Vaulting back to the top

Mike Sciacca

It was only two years ago that Jeanette Antolin’s world came crashing

in.

Twenty-four months later, she is sitting back on top of the world.

The world the 22-year-old had known had been consumed by the sport

of gymnastics, and everything that accompanied it: endless hours of

practice, competitions and sacrifice.

Antolin thrived in the sport, then stumbled, but regained her

balance, landing on her feet in time to be nominated earlier this

month as one of four finalists for the 2003-04 Honda Award for

gymnastics.

The award recognizes the top female collegiate athlete in each of

the 11 women’s sports. Winners of the Honda Award are then candidates

for the Honda-Broderick Cup, which is given to the outstanding

Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year.

“I am thrilled and honored by the nomination,” Antolin said. “It

feels so wonderful to get the recognition, and it’s a culmination of

a fight to get my career back.”

Antolin starred as a member of SCATS Gymnastics in Huntington

Beach, where she was a five-year national team member who placed

second at the 1999 World Team Trails. Upon graduation from Marina

High, she earned a scholarship to UCLA and went on to become a key

member of the school’s renowned women’s gymnastics program.

But once she tasted the “freedom” of college life, she said,

things began to change.

And gymnastics, and life as she knew it, was taken away from her

during her sophomore year in Westwood.

She had been dismissed from the team.

“All I knew my entire life was gymnastics and once I had the

freedom when I went to college, I went a bit nuts,” said Antolin. “I

had gone from being a sheltered gymnast to total freedom. My

priorities were all screwed up. I partied and had a good time.”

Antolin was dismissed from the UCLA squad her sophomore year, and

her scholarship was not renewed.

“I just wasn’t doing my job on the team and my grades went

downhill,” she said. “At first, I couldn’t understand why Coach Val

was doing this, but looking back, I would have done the same.”

“Coach Val” is Bruins head coach Valorie Kondos-Field, who

dismissed Antolin from the team.

Despite being dropped from the team, Antolin continued to train,

just hoping to get back with the Bruins, who won the national

championship her freshman year.

Without a spot on the team, Antolin went to work as a personal

trainer, and went to work on her priorities.

“At that point, I totally began to turn my life around,” she said.

“I turned my life over to God. I regained my focus and my priorities

were back on track. I had that fire again.”

It’s the same fire Don Peters, coach and chief executive of SCATS

Gymnastics, said he saw in a young Antolin when she first came to the

club as a 10-year-old.

“She was an interesting story,” Peters said. “She was very

talented but it wasn’t so much her great, physical talent that jumped

out; no, what stood out was her absolute determination to succeed.

She just has a huge heart and is courageous and hard-working.

“She made two world championship teams for the U.S., and that’s

hard to do. She beat out some athletes who were more talented, too,

to earn her spot on those teams. She’s come back from some adversity

to finish strongly. I’m very proud of her.”

Antolin considers her time at SCATS a building block to her

gymnastics career. Peters, you might say, was the architect, who

helped mold her into an outstanding performer.

“SCATS definitely played a huge part in my career,” she said. “And

Don has been a great influence in both my career and life. He was, I

would say, like a second father to me.

“I think one of the greatest things he instilled in me was his

emphasis on going to school, to be involved in school, and not be

sheltered by gymnastics. I’m glad I stuck through my tough times and

worked hard to succeed.”

Antolin’s UCLA teammates could see the determined effort she put

forth, and her desire to rejoin the team.

Before the start of the Pac-10 Conference Tournament, toward the

end of her sophomore year, her teammates went to bat for her with

Coach Kondos-Field.

“They could see the changes I had made in my life,” said Antolin,

who lists her greatest thrill as competing at the 2000 Olympic

Trials. “After meeting with Coach Val, she gave me the chance to get

back on the team. I was so happy and incredibly grateful that she

did.”

Antolin made the most of that chance, too, and went on to compete

in the vault at the Pac-10 tournament.

As a junior, she earned first-team All-America honors on vault and

uneven bars, was an all-Pac-10 selection, scored her first career

perfect 10, ranked third on the UCLA team with 13 first-place

finishes and was the recipient of UCLA’s C.H.A.M.P.S Inspirational

Award, given annually to a male and female student-athlete who has

overcome personal adversity, injury or illness to achieve athletic

success.

“She is a real inspiration,” UCLA assistant coach Milo Johnson

said. “She is a real talent who managed to turn what could have been

a tragic situation into an outstanding career here at UCLA. She found

her faith, her internal fire, and it showed. She has definitely been

the rock of our program this year.”

Last month, she hit several 9.9s on UCLA’s home floor at Pauley

Pavilion, as the Bruins won their second consecutive national

championship with a national record 198.125 team points.

In her collegiate career, Antolin was a member of three national

championship teams.

She will go on a national tour this summer with former Olympians,

putting on gymnastics shows around the country.

“Being a part of this UCLA gymnastics team has just been

incredible,” said Antolin, who will graduate in 2005 with a degree in

sociology. “I’ve loved it and learned so much here. It’s just a great

feeling to be part of a group of seniors leaving a great legacy in

the program.”

It doesn’t seem so long ago, she said, that she was dreaming of

big things while training at SCATS Gymnastics.

“I would tell any young person who wants to be a gymnast to just

go after their dreams,” she said. “Don’t let anyone, or anything,

stop you, no matter what adversity you may face.

“Also, stay in school and find a way to balance that with

gymnastics. You need both lives. Just always reach for the stars.”