Landing on My Feet: A Diary of Dreams by Kerri Strug

[QuietColours]

Someone had to do some editing for the narrative. There are frequent quotes from her diary, but the book itself is a standard autobiographical narrative. I don't know if she just turned her diaries over to a ghostwriter and did interviews to fill in the gaps (I know she didn't keep a diary during the harder parts of 1994, and I think that there was about a two year gap in when she left off in 1993 to when she started again 1995), or if she actually tried to write something or meaningfully contribute.

Editing doesn't necessarily equal self reflection, though.

 

[QuietColours]

It reminds me a bit of Jordan Chiles' book in a way--the same lack of curiosity and analysis on what was going on with any of the other gymnasts and how teams were put together. It contrasts distinctly with Leanne being extremely aware of how she had to be a puzzle piece.

Shannon was a little more like Simone--during the part of the career covered in her book, she was pretty much undeniable to the teams and the spots she was getting in the lineups. Shannon's book was also being written by her mom, an adult, who was also a judge, so it doesn't reflect on Shannon's knowledge or interest in the sport at all

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

Kerri was so gassed up at the time she wrote the autobiography, I’m wondering if it colored her past perception of herself.

 

[Big_rock_show]

And the book was written in 1997 (wasn’t she also on tour in 1996/1997?) so I’m sure it’s missing a lot of valuable hindsight that comes from time passing and reflection.

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 7: "I just sort of fell into a shell"
Note: Significant conversation about weight and disordered eating, with specific numbers

• Aftermath
  • They have a rule in their family that whenever there is a big decision to be made, they wait an extra 24 hours. Came into effect when Kerri hurt her hand and called home that it was broken, and Kerri was devastated it would mean she couldn't make Worlds. Her mom flew out the next morning to find a fairly cheerful Kerri whose hand didn't hurt that much (still hadn't had x-rays, but it wasn't broken)
  • Spent several days in Tucson visiting friends and trying to relax, but she was restless. She finally realized it was because gymnastics wasn't really out of her system yet. She could neither leave it behind or shake the disappointment
  • She got some tapes of the competition and it never got easier to accept. There was no end to Barcelona, no closure. Bela and Martha left without saying goodbye, and that .014 made it feel like the competition wasn't over. She decided to go for Atlanta
• Finding a gym
  • Her dad called Bela to get ideas. They knew the triangle needed to be perfect for her. They had a list of several gyms and decided to look into possibilities for host families and get to know coaches on the post-Olympics tour
  • There were nine stops and the best coaches took part in it. Bela was at a few stops too, but they realized he was sincere about his retirement. Bela helped her decide on gyms. By the end of the tour, she had three possibilities: Geza Pozsar's gym in Sacramento, Nunno's in Oklahoma City, and Rita and Kevin Brown's in Orlando. But they had to find a host family and a school that would be supportive
  • They did visits at all of them. At first Kerri wanted Nunno's. People suggested that after being in Kim and Betty's shadow, being with Shannon when she was coming off her five medals wasn't a good idea. Kerri says she didn't care–she liked competing with the best. But they settled on Brown's
  • The clincher was the host family, Patty and Tom Exum. Patty was a teacher at the school Kerri attended, and they treated her like their own child, Tom often staying up very late helping with homework. Their daughter Kelli was a gymnast six years younger than Kerri, and their son Andy was a year younger than her. She became good friends with both of them. They were the main reason she went to Florida and she remains close with them.
  • Rita and Kevin Brown were having marital problems when Kerri arrived, and Kevin was rarely in the gym. She moved 3,000 miles for him to coach her, and he wasn't. Parents said she needed to stay until the end of the school semester.
• Nunno's
  • During the holidays she visited Nunno's and decided to relocate there. Her mom wasn't sure she'd enjoy living in Shannon's shadow, but Kerri was sure and the family knew Nunno well from Lisa's time there, and Lisa said the school, Heritage Hall, was terrific
  • Kerri also enjoyed the school. They understood she had to treat gymnastics like a career, but the teachers and students treated her like another student. Kerri started to become more social and overcame some of her shyness
  • Got up early for morning workout, then put on regular clothes and spent time as a normal student, did class projects and clubs (doesn't say which ones). All her friends were non gymnasts–best friends were Rachel Hutto and Holly Mankin. They never talked gymnastics, and it was a relief
  • Host family was the Garretts, a non-gym family. Cherie Garrett and Kerri had a class together at school and became friends. But they didn't really know the gymnastics regime, and their schedules were very different. They ate, studied, and slept at different time. Mrs. Garrett baked homemade chocolate chip cookies and Kerri had to resist them. They'd take weekend trips and invite her, not understanding why she couldn't go.
  • Kerri was expecting Steve's to be a lot like Bela's, but Steve's workouts focused on conditioning and a lot of repetition
  • Shannon was also a different kind of teammate. They'd never been especially close, and didn't become so because Shannon lived in Edmond with her family and they went to different schools, but they could relate to each other because they shared a lifestyle.
  • Shannon pushed Kerri, but Kerri thinks she pushed Shannon too. Like at Bela's, Kerri never missed a workout–she just taped up and took some Advil.
  • Training with Shannon every day she could see where she stood in comparison to the best, and she knew it would make her better. Kerri held her own in the first two meets with Shannon.
  • Steve wanted to prove he could coach another top elite and that he had a lot do with Shannon's success, not the other way around. Steve was tough on Kerri, and Kerri was okay with it. She was learning a lot of new tricks and routines.
  • Added new difficult tumbling passes to her floor routine, which she was hitting consistently. She won World Trials outright
• Worlds 1993
  • Birmingham, UK–it was Kerri's third worlds in a row. Her floor routine was being called the most difficult in the world–she was doing DLO and whip back combinations
  • Didn't get credit for some of the skills in her routine and she didn't have the necessary bonus points in her dance and jump combinations–they didn't meet the requirements for the new code
  • For AA, it was 2pc; Shannon qualified first, Dawes in 3rd. Kerri was in 5th and didn't qualify.
  • The routine construction also hurt her in floor finals, even though she was one of the best tumblers there.
  • Steve was upset about the code mistake too, but the good news for him was that Shannon was world champion

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 7, continued:
Note: Significant conversation about weight and disordered eating, with specific numbers

• Post Worlds
  • Steve sat down with her and talked about how far she'd come and grown as a gymnast. He pulled out a calendar and started going over the plan for the coming months and the skills he planned for her to learn, and assured her that he and Peggy would study the code to make sure her routines met the requirements, and they went over the meet schedule and what the goal was for her with them
  • Steve mentioned that she might work on toning herself more, because judges liked slim gymnasts. Kerri was 85 pounds and had never before thought she needed to lose weight
  • She doesn't blame Steve what happened next and thinks elite coaches take too much of the rap for the eating disorders in the sport. But he had realized smaller girls scored better and was looking for ways to enhance Kerri's edge. Judges score gymnasts. Gutsu was 80 pounds in Barcelona; Shannon was 74 pounds when she won in Birmingham. And judges score those gymnasts better because that's who fans cheer for and that's who the announcers love–look back at Olga being the "little pixie" in 1972
  • Maybe Steve was wrong to talk about weight, especially considering how desperate Kerri was after Worlds. But he also emphasized eating smart, and so did USAG. No one ever told her to starve herself or took food away from her
• Things breaking down
  • Had moved to a new host family, the Websters. Marianna Webster was a gymnast at Steve's and lived with her mother Melanie. Kerri never really fit in. She still had her friends at school, but she'd missed so much school with Worlds she had to spend most of her time studying. Weekends she was often by herself in the house. Her mother was visiting less because her grandmother was in the hospital in Chicago, and she wasn't keeping in touch with Sunshine as much. When school let out, she didn't see her local friends much
  • She fell into a shell. She decided to lose a couple pounds–skipping meals and panicking when she ate something with 2 or 3 grams of fat. Breakfast would be a few bites of a fat free muffin before a four hour workout; lunch would be a few bites of chicken and rice before PT and working out from 5-8. Dinner was a cup of fat-free yogurt
  • High cholesterol ran in the Webster family, so stringent diets were normal to them.
  • She started getting tired and weak, and she focused on workouts because that's where she had to perform. But she was sluggish and exhausted by the end of the day. She never left the house or read or did arts; she stopped keeping a diary. She mostly slept when she wasn't in the gym
  • She did poorly at invitationals in Ukraine and Belarus because she was losing strength. She couldn't vault at all. Steve was confused and upset. People were telling her she looked different, but she didn't understand why
  • Finally she saw her parents for the first time in 6 weeks at the US Olympic Festival. Her mom said she looked sick; her dad immediately she was coming home with them. Her mom ran out for vitamin and protein supplements. Her dad quizzed her on her diet and how she was feeling. When she saw a picture of herself in the newspaper the next day, she realized they were right
  • "Kerri, don't ever do this to yourself again. You're smarter than this. You know better."
  • She did know better, but she'd lost touch with her family, friends, and the things that helped her escape gymnastics for a while
• Aftermath
  • She did do well at the Sports Festival, but she felt weak
  • Her parents wanted her to come home, but she promised she would control her eating habits. She convinced them to let her compete at US Championships
  • After Championships there was a national team camp, and the trainers found, "I hadn't just lost weight–I'd lost muscle mass and my body fat was down." They said it was dangerously low for a female. They gave her a lot of information about nutrition and told her to get more fat in her diet.
  • They tried to have a heart-to-heart about training and eating the right way, but she was more concerned with putting on a good performance.
  • When she got back to Tucson for a week's break after the camp, the first thing she did was cut a big slice of cake for herself. It was ebony and ivory cake, with white chocolate, white and dark chocolate mousse, and chocolate cake. It was delicious

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

That was a tough read. Thanks again for the summary.

The low fat diet trend in the 90s was just so unbelievably misguided and dangerous. The residual effects are still felt today. I remember I had a science teacher who had all these graphs on various foods and their fat contents on the wall of the classroom and said that bacon was the worst possible thing you could put into your body. Just terrible.

 

[KristyJ]

I got so mad at Steve Nunno reading this chapter. If he and Peggy had just bothered to try to understand the code better before worlds Kerri might've had better results and none of this "get more toned to score better" would've even been a discussion. The conversation about her goals read like Steve desperately trying to cover for his own mistakes, not making a helpful plan for her.

 

[Big_rock_show]

I got so mad at Steve Nunno reading this chapter. If he and Peggy had just bothered to try to understand the code better before worlds Kerri might've had better results and none of this "get more toned to score better" would've even been a discussion. The conversation about her goals read like Steve desperately trying to cover for his own mistakes, not making a helpful plan for her.

Don’t Shannon’s Mom monitor her start values and SHE was the one always bringing it to Nunno’s attention that she was missing skills/bonuses?

 

[KristyJ]

Don’t Shannon’s Mom monitor her start values and SHE was the one always bringing it to Nunno’s attention that she was missing skills/bonuses?

Yep
And that she corrected an error in Shannon's routine construction I think before the same competition

 

[QuietColours]

Chapter 8: "God, please help me out"
Note: This chapter has mentions of Larry Nassar and detailed injury descriptions

• Return to Nunnos
  • Parents were reluctant to let her go back, but they put plans into place–her mom would visit more, Kerri gained weight while at home, Steve promised to monitor her. But the host family situation needed to change
  • Moved in with the Smith family, who had a son Steven who was a low-level gymnast. They included her in many activities that were outside of the gm, such as company picnics, swimming, and shopping
  • Mainly went back because she'd been invited to meets in Europe, including the DTB, about three months away. She'd stay through that and then reevaluate
  • Paid more attention to nutrition and read the materials the trainers had given her. Realized how easy it was to get swept away by desperation without the right support system
  • Became convinced she had had problems not just because her mom couldn't visit and she lost touch with her friends, but also because she didn't have her Aunt and Uncle for weekend escapes. They had had a great influence on her eating habits and she and Ann had spent a lot of time making low-fat recipes together. She missed them
• Injury
  • Just as she was settling in, she had a slight pull in her stomach when doing pull-ups. Her stomach got sore. She finished the workout and took some Advil and didn't say anything.
  • The pain got worse every day until everyone realized she was hurting. She couldn't do any pulls or kicks on bars. Eventually she was practically nauseous from pain whenever she worked out. She just wrapped an ace bandage around her stomach every day and finished the workout. When Steve asked, she shrugged and said, "I'm okay."
  • Her mom came out and they got the stomach examined; it was diagnosed as a bad pull and she was told to take at least a week off to let it heal. She nodded to the doctor but mentally said, "No way." She was doing it again
  • There's a difference between training in pain and training hurt, and she was hurt. She was so happy and proud to have been invited to the European meets and so focused on her goal that she lost touch with reality. Steve and Peggy realized she wasn't doing well and that she wasn't ready to compete, but she went to Switzerland anyway. On a kip, she felt a big rip on her left side. She knew immediately she had torn a muscle
  • She finished the routine, which was the last one of the competition, but the pain was horrible. She told Peggy, "This is not good." She could barely get out of bed the next couple of days–it was just like when she had broken her sternum.
  • She knew she had no business at the Arthur Gander, but she felt guilty telling Peggy she didn't think she should go. Peggy told her she was going to compete
  • Kerri started taking Advil, Tylenol, and aspirin four and five at a time, and she bought an ethyl choloride icing solution spray–they're prescription only in the US, but not in Europe. She isn't proud of this
  • During warmups, she slipped and hit her leg. Because of all the aspirin, it swelled up bigger than a softball, hemorrhaging because of the blood thinner. She was spraying ethyl chloride on her stomach, leg, and ankle between every routine and taking more painkillers, doing the routines by instinct. She actually scored pretty well.
  • By the time of DTB Cup, the main reason she'd wanted to go to Europe, she just wanted to go home. She scratched vault because she couldn't run down the runway. She did bars and had the highest score in the preliminary round. Beam was good but she couldn't land the double back because she had no punch–she landed on her face and got nose burn. She walked off the floor and started crying
  • She says this was the lowest point in her life. Everything hurt. She was tired and numb, and she knew she should have never competed. She was doing with pain what she had done with food–hurting herself. She was doing things she knew better than
  • Flying back to the US, she realized not much had changed in the year and a half since Barcelona, and if anything she was further from her goals now
• Afterwards
  • Mom met her in Oklahoma City and she told her everything. She never went back to Steve's–Steve called and spoke to her father, saying he had things under control and would watch her more closely, but her father said things needed to change
  • They did an MRI and found a severe stomach tear. She still has a massive lump of scar tissue
  • She spent six weeks at home recovering with no gymnastics and was told it would be at least six months before she could compete again. She'd never spent six months away from gymnastics
  • At home, she put on some weight and renewed old friendships. All of a sudden she was outside her career looking in and she couldn't believe what she'd done to herself
  • Enrolled in Green Fields Country Day School. It was the first time in her life she was just a student. She knew she couldn't rush recovery
  • Her father gave her a copy of the Attitude quote by Charles Swindoll
  • She knew her attitude about her career and rehabilitation had to change. Being home was the best therapy, and she was glad it was only 1994–she could take her time and be back with plenty of time before 1996
  • USAG gymnastics was great and Larry Nassar consulted with Bob Wallace, her PT in Tucson, about her therapy. They put together a program where she did different treatments and deep massages twice a day. She did whirlpools and electrical stimulation treatments. Debbie Van Horn, another national team trainer, was also involved. She was grateful so many people were interested in her comeback
  • After three months, she went back to Gymnastics World (now Gymnastics Center) and it was like starting all over with just walks on the beam. Geza Poszar came in from Sacramento to keep her motivated, and she practiced some dance elements with him. She'll never forget how much he helped her mentally and physically
  • Jerry Hinkle, the coach, consulted with USAG and gave her a good program to start with. Arthur Akopian and Muriel Grossfield also worked with her.
  • The process was slow, but she was doing things the right way. She relearned the compulsory routines first. Until the doctors cleared her, she could only do handstands and cartwheels
  • Formed a bond with Akopian, whose coaching style was a lot like Mr. Gault's–quiet but efficient. He calmly told her what she did right and wrong.
  • She told her parents how comfortable she was with him, and they looked to see if she could train with him permanently. But she didn't really want to leave her school or friends. Her parents also wanted her to stay home. They asked Akopian to develop a training plan for her even though he lived in LA
  • He told them that he believed Kerri could recover and be an Olympic champion, and the federation worked with them to allow him to commute to Tucson more frequently. Her parents paid his travel and accommodations and USAG helped with his coaches fees. Kerri worried about the expense, but her dad said it was cheaper than when she lived away from home
  • Arthur developed a program that Jerry Hinkle helped with when Akopian wasn't in Tucson. Things went well and before long she felt better than she had in two years. She realized she didn't need Kim or Shannon to push her–Arthur was a great teacher, Geza helped with choreography, and Hinkle was dedicated to her and put in many extra hours.
  • She did her first meet in summer 1994–just a zone meet, but it went really well, sweeping the golds.
  • She did the US Classic two weeks later. There would be real competition here (Borden, Dawes, Chow), but Kerri was predicted to win it. NBC came in to do interviews about how much she had overcome. She's never been able to bear watching the videos of the competition

 

[tempest]

thank you for all of these! Are there vids of her european meets?

 

[dweiss324]

It definitely reads like a diary with no removed sense of perspective, and is painful to read at times. Obviously the diet and injuries and schedule demands are rough, but also listening to a 14 year old kid lament not being the best in the world / make AA even though she "tries real hard", is quite jarring to read in 2025. It was such a a different world back then, a smaller world in many ways.