Tami Elliott Knows When to Work Hard, When to Hardly Work : Striking a Perfect Balance

By the time they are seniors in high school, most top female gymnasts have already established themselves. Mary Lou Retton, for example, was just 16 when she earned status as America’s sweetheart during the 1984 Olympics.

Tami Elliott is not in Retton’s class . . . quite. She missed making the ’84 Olympic team by one point. But she has more than her share of trophies and was winning championships before she was old enough to attend kindergarten.

So, when Lynn Rogers, the Cal State Fullerton women’s gymnastics coach, showed up in Newport News, Va. to try to recruit Elliott, he wasn’t exactly computing how high the Titans would be finishing in the NCAA championships the next four years with her points figured in.

“We had identified her talent . . . along with every other school in the country with a women’s program,” is the way Rogers puts it. “She was recruited by 40-some odd schools.”

But that didn’t stop Rogers from going to the gym where Elliott was training to meet her parents. And when Elliott’s father, a retired Army master sergeant, suggested they go out for a drink and some conversation while Tami worked out, Rogers, of course, agreed.

“We got into their van,” Rogers recalled, “and went to a nearby grocery store where Ed picked up three six-packs. Then we drove back to the gym, sat in the parking lot and started drinking.”

Mr. Elliott spoke first.

“I have just one question. I hear you run a real tough program, that you work the girls really hard. Is that true?”

Rogers, thinking that was a pretty tough one for openers, decided to tell the truth.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what kind of rumors you’ve heard,” he said, “but, to be honest, I guess there’s a lot of truth to that.”

Elliott nodded.

“Good,” he said, “now we can talk. That’s the kind of place I want my daughter to go to college.”

Three six-packs later, Rogers and the Elliotts were, “like old friends.” At least that’s the way Rogers remembers it.

But the deal wasn’t quite sewn up, yet. Elliott’s father had one last request: “Any chance you could put barbed wire around her dorm room?”

Now, Rogers shakes his head and laughs.

“I didn’t know what to say then,” he said, “but I should have told him it wouldn’t do any good. Either she would’ve found a way out or they would’ve found a way in.”

Tami Elliott, four-time U.S. national team member, highest American finisher in the 1985 World University Games and seven-time collegiate All-American, is as much All-American girl as world-class gymnast.

In fact, that might be the single most important element in her success. She likes gymnastics, but she also likes dancing, partying and dating. Has for a long time, actually. If that weren’t the case, she thinks she would have ended up like her sister and a lot of her friends and quit when she was 14.

“When I’m done with gym, I’m done with the gym,” she said. “That’s my style. I don’t go home and dwell on it. I have a social life and I love it.”

But don’t get the idea there’s a lack of commitment here. This is a young woman who started in gymnastics when she was 4-years-old after a neighbor watched her execute a perfect back flip off a trash can. She traveled 1 1/2 hours each way to workouts after outgrowing a local recreation program.

Five days a week for the better part of seven years, Elliott made the trek between her home and the Richmond Olympiad Club and back. Her father bought a van equipped with a bed and a place for Elliott to do her homework. They left school at 3:15 p.m., she trained from 5-10 and went to bed about midnight, a schedule that would be enough to have most people committed . . . let alone an 11-year-old.

On Friday nights, she stayed at her coach’s house and then took a Greyhound bus home after working out Saturday.

“And I lived on McDonald’s,” she said. “We’d stop at the same one every night, and they’d just hand me a fish sandwich, large fries and Diet Coke without even asking what I wanted.”

Elliott says she couldn’t have done it alone, though.

“My parents kinda pushed me,” Elliott admits. “They say you shouldn’t push your kids, that they’ll burn out. Well, my parents pushed me. There were times I felt like quitting . . . I had this secret desire to quit and become a cheerleader . . . but I never missed a day of practice because of it.

“Now, I’m really glad they did because I needed to be pushed.”

This wasn’t exactly boot camp, though. She’s never been one to think much about discipline. (“Tami likes three things,” Rogers explains, “gymnastics, dating and sleeping.”) She lives for the moment, reacts to her feelings and hasn’t always considered all the ramifications of her actions.

Once, when she was 11, she looked outside and saw her pony standing in the snow.

“He looked so cold,” Elliott said. “He had ice cycles hanging off his belly, honest.”

When her mother came home, Tami was watching television and the pony was eating a carrot . . . both in front of the living room fire.

“I can still hear her screaming about that one,” she said, sporting her most mischievous smile.

Rogers says that story typifies Elliott’s flair for spontaneity.

“It’s her,” he says, “She doesn’t always think about the effects. She’s not always easy to coach. She demands a great deal of attention, partly because she’s as good as she is, but partly because she doesn’t realize how good she is.

“Some kids are full of ability and full of confidence and you can just show up, turn on the lights and let ‘em go. With Tami, there’s always the doubts. But she’s easily motivated and in the end, coaching her is really rewarding.”

Elliott unveiled three new, more-difficult routines Friday during a dual meet against UCLA in Titan gym. (The meet will be telecast Sunday at 7 p.m. on the Prime Ticket cable network.) She’s a notoriously slow starter--last year at Penn State, she fell seven times in her first meet of the season--and has had some depressing moments preparing for the opener.

“She was down the other day, so I had her go sit under the huge American flag we have on the wall and think about putting her problems in perspective,” Rogers said, obviously aware the tactic was a bit hokey. “She came back a few minutes later with fire in her eyes.”

Elliott admits she’s a sentimental pushover. This is a girl who cries reading Mother’s Day cards.

“I always want to run home after I see a ‘Rocky’ movie,” she said, “and I was almost overwhelmed at the Olympic Trials. Everything was red, white and blue . . . I get goose bumps just talking about it. See?”

And she holds up her arm to prove it.

Tami Elliott has Rockyesque dreams all right, she’s just not sure she has what it takes to make them come true. But Rogers insists that mixture of talent and doubt works for Tami. It’s what makes her so special, he says.

“Making the Olympic team is my dream,” she said, “but I can’t predict what will happen that far down the road. I have to go with short-term goals, that’s just the way I am. Lynn can’t believe that I don’t think I’m good. He always tells me to think about what I’ve already accomplished, to remember I finished 11th overall in the World University Games, higher than any other American.

“But I’m just not a big self-belief person. Maybe I need that cockiness to be a great gymnast, I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll decide I am good.”

Sometimes, she sounds downright confused about her lot in life. She knows only that she’ll be back in the gym tomorrow . . . but she’s not sure why.

“People ask me what keeps me motivated at 21 (actually, she won’t be 21 until April 5), but I haven’t found the answer yet. Sometimes, I’m afraid I’ll discover that I’m not really motivated.

“It’s not the competition, that’s for sure. I look at competitions like tests in school. I don’t look forward to them, but I know I’m prepared, so I don’t dread them, either.”

Rogers finds her mental struggles and her simple-on-the-surface, but complex-underneath personality intriguing.

“Whatever the ingredients are, they’re the right ingredients for Tami,” he said. “There’s the tons and tons of talent, but always the bit of doubt. Ironically, though, she’s a money player. The bigger the meet, the better she performs.”

Elliott is good at holding things inside. On the floor, she seems always at ease, always elegant, always poised. The bigger the competition, the more relaxed she appears.

“It’s true,” she said. “Put me up against the Russians and I really do good. I wouldn’t dare look bad against them .”

There is one thing she never doubts, though. If she had it all to do over again, she would. Just the same way. Even the van trips.

“Hopefully, after 16 years, I’ll get something out of this,” she said. “I was offered the part of Nadia Comaneci in that movie ‘Nadia,’ but had to turn it down because of NCAA rules and, anyway, it came right in the middle of my training for the Olympic Trials.

“But I’d like to do something like that, maybe make commercials.”

She isn’t thinking too much about life after retirement, though. Right now, she’s worrying about staying on the balance beam.

Later, she can allow herself to dream about staying on a course that leads her to Olympic stardom. Then maybe, someday, they’ll make a movie about Tami Elliott and some little girl will get goose bumps and . . .