Back on the Beam

Gymnastics had consumed her life since she was 9 years old and first discovered the exhilaration of flying on uneven bars. But when pressures of elite competition threatened to also consume her spirit, Jamie Dantzscher of San Dimas had to walk away to find sustenance for her soul.

She didn’t lose a career when she took a step back after the Sydney Olympics, where she had dared to criticize coaching guru Bela Karolyi--the U.S. women’s team’s coordinator--after the squad’s non-medal finish. She gained a new perspective on herself and what matters after she enrolled at UCLA, which will try for its third consecutive NCAA gymnastics team championship beginning today at the University of Alabama.

“I think I was very misunderstood by my coaches and even sometimes by my parents and other people,” said Dantzscher, who set a national record this season by earning seven consecutive perfect 10s on floor exercise. “Gymnastics was my life. It was very difficult at times. Sometimes I didn’t seem like the happiest person.

“It’s funny. People come in [to the gym] and say, ‘Wow, she’s bouncing off the walls.’ That’s me. I’m very seldom in a bad mood. It takes a lot to put me there.”

She had reason to be unhappy during and after the Games.

In a decision she disputed, Karolyi didn’t choose her to compete on the balance beam or uneven bars, keeping her out of the all-around finals. The team finished fourth, widely considered a failure after the 1996 team’s gold-medal exploits at Atlanta. Karolyi said the 2000 athletes “did not have that same backbone, they did not have that same work ethic” as their predecessors.

Dantzscher’s response was blunt. “Bela takes credit when we do good and blames everyone else when we do bad. It’s so not fair,” she said. “He has too much control, too much control of the U.S. team. It’s horrible. It’s sad.”

Officials of USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, urged her to soften her stance. She refused. A controversy flared until it was eclipsed by the news that Dantzscher’s father, John, and sister, Jennifer, had been hurt when the taxi in which they were riding was broadsided by a bus on a Sydney street.

Jennifer’s injuries were minor. But John, a produce manager at a Glendale grocery store, suffered a serious brain injury and lasting impairment. He was in a coma for a week and confined to a Sydney hospital for five weeks; when he came home and began rehabilitation, Jamie had left to perform on a post-Olympics tour.

“That was definitely a difficult time,” she said, her voice thickening with emotion. “People that don’t know him would never guess [his injury]. We know, our family members, that he’s different. In some ways, some of the changes he’s gone through have been more good than bad. He’s more sensitive, maybe. I don’t know if it’s his brain injury. His appreciation for life is definitely better. Sometimes that’s hard too.”

Starting at UCLA for the winter quarter was a welcome diversion. She plunged into her studies--she’s considering a major in psychology or communications--and rekindled her enthusiasm for gymnastics.

It’s different, though, because her self-esteem no longer rests on whether she lands a vault perfectly, wobbles while doing a pirouette on the 4-inch-wide balance beam or loses favor because some newcomer catches a coach’s eye.

“Before, it was like gymnastics was my life. That was my life, training for the Olympics,” said Dantzscher, who will be 20 next month. “Now it’s like here, I have gymnastics still, the sport I love, my passion, but I’m also out in the real world. I’m doing other things. I want to be a schoolteacher, and I’m experiencing other things I’ve always wanted to experience.”

Her happiness was evident in the gym. She earned 10s for her first two routines in her first meet, on the bars and in floor exercise, and earned five more 10s as a freshman. She also placed second in floor exercise at last year’s NCAA meet. This season, she was voted Pac-10 gymnast of the year after averaging 9.9 or more on vault, bars and floor exercise and recording three 9.9s on beam.

A tendon problem in her left ankle hampered her late in the season, but she has pushed through it.

“I’ve had quite a few people say how nice it is to see her smile during competition,” Bruin Coach Valorie Kondos Field said. “I’m like, ‘What do you mean? She’s always like this.’ Well, she hasn’t always been like that, and it’s nice to see her come into her own.”

Dantzscher ranks first in the nation in floor exercise and bars and second on vault, a key factor in the Bruins’ No. 1 national ranking. Kondos Field called her “the optimal team player” because she was embarrassed to receive so many perfect scores until Kondos Field pointed out all those 10s boosted the team’s score.

“She’s extremely bright. She’s extremely talented. She’s got to be the most talented female gymnast in the history of college athletics, without a question,” said Kondos Field, coach of the year four times in the past six seasons.

“She’s got the talent, she’s got the strength, she’s got the brains and she’s got that God-given gift called charisma. Put that all together and she’s a perfect package. And I have to add to that she’s as humble as she is talented. She has a heart as big as gold. It’s important for me to encourage her, all of her energy, in a positive direction without stifling her spirit.”

The fire within her still burns bright.

“There are many times Jamie is not the easiest athlete to coach, and sometimes you want to wring her neck,” Kondos Field said. “She is constantly testing you. Constantly. A lot of times she just really wants to know why, and if you give her respect of being cognizant she’s a human being and explain yourself, she’ll say, ‘Thank you for explaining it,’ and she’ll do it.”

She feels she didn’t get that respect at Sydney, and she has no regrets about condemning the confusion that resulted when the personal and team coaches jockeyed for power. “I know some people probably thought I was a little brat,” she said, but she stands by her sentiments.

“People looked at us like, ‘They’re a team that’s going to college. They’re rebels and they’re bad,’ and that just wasn’t the way it was at all,” she said. “We had as much focus and desire as any other team did. They [the coaches] tried to change things and make it more, I don’t know, I guess they were trying to help.

“Things were very negative there and I think it could have been done in a very different way. The experience of the Olympics could have been much different for all of us. That’s why I said something

Her 14-year-old twin sisters, Jalynne and Janelle, are gymnasts, and she has cautioned them about the politics at the sport’s upper levels. However, she said her experiences at Sydney aren’t the reason she’s not inclined to try out for the 2004 Olympic team.

“If I have to give an answer now I would say no, just because I’m really enjoying the college part of it,” she said. “It’s more team-oriented and it’s a lot of fun. And my priorities are different now. School comes first. My education will come before my gymnastics, and to train for the Olympics again would be [making] gymnastics my No. 1 priority again, and I don’t know if I want to go back to that.

“I’m not saying that I don’t think I could. I think if I tried, I’d have a good chance of making it, actually. What’s hard is people get confused. They’re like, ‘If you can, you should, or you’ll regret it.’ No, I mean, I already went through that part of my life and I’m content with where I am now.”