The making of a child athlete

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

I don't think I'm biased. Well, maybe a little, but not much. I love her, that's a fact. But it's not the kind of love that blurs reality. I don't think she's perfect. She's just a typical 14-year-old kid.

But on the balance beam and on bars and on the floor when she's doing her routine, when her hair is in a pony-tail and her back is arched and her toes are pointed and her legs are straight, she isn't 14 at all. She is ageless; she is art, all liquid and grace with movements that are cool and smooth and satisfying.

I sit in the stands and watch her perform a back hand-spring on a piece of wood only a few inches wide and feel something close to awe. I remember her mother pregnant, wanting this girl; I remember how after Carla was born she taped a sign to her shop window announcing that finally she could buy pink.

I remember Carla learning to walk, to run, skip, somersault, stand on her head. I remember her first one-handed cartwheel, my daughter racing in from gymnastics shouting, "You should see Carla, Mama. She's awesome!"

She awesome, even back then. The two of them began gymnastics when they were 4, a pair of tiny kids with gigantic dreams. They were less than half the size of the vault they were supposed to leap over. They had to be lifted up to reach the bars. They were in classes

with dozens of children exactly like them who all dreamed of being on the gymnastics team, who all wanted to be like the teenagers who taught them, who all yearned to be stars.

For years they spent Saturday mornings at the middle school practicing hand stands and head stands, somersaults and cartwheels. And when they got a little older, they spent not just Saturday mornings but all their summer mornings at the high school, refining their moves, stretching their abilities, repeating the same movements again and again.

They studied gymnasts on TV. They devoured books about gymnasts. They practiced hand springs on the front lawn, on a king-sized bed, on the sand at the beach. When they were in fifth grade, they began private lessons in addition to the town-sponsored ones. They were consumed with this sport.

But in sixth grade, my daughter's interest waned. She liked gymnastics. But she liked other things, too. To be the best required hours of practice every day, meets on weekends and endless competitions.

My daughter wanted to act. She wanted to play basketball. She wanted to take cake-decorating on Saturday mornings. Carla said she wanted to do these things, too, and even gave up gymnastics for a few months to be a cheerleader. But she wasn't happy just cheering someone on. The cartwheels she did on the football field made her yearn for her real love. And so within weeks she had turned in her cheerleader's skirt and sweater and was back at the gym doing what she loved best: walk overs and front hand springs and back straddles on the bar.

I hadn't seen her perform for two, maybe three years. I knew that she still practiced every day, that she had meets at the academy where she takes lessons, that she was now one of the big kids teaching the four-year-olds how to tuck and roll, and that she had achieved her dream of being on the gymnastics team and of being a star.

But knowing and seeing are two different things. When I sat on the bleachers at Canton High a few weeks ago and saw this child living the dream she has embraced her whole life, when I witnessed the culmination of her efforts, when I studied her poised on the beam, performing cartwheels and walkovers and hand springs, I was awed.

"Isn't she great," the kids behind me said. "Can you believe how good she is?"

I can believe. Carla has worked her whole life for this success. And she's still working. Every Saturday. Every Sunday. Almost every afternoon or evening.

All the summer days she could have been sunning, swimming, biking, she was stretching, reaching, growing.

All the winter weekends she could have slept late, spent in front of a TV or at the movies, she was learning, pushing herself, evolving.

Now her moves are whispers. Now her form is art. She delights the eyes. She fills an audience with wonder, and she fills my heart with pride.