NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships : Holdsworth Should Help Bruin Title Bid

Sophomore gymnast Curtis Holdsworth was reflecting the other day on the curious path he took to get to UCLA.

While his teammates practiced for the NCAA meet, which will begin tonight at Pauley Pavilion, Holdsworth said he might never have set foot there if he had not been adopted when he was 3.

He said he has always known about his adoption and does not resent his natural parents for giving him up. His adoptive parents are Caucasians. He is, as he put it, “half white, half black.”

He realizes that he might not have become one of the nation’s best college gymnasts had it not been for his adoptive parents and the sacrifices they made to bring him into their family.

“It’s pretty obvious to me now, with the opportunities I have, that I have a better life than most people,” he said.

Elaine Holdsworth was working as a counselor at a social agency in New Jersey when she met Curtis. He came to her attention after his natural mother, forced by economic circumstances, placed him in a foster home and put him up for adoption.

Mrs. Holdsworth “was like my case worker,” Curtis said. But she didn’t work on his case for very long.

Mrs. Holdsworth, whose husband Robert was working on his Ph.D. in biology, thought that she and her husband should do the adopting.

But the agency she worked for had a rule against workers adopting their clients. So, before she could take Curtis home, Mrs. Holdsworth had to give up her job.

It was also Mrs. Holdsworth who decided that Curtis should have gymnastics lessons when he was a child in Wilbraham, Mass., a suburb of Springfield. The Holdsworths, who have two natural children, had moved to the area, where Curtis’ father is a biology professor at Western New England College. Mrs. Holdsworth works at a crisis intervention center.

“My mom just started me in (gymnastics), and I didn’t like it at first,” he said.

However, he stated liking the sport when he began to get good at it. When he was 13 his coach, Bill Jones, decided that Curtis was good enough to go the U.S. Gymnastics Federation’s national tournament for junior performers.

Holdsworth went from good to better to best. He eventually won USGF junior national championships on the pommel horse, rings and the high bar. During the same years, he twice won state prep championships in the all-around while competing for Springfield’s Minnechaug High School.

His rise in the world of gymnastics did not escape the attention of college recruiters. Holdsworth, 20, said that as a high school senior he was offered scholarships by UCLA, Iowa, Illinois, Penn State, Ohio State, Temple and Cal State Fullerton.

And those were just the offers from the schools that interested him. There were dozens more from other colleges.

But he chose UCLA largely because three gymnasts who starred for the Bruins--Peter Vidmar, Mitch Gaylord and Tim Daggett--also starred for the U.S. team that won a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.

“I thought the momentum of the Olympics would carry on into the gymnastics program here,” he said.

What’s more, Daggett’s home town is West Springfield, and both he and Holdsworth were coached by Jones.

Daggett, a graduate assistant coach with UCLA and still a national team member, helped recruit the 5-foot 4-inch Holdsworth, knowing that Holdsworth was a good college prospect.

“He knew I was coachable and that I wouldn’t flunk out,” Holdsworth said.

So coachable was Holdsworth, in fact, that last year he became the first freshman to win the pommel horse competition at the NCAA meet, finishing first with a score of 9.75.

He said that winning on the pommel horse “was a shocker” because he barely qualified for the final in that event, finishing in an eight-way tie for third in the preliminaries.

His average scores in the pommel horse have dropped this year from about a 9.8 to a 9.75, but he has greatly improved his averages in his two weakest events, going from about a 9.1 to approximately 9.5 in both the floor exercise and the parallel bars.

Art Shurlock, who is completing his 23rd year as the UCLA men’s gymnastics coach, said that Holdsworth “is coming into his own and is a tough competitor.”

Shurlock said that Holdsworth, sophomore David St. Pierre of Culver City and junior David Moriel of Northridge, a member of the U.S. national team, should be his top point-getters in the NCAA meet and are “strong contenders for the (1988) Olympics.”

The rest of Shurlock’s front seven are Luc Teurlings, a senior from Belgium; sophomore Michael Chaplin of Albuquerque, freshman Chris Waller of Mount Pleasant, Ill., and junior Tony Pineda of Mexico, who was ineligible at UCLA last year but was the NCAA pommel horse champion in 1985.

Holdsworth and his teammates will have to be tough competitors if they hope to win an NCAA title for UCLA, which won its only national championship in 1984 and has finished fifth the last two years.

Shurlock said that he thinks this year’s meet is “going to be the most competitive ever,” and his expectation is backed by national rankings for the top teams, which are based on average team scores for the season.

Fewer than two points separate the top team, Oklahoma, with an average of 283.80, from UCLA, fourth at 281.86. Cal State Fullerton, led by China’s Li Xiao Ping, is ranked second at 283.17 and Nebraska is third at 282.74.

And there is not much room between teams in the rest of the top 10, which rank as follows: 5. Penn State, 281.16; 6. Houston Baptist, 280.62; 7. Iowa, 280.28; 8. New Mexico, 280.16; 9. Ohio State, 279.32; 10. Minnesota, 278.91.

Li, world champion in the pommel horse in 1981, has averaged 9.92 in his specialty in collegiate competition this season. At the recent Pacific 10 Conference Invitational, he won the pommel horse with a 9.95.

Holdsworth was sixth with a 9.65 after apparently scraping the horse during his routine and having two-tenths of a point deducted from his score. Holdsworth’s season average is 9.75.

New Mexico was the surprise winner of the Pac-10 Invitational, Fullerton was second, and UCLA, top-ranked nationally before the meet, finished in a tie for third with Arizona State.

The Pac-10 has had an invitational meet in recent years because several conference members have dropped men’s gymnastics and the only surviving teams are UCLA, Cal, Stanford and Arizona State. The Sun Devils won the NCAA team championship last year but did not qualify for this year’s meet.

In individual competition, Arizona State will be represented by Jerry Burrell, defending NCAA champion in floor exercise. Other defending national champions besides Holdsworth and Burrell are Chad Fox of New Mexico in the vault and Paul O’Neill of Houston Baptist on the rings.

Houston Baptist has three members of Spain’s national team, including Alfonso Rodriquez, the best all-around gymnast in college ranks this season with an average of 57.24. The West Coast’s best all-around performer is Steve Mikulak of Cal with a 56.80 average. Holdsworth is second with a 56.63.

After tonight’s compulsories in the all-around from 7:30 to 9:30, there will team optionals and completion of the all-around from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Friday. The top three teams will compete in Saturday’s finals from 1 to 3 p.m., followed by individual finals from 7:45 to 9:30 p.m.

UCLA’s women’s gymnastics team is top-seeded with the nation’s best qualifying score, 189.7833, going into this weekend’s NCAA meet at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The Bruins had a 15-3 record and won the West Regional title with a school-record score of 190.75.

Top competitors for UCLA are sophomore Tanya Service of St. Charles, Mo., second-ranked woman gymnast in the country, and freshman Kim Hamilton of Richmond, Va., who won the regional all-around title with a score of 38.40.

Utah, six-time defending national champion, is expected to provide UCLA’s strongest competition. The third-seeded Utes have not lost a home meet since 1979. Alabama is seeded second. Competition at the campus Special Events Center will begin Friday afternoon and continue Friday and Saturday nights.