Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero by Claudia Miller

[irichluck21]

Yeah all the red flags.

Yikes. Nunno WAS legit crazy.

 

[rlayt]

He seemed fairly typical for those times when we lived through it. I’m glad coaches are learning better ways.

 

[Matilda23]

What was Steve’s background in gymnastics, was he a gymnast?

 

[rlayt]

Wasn’t he just a guy with a college sports degree who jumped into it? None of his other gymnasts made a mark. Jenny Thompson and the girl adopted from Korea?

Didn’t Kerri Strug’s parents pull her from his gym for making her compete with a torn muscle?

 

[QuietColours]

I can find very little about him from before the early 90s even. I can't find his college degrees or really anything beyond an interview that says he's from NY and the fact he knew Bart Conner well enough to be renting space in his gym when Shannon had to switch from Jerry's gym and he was well enough known he was able to go on the training trip to the USSR as a coach without an athlete. He seems to have had quite a few connections in the gymnastics world prior to Shannon's success, but according to the book she seems to have definitely been his first top gymnast.

How 'home grown' she was will depend on your take--it sounds like she was roughly working today's level 8-9 when she transferred. I don't think it's unfair to say that Jerry was responsible for her basics, but she was 9ish? when she went to him, so she'd been training with him for 5-7 years by Barcelona. That's a lot of time for him to have been refining her technique, and it sounds like Peggy was hired pretty much explicitly to refine Shannon's compulsories, with success.

 

[RedBirdie]

Heather Brink was a Nunno gymnast.

I don't think any of his other elites were homegrown. IIRC, all those little juniors he had following Barcelona were transfers.

ETA: I swear Nunno coached at Karolyis in the 1980s. But maybe I'm wrong.

 

[flappergirl]

Heather Brink was a Nunno gymnast.

I don't think any of his other elites were homegrown. IIRC, all those little juniors he had following Barcelona were transfers.

ETA: I swear Nunno coached at Karolyis in the 1980s. But maybe I'm wrong.

I remember hearing that Nunno coached at Karolyi’s and that he modeled his coaching after him and the Soviets.

 

[MaryClare]

Heather Brink was a Nunno gymnast.

I don't think any of his other elites were homegrown. IIRC, all those little juniors he had following Barcelona were transfers.

ETA: I swear Nunno coached at Karolyis in the 1980s. But maybe I'm wrong.

Yes he did coach at Karolyis but it can’t have been for very long when you consider the timeline of them opening their gym and Nunno beginning to coach Shannon in Oklahoma

 

[MaryClare]

I remember hearing that Nunno coached at Karolyi’s and that he modeled his coaching after him and the Soviets.

It makes me laugh how western gymnastics coaches of that era would refer to things as “Soviet” or even broader “eastern bloc” as if every coach did everything the same way

I am imagining myself going back to work on Monday and my boss saying “right guys, I spent a month at a summer camp in the Midwest and now I am going to model myself on the American coaches”

 

[irichluck21]

I remember reading an article that Nunno was a gymnast but I don't think he got too far with it, didn't do NCAA or anything elite.

 

[flappergirl]

It makes me laugh how western gymnastics coaches of that era would refer to things as “Soviet” or even broader “eastern bloc” as if every coach did everything the same way

I am imagining myself going back to work on Monday and my boss saying “right guys, I spent a month at a summer camp in the Midwest and now I am going to model myself on the American coaches”

Yeah, you know so much more about the reality of gymnastics, even in the US. But, I was thinking of the system in place at whatever gym, Steve Nunno visited, have no idea about the what he actually learned

 

[MaryClare]

Yeah, you know so much more about the reality of gymnastics, even in the US. But, I was thinking of the system in place at whatever gym, Steve Nunno visited, have no idea about the what he actually learned

In the 80s, the only gym that was open to receiving western coaches and gymnasts was Dinamo in Moscow. Mikhail Voronin, who was if you like, gymnastics’ oligarch was director at the time and would go on to convert the club into his own private enterprise which it remains today. Back in the 80s he saw a money spinner, overseas coaches would come over, sometimes with their athletes and pay big money to attend a clinic for a week or 2. Sometimes, if nothing particularly important was going on at round lake, they’d get to watch national team training too.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

That's just jogged my memory, I recall reading somewhere about Terry Bartlett's (GB Olympian 84, 88 and 92) experience of a Moscow camp in the 80s. It must've been Dinamo. He was saying the Soviet facilities were so far in advance of what was available in the UK at the time.

 

[Sasha]

The more I read about Nunno, the overarching theme is, "He got angry a lot, so Shannon had to learn to disregard that. And he didn't believe in following the guidelines on injuries, so we all just had to adjust to the idea she would be in pain most of the time because you had to do what Steve said."

I remember watching them at the 2000 Olympic Trials, when she was having trouble with her leg/foot on vault. Steve was nattering non-stop at Shannon and Shannon just looked like she was ignoring him. Maybe she was just particularly in her bubble at that moment, but I do wonder if she just learned to tune him out. I'm not sure how else a person could spend that much time with him without losing their mind.

 

[Sasha]

It makes me laugh how western gymnastics coaches of that era would refer to things as “Soviet” or even broader “eastern bloc” as if every coach did everything the same way

I am imagining myself going back to work on Monday and my boss saying “right guys, I spent a month at a summer camp in the Midwest and now I am going to model myself on the American coaches”

Right. American-style coaching. Like Geddart, or Boorman, or Hill. Y'know.

 

[QuietColours]

In the 80s, the only gym that was open to receiving western coaches and gymnasts was Dinamo in Moscow. Mikhail Voronin, who was if you like, gymnastics’ oligarch was director at the time and would go on to convert the club into his own private enterprise which it remains today. Back in the 80s he saw a money spinner, overseas coaches would come over, sometimes with their athletes and pay big money to attend a clinic for a week or 2. Sometimes, if nothing particularly important was going on at round lake, they’d get to watch national team training too.

Not knowing how Dinamo is pronounced, I wonder if that's where Nunno got the idea to name his gym Dynamo

 

[MaryClare]

Not knowing how Dinamo is pronounced, I wonder if that's where Nunno got the idea to name his gym Dynamo

There are a few gyms around the world named after Dinamo. Including Kelly Sim’s gym in Southampton. The spelling and pronunciations vary in different countries, but in Russia it’s DEE-na-mo

 

[MaryClare]

That's just jogged my memory, I recall reading somewhere about Terry Bartlett's (GB Olympian 84, 88 and 92) experience of a Moscow camp in the 80s. It must've been Dinamo. He was saying the Soviet facilities were so far in advance of what was available in the UK at the time.

Dinamo was and still is one of the largest and best training facilities in Russia. It has been upgraded in recent years, but mostly cosmetic and wear and tear upgrades as it’s always been so ahead of its time. It would still be considerably larger and better than any gym I’ve been to the UK.