Weekly diary by Valorie Kondos Field, head coach for UCLA's women's gymnastics team.
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August 26, 2004
Congratulations to all of the male and female athletes on our USA Olympic Gymnastics teams, and to the Canadian Gymnasts as well. You all have so much to be proud of! Special hugs to Mohini Bhardwaj and Kate Richardson. I can't begin to describe how proud of you we all are, even beyond our Bruin family. I've been inundated with phone and e-mail messages from gymnastics fans all over the "world" telling me how great it was that Kate competed in the Olympics while maintaining a great collegiate athletic and academic career. And what more can I say about Mohini? She broke through the barriers. She represented our country with dignity, maturity and grace. She is one of our UCLA and USA all-time greats! It's been incredible how the entire gymnastics community has embraced and supported her return to international competition.
Now that the Olympics are over, it's time to regroup and get started for some serious collegiate action! From all of the buzz, this season should be one of the most exciting collegiate gymnastics seasons to date.
Our team doesn't report until September 13th. I'm just sitting in my office waiting for everyone to get back. Kate is going to Canada for a few weeks then heading back to UCLA. She is having the clamp taken out of her back that she had put in during surgery in 2002. Even though she'll be taking it easy for the first few weeks, I can't wait for her to be here and hear all of the stories from Athens. Chris Waller will get to spend a few weeks with his family then start in with our UCLA pre-season work ... while he's telling me all of his Olympic stories. Marshall Nelson is finishing up his summer headlining as a performer in the new dinner show for SeaWorld, San Diego, which ends after Labor Day. Tasha Schwikert will be out on tour until the end of September.
I feel like the ring master trying to round everyone up. As my husband would say, I need to go "ride herd".
Looking forward to another exciting Bruin season!
~miss val