. “We try and take the pressure off them.”
Steele has two daughters on the Aerials team, and has chosen to online school to make their schedules work. “These are all choices that my girls want, so I support it."
Aerials Gymnastics just celebrated thirty years in business and is a member of USA Gymnastics (USAG). There are about seventy USAG members throughout Colorado.
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