here's an article on one of Utah's top recruits that didn't work out during the summer break after graduating from high school and got really out of shape:
"Gymnastics: Utes' Shire learns her lesson the hard way" -
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5449887?source=rss
[quote]College gymnastics was going to be easy, nothing more than a few hours a week in the gym to stay in decent enough shape to throw tricks she'd been doing for years. Wins and national championships virtually would be automatic as a part of Utah's team.
Those were the thoughts Utah freshman Sarah Shire had last spring as she hung out at home instead of going to the gym, and boy were they wrong.
"I messed up," Shire said.
The girl who had never taken more than a week's break from gymnastics when she started competing at 5 years old took the whole summer off and arrived at Utah out of shape and out of competitive mode. It didn't take her long to realize she also was out of her league.
"I thought because I used to be so good and everything was so easy I'd be great, but I was blown away," she said. [/quote]
Utah coach Greg Marsden:
[quote] "I was disappointed because Sarah was a big recruit and we needed her to come in and be what Kristina Baskett and Nina Kim were last year, another infusion of gymnasts who can score big scores for us," Marsden said. "I knew she had let herself get out of shape enough that it was going to take some time to crawl out of that hole and get back to what she is capable of doing." [/quote]
pressure for keeping her gymnastics scholarship to stay in college:
[quote] "At first I was pissed off and down on the coaching staff," said her father, a high school teacher and coach who also is Sarah's closest confidant. "But after talking to Sarah and Greg, I had to agree with him. I told Sarah, 'There is a nice community college close to home,' because that's all we can afford if she got kicked off the team." [/quote]
getting back on track:
[quote] After sitting out the next meet, Shire scored a 9.8 on the balance beam against Minnesota for her first collegiate score. Against Nebraska, she competed on everything but the bars, earning a 9.75 on the vault, 9.825 on the beam and 9.8 on the floor. She followed up that performance with a 9.8 on the vault and a 9.825 on the beam against Florida.
"In some sense, I've gone above and beyond my expectations," Shire said of her recent efforts. "I'm still not where I want to be, but I thought I'd never get a chance to compete on floor this year." [/quote]
this seems harsh:
[quote]"Greg figured it out in the first three weeks," Shire said. "As soon as you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it just to make you mad, because I refuse to conform. When I got here, I saw myself like [Nicolle Ford] or an Ashley [Postell], and he told me I was a nobody. I thought I could do it on my own . . . and he put me in my place." [/quote]
...to tell somebody that they're a nobody...it's right there in the sentence - somebody...good not to be conceited, but somebody is still a somebody, not a nobody. nobody - no body....get it?!
this sounds a little like the breaking down of a recruit and then building them up again to be like how you want them to be, like in the training camps, etc.
from the coach:
[quote]At first, Shire mistook some of Marsden's calls for conditioning as being unhappy with her body type. At 4-foot-11, she is the shortest member of the team, and also the stockiest. However, Marsden reminded Shire of Kim Arnold, a former Georgia gymnast with the same body type who was a two-time NCAA all-around champion.
"I told her, 'That could be you, if you believe in yourself and get back into shape,' " he said. [/quote]
