Shannon Miller: My Child, My Hero by Claudia Miller

[mle]

Steve answered that criticism in an interview with Debbie Decker of USA Today: Why should the Olympic Team hinge on one competition when you've been building up to it for years? If we want healthy kids on the team, why should we beat them up? Why would you want to keep star athletes off the team?

 

[makam]

Well, he said the right thing there, too bad he didn't practice it...

 

[RedBirdie]

Right? The cognitive dissonance is amazing.

 

[mle]

Well, he said the right thing there, too bad he didn't practice it...

Exactly.

 

[Kittentoes]

Claudia worships two things, and I'm surprised she had cognition left for judging.

Poor Troy! He gets Home Aloned, and his achievement is remembering his sister had a dog. Kind of like the way his parents sometimes remembered they had a son.


These people are all bananas.

 

[RedBirdie]

Every time I think it can't get any more batshit insane, it does. It's like a flaming train speeding towards a nuclear meltdown.

And thinking about the person at the center of this story, who was a literal child for most of it: I hope (although I doubt) she got tons of therapy. Good lord, the adults around her must have fucked up her head six ways to sunday.

I do find it interesting that given all Shannon achieved, she's kept a relatively arms-length relationship with USAG. She's made money as a motivational speaker, but she's never been front and center at USAG events (or even at those events, period). Maybe because MLR sucked up all the oxygen? Maybe because there was relatively little time between her retirement and Carly Patterson winning gold? Maybe because she got through her brief return to gymnastics experience in 2000 and said "this shit is fucking crazy, I want nothing to do with it"? I don't know, but I do find it curious.

 

[Hatsumomo]

And thinking about the person at the center of this story, who was a literal child for most of it: I hope (although I doubt) she got tons of therapy. Good lord, the adults around her must have fucked up her head six ways to sunday.

The way she has had to balance the feelings and reactions of the unhinged adults around her with attempting to advocate for herself as a child/teenager, while not being given the tools to do so. One side outright demands she do what he wants her to do vs. the other side giving her the illusion of choice. Pray away the pain vs. ignore the pain.

I wonder how Shannon's relationship with her siblings has fared. I don't know if I buy Claudia and Ron being as reasonable with Tessa and Troy as Claudia tries to present themselves as being in this book.

 

[RichardL]

The way she has had to balance the feelings and reactions of the unhinged adults around her with attempting to advocate for herself as a child/teenager, while not being given the tools to do so. One side outright demands she do what he wants her to do vs. the other side giving her the illusion of choice. Pray away the pain vs. ignore the pain.

I wonder how Shannon's relationship with her siblings has fared. I don't know if I buy Claudia and Ron being as reasonable with Tessa and Troy as Claudia tries to present themselves as being in this book.

I think only a certain kind of person could have managed this, and Shannon seems to have been that kind of person: reserved but self-aware, independently motivated, hyper-vigilant and with an intense focus that can shut out all the noise. Most gymnasts would not have had anything near her kind of success under these circumstances.

 

[IratePanda]

It's pretty telling that she was his only truly successful elite. Strug didn't owe any of her accomplishments to Nunno. The other members of that 1994 GWG team faded from sight (Thompson gym-hopped for the next few years while perpetually injured). Brink and Ingram did okay in NCAA, I guess?