Sunday, August 20, 2000
Steady day will put White on Olympic team
By Scott MacGregor
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's this simple for Morgan White: If she stays steady tonight, she's headed to the Olympics. That shouldn't be too hard for the 17-year-old gymnast from the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy.
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AT A GLANCE
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• What: U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials
• Where: FleetCenter, Boston
• TV: NBC, Channels 5, 22; noon-2 p.m., 7-9 p.m. today (women's final live)
• Locals competing: Morgan White (fifth place), Alyssa Beckerman (eighth).
• At stake: White has a good chance to make the Olympic team if she holds her ground. Beckerman is effectively out of contention after falling from fifth to eighth on Friday.
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Consistency is one of White's hallmarks, and the reason she is a favorite of the sport's power-brokers, including national team coordinator Bela Karolyi, who will choose the team after today's competition at Boston's FleetCenter.
White enters the final day of the Olympic gymnastics trials positioned to make the U.S. team. After moving from seventh to fifth place Friday, she needs only to stay there to make the six-member squad. She probably can afford a small mistake and still qualify because she has Karolyi's backing.
“There's no doubt in my mind, if she just does her job, she'll be on the team,” said her coach, Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy owner Mary Lee Tracy. “She just has to stay Morgan.”
That means being one of the most consistent, if not flashiest, athletes in the sport.
From the time White arrived here from Florida in 1998, Tracy knew she was dealing with one of the steadiest athletes she has coached in her 22 years in gymnastics. With White's technical skills comparable to only the elite of the nation's elite gymnasts, the added advantage of extreme mental composure has put her on the cusp of a lifelong dream.
“I think it's just that I'm consistent,” White said of gaining Karolyi's favor. “We need someone who can go out and start the team off strong and get a good hit under our belts.”
Steadiness and toughness are as much a part of White's
skills as the uneven bar routine that bears her name.
White doesn't look tough, if tough is supposed to look big and mean. She is wispy and wiry and pleasant.
But the appearance is deceiving. White is known as one of the toughest competitors in gymnastics, both mentally and physically.
“I think physical toughness and mental toughness are two different things,” White said. “I know some gymnasts who are physically tough and have all the physical skills in the world, but they lack the mental toughness skill. That's where someone like me can come through. I don't have the best skills, but I have the mental toughness, and most of the time, that's what gets me to the top.”
Twice this year, White has pulled herself back in contention at competitions just by gritting it out and staying steady: an American Cup qualifier, when she went from seventh to fourth and was the highest U.S. finisher; and last month's national championships, where she survived a slip on the vault in her second event and cooly recovered on the final six to stay in Olympic competition.
“She didn't let the mistake get to her,” Tracy said of that rare fall on the vault at the national championships. “Resiliency is toughness.”
At the American Cup in February, White finished second to Russia's Yelena Produnova by less than eight-tenths of a point — despite pain in her heel that felt like a stress fracture without the actual break in the bone.
“She's incredibly tough, in so many ways,” Tracy said. “She can control her emotions, yet she's a real person. That's a tough thing right there. People sometimes come unglued personally and professionally. Morgan doesn't.
“But she's also a very soft, caring person. She's emotional outside of the gym. But when she comes in the gym, she's very tough. She deals with competition very, very well.”
You can see it in the intense, glaring look on White's face as she stares down the vault or attacks the uneven bars. Perhaps the only criticism consistently leveled at her is that she looks angry or nervous when she's competing.
Tracy believes that's part of White's charm.
“That's intensity, that's toughness,” Tracy said. “Morgan doesn't want to allow any distractions. The more she stays with her head forward and her face forward and her thoughts forward, the less she's distracted.”
The steadiness should come as no surprise on the gym floor, because off it White is grounded, spending as much time with her family as possible and seamlessly interacting with friends and teammates. She's not gregarious or shy. She's just steady. “She's just a neat, normal kid,” Tracy said.
White came here after a personality clash with her old coach made her realize she was lacking something in her training approach: Positive attitude and a team atmosphere. She admits she has to work on her confidence, but believes that Tracy's power-of-positive-thinking style is directly responsible for where she finds herself now.
"'I really wanted to be in a positive environment, and I knew she was the one who could help me reach my goals,” White said. “I knew this was where I wanted to be. There was no doubt in my mind.”
Before she left for the trials, White called the waiting period "'a confusing time” because she didn't know whether to think about making the Olympic team or block it out. She ended up deciding to envision herself standing proud as a United States Olympian on the FleetCenter floor because of the positive boost it would give her.
“I think about it every day,” she said.
Only one more day left.
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