Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams

[QuietColours]

She never mentions Dobson and does say her parents were into Dr. Spock; also that her father counseled for family beds and against corporal punishment in his practice. (For the question on what kind of doctor he was, she said he did an endocrinology stint and then later that he opened a pediatric practice--no detail if it was general pediatrics or also endocrinology.) The threat of the belt was so frightening partially because he'd never threatened her with violence before.

My impression is that he was a very controlling person who always had to be right and was perfectly fine with humiliating someone else to prove that he was better than them, but not that he was someone who offered his family serious violence. I wouldn't be shocked if there were some slaps or being grabbed so hard it left marks that she didn't mention, but according to the book the kids were definitely not regularly spanked or beaten.

The family is Jewish.

Edit: The endocrinology stint was at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, so he was always focused on pediatrics, whether or not he continued with the endocrinology specialization

 

[Kittentoes]

There was a whole atmosphere of him though. He had tendrils out everywhere. He was an incredibly powerful activist, and broadcast all over. He influenced a lot of public policy.
My public school still had corporal punishment when I attended. Private school too.
In retrospect, I do see why it is so very hard for Gen X to speak up, and how some of this truly insidious abuse could just... flourish.

 

[Puffin]

There was a whole atmosphere of him though. He had tendrils out everywhere. He was an incredibly powerful activist, and broadcast all over. He influenced a lot of public policy.
My public school still had corporal punishment when I attended. Private school too.
In retrospect, I do see why it is so very hard for Gen X to speak up, and how some of this truly insidious abuse could just... flourish.

IIRC Dobson was also a paediatrician in California - he was a professor at University of Southern California

But you are correct that he had tendrils everywhere in "family values" lobbying organizations and think tanks such as Focus on the Family, the Family Policy Alliance, the James Dobson Family Institute etc etc

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 6

• Parkettes
  • As Jen's intensity amplified, so did her mother's commitment to enabling her success. She completely dedicated her time to securing the best coaching; chauffeuring Jen to workouts, ballet, and choreographers; and doing anything to create the circumstances for success
  • Attended a summer camp at Parkettes, a national training center with many elites and former Olympians, owned by Bill and Donna Strauss. They had had Gigi Ambandos, Heidi Anderson, and Gina Stallone as National and World Championship members, and they had Cindy Rosenberry and Nicole Kushner, ten year olds who were training for elite. They didn't compete lower ranked gymnasts–they trained without competing until they were ready to hit the elite scene
  • Parkettes learned to be competitors not by competing, but by training so hard they didn't know how to do anything but succeed
  • Parkettes team girls did exhibitions at the camp. They did double backs and triple twists on floor, BHS and flipping series on beam, double back dismounts off bars
  • Patrick, the assistant coach, taught the youngest girls, Cindy and Nicole. Cindy had curly golden pigtails like Cindy Brady, Nicole had a glamorous long, straight ponytail and olive skin like a little Cher
  • "Patrick admired them with an obsessive bent, drove them with an unyeilding ardor. He shrieked obscenities when they failed to perform, slapping their bare legs if they paused before attacking a skill. He also hugged them with a lingering, unabashed indulgence."
  • Patrick taught Jen's group during the camp. She wanted to impress him, but she feared him. Unlike Marty, he wasn't patient with tentativeness. So here she was without trepidation. Concerns about danger were nothing compared to dread of disappointing Patrick. While Rich was often frustrated with her, he didn't have Patrick's vehemence.
• University of Pennsylvania
  • Mother employed a dance coach to hone beam and floor routines. Janet Cantwell was a former elite and national team member in the late 60s and early 70s, who now coached at the University of Pennsylvania. They weren't a very good gymnastics team–at 10, Jen was better than all of them
  • The gym was old and run down with shiny, slippery wooden beams and bars, the floor wasn't sprung.
  • Went there twice a week for special gymnastics dance instruction. Taught her to bend her knees to bring her center of gravity closer to the beam, to make it easier to stay on, how to finish moves with grace, poise, flexibility, amplitude, and extension. Had Jen overextend her legs so there could be no question they were straight. Focuses on details that set regular girls apart from champions
  • Told her mother about another gym in Mount Laurel, New Jersey coached by Lois Musgrave, known for being kind but tough. She had two elites already, Suzie and Donna, and Janet suggested she could also train Jen
  • Janet wasn't as mean as Patrick, but Jen was afraid of her–her stern glare, her silence, and her obvious disappoint in mistakes inspired fear of letting her down. She believed if she gave into Janet's instruction completely, she would not disappoint her or her mom. Ignored her fears, her falls, her bruises and aches and pains and kept going. She would not find out what happened if she got angry.
  • It was also fear of her own disappointment
  • Between workout with Janet and workout back in Cherry Hill, her mother and Janet colluded as to what the next step would be, and how to transition her to Lois
  • Jen changed in the locker room, where adult women were also changing after swimming. Jiggly legs with varicose veins terrified her, and she wondered why they bothered weighing themselves–they were fat, they knew it, and the number wouldn't change that. She was relieved to go back to her mother and Janet and the world of clothed thin people
• The Best Little Girl in the World
  • Her favorite book at this time was The Best Little Girl in the World, a novel about young Kessa, a ballerina with a dangerous obsession to be thin. She purged, starved, and implemented all sorts of tactics to maintain a perfectly skeletal physic. It fascinated Jen, who was aware she needed to keep it a secret from her mother so she wouldn't ask questions
  • Jen underlined passages and folded page corners highlighting the paragraphs of self-loathing Kessa battled when she felt she didn't measure up to the other girls in her ballet class. She was afraid her mother would see it and pull back on the extra instruction, that her support could be interpreted as pressure by a child, and make Jen try life as a normal kid
  • But mostly she didn't want to worry her. She was afraid she would discover the astrisks in the page margins next to Kessa's tips on starving and purging (eat one pea at a time, use a toothbrush on the back of the throat)
  • Felt about this book like she'd later feel about Judy Blume's Forever.
  • She figured weight loss and starvation would be required to build on her successes. Regionals was one thing, but the girls on television all had perfectly carved bodies. She knew Kessa's anorexia wasn't for her yet, but someday

 

[QuietColours]

I also went and read "The Best Little Girl in the World." It reads like someone took the checklist of what makes someone anorexic as understood in the 70s, how anorexics reduce weight, and what therapy for anorexia looks like (with heavy emphasis on how unsuccessful it is and the 25% mortality rate of the condition, although this story has a happy ending). There was a ton of focus on how being sick made everyone care about the protagonist and got their lives to revolve around her, where previously she was the good, ignored, easy child. I'm not remotely surprised Jen found the book addicting, and it really is a "How to be anorexic" guidebook.

In terms of a story, it's not bad but it's very flat--it really feels like it was written from a checklist. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who has any kind of struggles with disordered eating--it's very descriptive, with lots of techniques, different criteria you can measure your body on, and a lot of numbers. Ultimately, there's better YA eating disorder fiction out there these days, but I suspect this was one of the most complete and researched books at the time.

 

[IratePanda]

I also went and read "The Best Little Girl in the World." It reads like someone took the checklist of what makes someone anorexic as understood in the 70s, how anorexics reduce weight, and what therapy for anorexia looks like (with heavy emphasis on how unsuccessful it is and the 25% mortality rate of the condition, although this story has a happy ending). There was a ton of focus on how being sick made everyone care about the protagonist and got their lives to revolve around her, where previously she was the good, ignored, easy child. I'm not remotely surprised Jen found the book addicting, and it really is a "How to be anorexic" guidebook.

In terms of a story, it's not bad but it's very flat--it really feels like it was written from a checklist. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who has any kind of struggles with disordered eating--it's very descriptive, with lots of techniques, different criteria you can measure your body on, and a lot of numbers. Ultimately, there's better YA eating disorder fiction out there these days, but I suspect this was one of the most complete and researched books at the time.

Yes, if I remember correctly, the author is a psychotherapist.

 

[KristyJ]

I also went and read "The Best Little Girl in the World." It reads like someone took the checklist of what makes someone anorexic as understood in the 70s, how anorexics reduce weight, and what therapy for anorexia looks like (with heavy emphasis on how unsuccessful it is and the 25% mortality rate of the condition, although this story has a happy ending). There was a ton of focus on how being sick made everyone care about the protagonist and got their lives to revolve around her, where previously she was the good, ignored, easy child. I'm not remotely surprised Jen found the book addicting, and it really is a "How to be anorexic" guidebook.

In terms of a story, it's not bad but it's very flat--it really feels like it was written from a checklist. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who has any kind of struggles with disordered eating--it's very descriptive, with lots of techniques, different criteria you can measure your body on, and a lot of numbers. Ultimately, there's better YA eating disorder fiction out there these days, but I suspect this was one of the most complete and researched books at the time.

I believe that it was, in fact, written essentially to detail exactly what the disorder looks like. Nowadays people in eating disorder therapy also know not to publish this stuff because it can definitely be used like a checklist too, but they sure didn't realize that when thousands of us from the 80s and 90s were doing just that..... I feel like Jennifer calling the protagonist "Kessa" and never "Francesca" reveals some bias in that area, too-- spoiler here but "Kessa" was the name she assigned herself when she decided to give in to the need for perfectionistic control.

Honestly I feel like a lot of these things, either Jennifer is trying to write from the perspective she had at the time, or she still internalized a lot of the messages from the gymn world of the 80s. For instance, see how she describes her teammates who she deems less gung-ho-- as lazy, sloppy, desiring boys as though the dichotomy is slim, chaste, and hard-driving or lazy, sloppy, and laviciously slutty. I know this dichotomy was pushed in the 80s, and I get how easy it is to internalize it. I didn't notice this about the book on my first read through when it was published, likely because I'd internalized it (much to my detriment), too. I also relate too strongly to her disgust with the locker room situation....... But I wonder how much of this mindset she still carries without even realizing. I am willing to bet it's very non-zero.

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 7

• Spring 1979
  • Qualifying for sectionals was a turning point. Alternatively dreamed of winning and bombing
  • One month until the meet
  • Had a full day of practice–a session with Janet after school and then a four hour workout at Cabrielles
  • Family had moved to the better WASPy home that her parents had aspired to
  • Jen was crying, because Cabrielle's coach Debbie was giving her a hard time about the floor routine Janet had choreographed for her and wanted her to go back to her original (Debbie's) choreography. Jen knew Janet's routine was better, but didn't know how to go against a coach yelling at her. She told her mother, who called Debbie at home and yelled at her in a way Jen had never seen before
  • Jen had wanted comfort, not for her mother to call the coach at home. Jen didn't know what kind of retribution this act would result in at Cabrielles. Her mom never screamed like that–she rarely yelled at Jen and Chris, who were generally well behaved, and arguments with her father were behind closed doors. She was a stay-at-home, 100 pound, timid suburban mother during the women's lib movement
  • Jen knew something was off–it was too important to her mom that Jen get the treatment she knew Jen deserved. (Debbie's floor routine was to Cavalleria Rusticana–no one wanted to see the cute pixies with serious classical music; they got fun, cute music. Heather had a cute routine to The Wizard of Oz). This was about all the preferential treatment they'd shown Heather in practices. Heather's mom didn't work hard for Heather's success the way Jen's mom did.
  • How could there be such fury if it wasn't really important?
  • Jen begged her mom to apologize, and relationships were repaired enough for Jen to train through sectionals. The Tobins were hostily civil at the gym. Marty would coach Jen at the meet, Rich would come along as the gym's owner and representative
• Sectionals
  • It was exciting–Jen had been on a plane, but she'd never traveled so far for a meet. Her whole family was going, even her Aunt Jill, all because of her. This meet established a pattern–Jen would never travel anywhere alone
  • In Atlanta, they had a day of practice in the auditorium–a gigantic arena–before the competition
  • Jen was the only girl from her team there. Heather had proven herself distractible and undedicated, skipping practices and missing competitions in recent months. Her talent couldn't keep her going at this level, and she hadn't made it past states. Linda was suffering from Osgood-Schlatter disease and was out for the year.
  • During practice, she was awed by the other girls there. Some would become national team members in the near future–Lynne Lederer from Mid-American Twisters. Her coach, Bill Sanders, also had Amy Koopman, who was on track to make the 1980 Olympic team. Mary Lou Retton was there from West Virginia.
  • The most impressive girl there was Torrance York. She was the most famous, featured in a book called A Very Young Gymnast by Jill Krementz. Jen had the whole series. She was Jen's idol, but it turned out she wasn't that good. Jen beat her, despite being three years younger.
  • Jen was one of the youngest juniors and finished about midway in the standings. Coaches noticed her because of her age, despite her not making Nationals by finishing in the top half (missing by a few spots). She had only one fall, on bars.
  • Rich hovered by her, afraid she might wander off and find another club. Recently he wouldn't have minded, but it was clear that Jen was the only girl at Cabrielles willing to sacrifice a normal life to be a winning gymnast–she was willing to self-destruct to win. Other girls who cried as much as Jen did quit, but Jen would just keep going. Now Rich wasn't willing to let her go without a fight, and he saw Jen as his way to making Cabrielles a nationally prominent club
• Next Steps
  • Her parents began to wander aloud where this would go. 3.5 years ago she had started gymnastics as a way to get some exercise. It hadn't completely taken over Jen's life the way it did for elites yet–she still did ballet, still attended school full time, still stayed home from practice when she was sick. Her skill wasn't something to break up the family or risk health and happiness for yet.
  • Many girls trained elite in obscurity, but just down the road from them Will-Moor had put two girls in the upper ranks. Elite was seeming a feasible and worthy goal. Her parents figured Jen could skip gym, lunch, and study hall to train from 2-7, five days a week. That seemed like a good start to train for the elite qualifier, less than a year away.
  • They proposed this to the Tobins out of courtesy, and the Tobins balked–Rich had been entranced by the idea of taking his club further, but they had realized they were more interested in keeping the club recreational, profitable enough to support their growing family. Jen was a marketing vehicle–they wouldn't rework their schedule around her
  • It was time to move on