University of Minnesota Athletics
My Gymnastics Story: Abby DeMuse
11/17/2015 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
Nov. 17, 2015
The sport of gymnastics is no easy feat. The years of tough training both mentally and physically push gymnasts to their limits in order to succeed at the highest level. Gophersports.com sat down with the University of Minnesota women's gymnastics team to learn where each of these 14 women came from in order to call themselves Golden Gophers.
My gymnastics journey begins much like any other gymnast you ask; I had way to much energy for my parents to handle. To this day, I still wonder why they picked gymnastics for me when no one else in my family had ever even tried to do this sport. Maybe they thought I would be good at it, or maybe they knew I had no hope with any other sport. Regardless, once I started, I never wanted to stop. I fell in love with the sport immediately and I've never looked back. Sure, I had many bumps in my road, wanted to quit several times (just ask any of my old teammates and coaches) but from all of those difficult times and trying moments, I have learned some of the greatest lessons that I don't think I would have if it were not for the sport of gymnastics.
As every young girl experiences, gymnastics is all fun and games for a long time. But then all of a sudden, things get hard. You start growing. School gets harder. Skills in the gym get harder. So many girls call it quits and say they can't do it anymore. When I look back at my level 5 team at 7-years-old and think of all the girls that were on that team, it makes me extremely sad. Out of all the girls on that team, two of us made it to the end of our senior year together. Luckily, both of us have fulfilled our dreams of becoming college gymnasts and though she may not be on my team now, she's forever the sister I never had. That is one amazing thing about gymnastics; the relationships. I may not have a sister in my immediate family, but I can wholeheartedly say I have so many sisters in my heart because of this sport. The relationships that I have formed while climbing the ranks in gymnastics are what pulled me through and lead me to chase after my dream of becoming a Golden Gopher gymnast.
A former Gopher gymnast and teammate (she was a level 10, I was a level 6) of mine, Jamie Bullock, is the first one to plant the seed for me to attend the University of Minnesota. She and some of the other girls her age at my club gym are the people I admired every single day in the gym and when they got college scholarships, I decided I wanted one. When I decided I was going to be a college gymnast, nothing was going to stop me. Sure, that is when things started to get really hard, but I didn't give up. I couldn't give up, I had to succeed. I had a fire burning within me to chase this dream that seemed so crazy at the time. Then, freshman and sophomore years of high school came and I started looking at schools and going on visits. It was all so surreal. I think I came on two unofficial visits to the U of M, mostly because I had already decided in my head what I was going to do. Then at the start of my junior year of high school, I tore my achilles. So many people asked me if I would even be able to do gymnastics again and my response was immediate: yes. I didn't have a choice, I didn't give myself a choice. I was going to get back into the gym and do everything I possibly could do to compete my senior year. After a long, emotional 7 or 8 months, I was back. I was back and had made the best decision of my life; I had decided to become a Golden Gopher gymnast.
The first time I stepped out onto the floor of the Sports Pavilion as a member of the team, I nearly cried. I flashed back to all the years of coming to watch meets in that very building, dreaming to be one of those girls in the pretty leotards and representing something so much bigger than themselves. The first thing I did was look at the crowd and I just searched for all those little girls watching with big, bright eyes. And it hit me, that was me. I was one of those girls. I was that little girl with a big dream and now here I am making that dream come true. I can honestly say it is everything I had hoped for and more. I absolutely love everything about being a Golden Gopher.
- Abby DeMuse
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