El Paso Gymnastics:
Gymnasts persevere despite lack of notoriety
by: Leo Medrano
The Bob Lesley gymnasium at Eastwood High School is a unique sight after school. While basketball is practiced by the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams on the basketball court, both corners of the gym have young athletes hurling themselves at high speeds toward a stationary vault and performing extremely difficult static strength holds on rings while women display balance and poise on the beam.
While not as popular as the universal high school sports such as football and basketball,(which are offered in middle school and high school athletic programs in the El Paso, Ysleta, and Socorro Independent School Districts) gymnastics has none the less gained notoriety in the city of El Paso in recent years as local gymnasts have begun qualifying for the state gymnastics meet.
Andrea Uribe, 16, is a member of the Eastwood women’s gymnastics team which qualified for the state meet in 2007. “I think a little less than half of the people here in El Paso even knows there’s gymnastics here in El Paso”, Uribe said. She added that other teams across the state have an unfair advantage over the three El Paso high schools with gymnastics programs (Eastwood, Hanks, Bel Air), not because of financial reasons but because of the lack of media attention for the sport. “The gym doesn’t make the gymnast,” Uribe said. “If the media included gym highlights from our meets in their news broadcasts, like they do football and basketball, then more people would know about us.” Uribe continued by saying that she thought that the (Ysleta ISD) athletic department did enough for her sport in terms of being able to keep the program alive in El Paso by continuing to offer it as a P.E. course at the three area schools.
Eastwood graduating Senior David Flores, 17, a member of the men’s gym team, agrees with teammate Uribe saying, “It’s not that popular because it isn’t rooted into our community like it is elsewhere but it seems to be growing because of gymnastics accomplishments over recent years...highlighting local gymnastics achievements and putting our names out there is something the media could really help us out with.” For that to happen, he adds, “sportscasters here would have to research gymnastics to gain a general knowledge of it.” Despite the challenges, Flores believes El Paso gymnasts can compete head-to-head with athletes from other parts of Texas. “They have programs in elementary and middle schools, but because [our] gymnastics program starts in high school we’re willing to go harder in four years,” Flores said.
Gymnastics in other parts of the state is offered at feeder programs which enable children interested in gymnastics to start in primary and middle schools, and continue once they enter the high school program, where then, athletes have had several years of gymnastics training and coaching. This is not the case with gymnastics in the El Paso area. The gymnastics programs in El Paso begin and end with high school, leaving gymnasts or those interested in pursuing the sport to either learn what they can in four years or to enroll at one of the handful of private gymnastics gyms. Training opportunities and facilities are larger in other parts of Texas as opposed to El Paso where the sport does not have a large following. Rosa Alvarado, coach of the gymnastics team at Eastwood, believes that ultimately whether the sport blooms is a question of economics. “Our tax base level is so much lower here in El Paso. It boils down to money,” she said, “We were hurt by losing the Robin Hood policy.” The Robin Hood policy was a finance equalization plan that in essence had property rich districts provide tax dollars to other less fortunate districts in the state. “It’s not that we’re narrow minded or backward, it’s just economics. I believe the District does the best it possibly can to help us,”she added.
Alvarado suggests that recreation centers make gymnastics more available to children who are not in middle income families.
Gymnastics is an expensive sport. According to gymnasts, the equipment costs hundreds of dollars each, as do the mats that accompany the equipment. A pommel horse alone costs in the $2,000 range and higher. Also in the $2,000 plus range are each of the other five apparatus (high bar, vault, parallel bars, rings, springboard floor) that the men compete on and the uneven bars, beam, floor, and vault that the women use. It is because of this high cost alone that makes it difficult for the program to thrive.
Gymnast’s in El Paso, like those going hard to work every morning and afternoon in the Bob Lesley gymnasium, continue to work hark despite these obstacles, knowing that their gymnastics careers are too short lived to be worrying over what can or could be done. The future for them does not depend on what can be implemented down the horizon, but on every routine they have the opportunity to execute today.
