Cal State Fullerton Gymnastics

What’s the best entertainment value in OC for $ 5.00? For many, it’s CSUF Women“s gymnastics meet at Titan Gym. There are usually four or five meets per year at home. As of this writing, they have one more home meet and the conference championships (which will likely cost more) at CSUF in 2010. I found out about this program once when I was a student here playing tennis one Sunday. All of the sudden, people flocked to the parking lot and onto Titan Gym. It’s a great place to take little girls who can see how beautiful and strong they can grow and maybe even have their Olympic dreams.
There’s few places where can you see fit strong and beautiful women defy gravity/​as they tumble, dance, and swing. UCLA has a gymnastics team also, but they’re 60 miles or so away. NCAA gymnasts compete on the floor exercise. Watch for girls who flip in the air twice before landing and show off their personality as they dance to music. On vault, they also sprint down the floor then vault off a «horse», fly high, then flip or twist around before landing. On the uneven bars, they need to do ten moves, including a release when they throw themselves off the bar, re-​catch, and pirouette on top of the bar while in a handstand, and swing out and flip or twist and land cleanly. The balance beam is where these ladies have to do a floor exercise routine on a beam that is 4 inches wide and four feet off the floor. It takes years daily practice for several hours to do a routine in a minute and thirty seconds.
Gymnasts have the highest injury rate of any NCAA sport except springtime football training. They also have to always wear can’t hide leotards during competition. These are beautiful and strong women, but as a friend of mine found out years ago, dating a female gymnast does have its drawbacks. For one, they are sometimes bruised and injured, and people might think their guy is abusive. They might say something like «Hey dude you’re not a man if you have to hit your girl!» Truth is, these ladies are some of the toughest people you’ll meet. I used to moan about getting kicked in the face during tae kwon sparring. These ladies instead of contacting a hand or foot, contact on the ground or an unforgiving piece of metal or wood while tumbling ten feet in the air. They get back up, and try it all again with no complaints. Once outside the gym, the Titan women are among the highest rated academic gymnastics teams in the country.
Here is one of their gymnasts in action at a meet vs. UC Davis. Check out the double back somersault in the beginning and the end of the routine.
But you better try to see them soon because sadly, they’re fighting to stay alive because of budget cuts. This is a storied program that had a one armed gymnast, Carol Johnston, who once was one of the best in her time. Disney even made a TV movie about it in the early 80’s called «Lefty». They were once national contenders, more than any other CSUF team except the baseball team. They’re still able to beat teams like CAL, San Jose State, and UC Davis, who were all ranked higher earlier in the year. But these Titan ladies fight with style. And hopefully they can succeed and remain part of the athletic landscape at CSUF.