SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 Sports) - The Utah gymnastics team is one of best in the country. I've covered them for 28 years. I've always wondered what it would be like to actually do a routine. I probably shouldn't have.
Utah co-head coach Megan Marsden taught me a beam routine. The beam is arguably the hardest of the 4 disciplines in gymnastics. The beam is 4 feet off the ground, and only 4 inches wide. That makes it tough to jump on to it, as I found out after countless tries.
Megan was very patient and a great coach, although at one point she said, "Eww, that's not very pretty." She was right, so I couldn't really argue with her.
I ended up doing a routine that included "the crane" from the movie "The Karate Kid", as well as some other sappy moves. 3 gymnasts from the Utah squad judged my performance, adn they all gave me 4's. I assumed they were just showing their favorite TV station. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I was a little sore afterwards, but the thing that hurt the worst was Megan's "compliment" to me. She said, "For your age I was very impressed.". Ouch!
