The Fab Five at the 2012 Olympics. Photo courtesy of USA Gymnastics.
Well, technically, it was her parents’ dining room table, because this was at her parents’ house in 1997, one year after she’d capped a career as the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history. Miller won a total of seven Olympic medals, the last coming at Atlanta in 1996, and I was sitting across from her to do a retrospective of the accomplishment. At the time, I wrote for a newspaper in Edmond, Okla., which happened to be Miller’s hometown.
Two things have stayed with me from my long-ago conversation with Miller, who by then had reached the ripe old age of 20. One, it came out that she finally had a boyfriend, supposedly her first, because the schedule had lightened up enough for a social life. And two, she had zero regrets about the many sacrifices made necessary by her gymnastics career, a “normal” teen’s social life among them. All of it was worth it all.
The rigors of being a female Olympic gymnast were a particularly touchy topic at the time. Just a couple years earlier, Joan Ryan had published Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, a scathing book about the physical and psychological perils female gymnasts and figure skaters endured at the elite level. The exceedingly long hours, and the even longer odds of reaching their ultimate goal, were just the tip of the iceberg.
For her part, Miller said she was nothing but grateful for her experiences, and perhaps this was to be expected, seeing how much success they’d brought. She remains a success story today, running her own health and wellness business – Shannon Miller Lifestyle. And she’s winning something far more precious than medals – a battle with cancer, thus earning more time with her second husband and son.
I thought of Shannon Miller Tuesday night while watching the current group of U.S. darlings have their shining moment in the sun. Never before had American female gymnasts won team gold on foreign soil. So it was easy to get caught up in the moment, even though that moment was on tape-delay and I’d learned of the results hours before.
How can you not be moved by images of young girls weeping, be they tears born of despair or joy? How can you not empathize with the parents in the stands, who live and die with every leap and dismount? It is a lifetime’s litmus test bared before the world.
The mind races at the spectacle. Part of me thinks children shouldn’t feel such pressure so early in life. Part of me marvels at what they do in spite of it. And part of me wonders if anything can be worth all the time, toil and trouble.
That’s usually when I remember Shannon Miller smiling and telling me so assuredly that it was.
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