Winning Hands : Lacy Has Overcome Injuries, Demise of LSU’s Gym Program to Become One of Fullerton’s Best

Russell Lacy’s hands are scarred and bloodied. Mountains of thick, white callouses form rings around the ample palms.

They could be the hands of a blacksmith. They are not the hands of a surgeon. The long hours of grasping and clutching the rings and high bar have made them raw.

The hands reflect the rough and rocky road Lacy has traveled in gymnastics. Lacy, a junior at Cal State Fullerton, also is scarred.

He has overcome a number of obstacles to become the school record-holder in the floor exercise and the vault. Though he is bruised, he is not beaten.

His is a personality as wide open and brazen as his native Texas. He is as Titan Coach Dick Wolfe says, “A pit bull.”

Perhaps it is the pinch between his cheek and gum that does it. Perhaps it is the manner in which he props his feet on Wolfe’s desk and says of a recent meet: “Yeah, I was really amped tonight.”

But there is something there that portrays him more as fighter than a gymnast. Indeed, Lacy never met a challenge he didn’t like, or couldn’t whip.

Lacy was a good gymnast while attending Stratford High School in Houston. He was a three-time member of the U.S. Junior team (for those 19-years-old and under) and competed in South Africa and Mexico. He also was fourth in the parallel bars at the 1981 National Sports Festival.

Yet, before Lacy could really follow through on his budding gymnastics career, it came to a screeching halt.

Before his senior year at Stratford, Lacy broke a bone in his wrist. Having been accustomed to competing on an international level, Lacy never let it heal properly and eventually ground the bone into dust.

Lacy’s gymnastics future was history.

You’ll just have to give up gymnastics, the doctors said.

Take up diving, friends encouraged. Your hand is more important than a couple of perfect 10s, they said.

Lacy’s response, then and now: a hearty laugh and indignant resignation.

Give up? Never.

“It just never entered my mind to quit,” Lacy said. “Every doctor I saw said give it up.”

Doctors replaced the destroyed bone with one from his hip, and that left his wrist a touch lame. Lacy wore a cast for a year. It was two years before he regained enough strength to compete on the horse, which he said puts the most strain on his hand.

Even three years after the operation, Lacy cannot flex his hand completely and that still poses considerable problems. In all six gymnastics events, all the pressure of a gymnast’s routine is on the hands.

“It’s a brick wall for me to climb over,” Lacy said. “It’s an obstacle, but without them, nothing is really meaningful.”

Still, he managed to attract scholarship offers from schools around the country. Lacy picked Louisiana State and in his freshman season at Baton Rouge missed all-American honors on the vault by a tenth of a point.

Just as it seemed Lacy’s career was headed in the right direction, along came stumbling block No. 2.

LSU dropped its men’s gymnastics program shortly after the season was over.

Lacy weighed his options and headed to Cal State Fullerton with teammate Phil Monard. They had competed with some of the Titan gymnasts in junior competition.

In his sophomore season, Lacy qualified for the NCAA finals in the floor exercise and the vault, helping the Titans to a ninth-place finish.

Then, just before the start of the this season Lacy was declared academically ineligible.

He finally returned on Jan. 30. After sitting out Fullerton’s first three meets, Lacy had some of the best individual finishes among Titans.

Lacy finished second on the floor with a mark of 9.55 and on the vault (9.55). He also was third on the rings (9.55).

“I hated sitting out,” Lacy said. “I live for these meets.”

So now, Lacy is happy, back competing for the Titans, even if it does mean his chaffed, blistered hands won’t get a break.