The Rise After the Fall

The Man in the Arena

We were so close.

After the first day at the NCAAs, we did something truly incredible and beat Oklahoma to finish first. For those that aren’t too familiar with men’s college gymnastics, trust me, the Sooners are kind of the benchmark in our sport.

Everything was falling into place that day, and we truly believed it was our time.

But then, well, day two happened.

I had to step in on high bar after one of our seniors went down with an injury. I’ll be honest, my nerves wrecked me. I’ve grown up competing with mostly parents in the stands. A couple dozen, maybe a couple hundred at the Junior Olympics. Gymnastics isn’t all that popular in the United States, and it’s something you get used to as a kid.

But this atmosphere at NCAAs, man, this was different. It was a riot out there. It was one of the loudest competitions I’ve ever been in, and I felt sick to my stomach.

We train for moments like this the whole year—no, our whole lives. 

When you step into an arena like that, things can get pretty surreal. You have to mentally prepare yourself. If you don’t know how to control your nerves, you can mess up pretty quickly. I learned that lesson the hard way when I fell during my high bar routine.

I just wanted to crawl to the darkest corner in the room and sit there all by myself. 

Gymnastics is a sport that comes down to tenths, and falling, well, that’s a lot of tenths. I felt like I just blew it for everyone. We had such high hopes as a team, and I was the first one to fall. I didn’t even want to look at my teammates because I felt like I brought those hopes down.

But I’m glad I looked at them. 

They all stood there with their heads held high and continued cheering me on. The positivity within the group never wavered because they knew what it felt like to fall. They reassured me of my training and showed the sort of faith in me that helped me get my confidence back for the later events. 

If I didn’t have my teammates, I could have thrown the rest of the meet away.

Moments like that changed my perspective of the sport entirely.