Karolyi Won’t Coach U.S. Squad, but He Will Be Well-Represented

Bela Karolyi has put aside hopes of coaching the 1988 United States women’s Olympic gymnastics team, but he still expects to have a major impact on its performance in Seoul.

Karolyi, who coached both Romanian Nadia Comaneci and American Mary Lou Retton to Olympic gold medals, believes three or four of his 850 private students, including new national champion Kristie Phillips, will make the 1988 Olympic team.

The Romanian refugee, who defected in 1981, also presumes the 1988 Olympic coach will invite him to accompany and work with any of his students who do represent the U.S. in South Korea.

“I’m really not looking for a badge over there,” said Karolyi, 46, during the national championships at Kansas City last month. “I would be very happy to just be around and be available to help my kids, and if they provide any opportunity for the common benefit of American gymnastics, I would be very, very satisfied.”

Karolyi, a target of coaching jealousies because of his quick rise to American prominence, was not afforded easy access to Retton and teammate Julianne McNamara at the 1984 Summer Games. He was forced to get Olympic credentials as a representative of an equipment supplier in order to work with his gymnasts in Los Angeles.

Soon after the Games, Karolyi’s name surfaced as a candidate to replace longtime U.S. Coach Don Peters of the Southern California Acrobatic Team, one of the strongest private clubs in the nation.

One partisan went so far as to introduce a Congressional bill, which is still pending, to grant Karolyi immediate American citizenship in case his opponents within the U.S. Gymnastics Federation are able to use his alien status to block his appointment.

But the USGF, tired of the bickering, politicking and jealousies of the nation’s major gym clubs, instead named a man from outside the club system as its 1987 women’s coach.

Don Marsden, who coached the University of Utah women gymnasts to six NCAA championships, replaced Peters earlier this year and is expected to maintain the job at least through 1988.

That compromise is fine with Karolyi, a member of the USGF’s Women’s International Program Committee that made Marsden’s appointment.

“We (the WIPC) hope he’s going to have the strength and intelligence to keep away from politics to guide with strength and straightforwardness in gymnastics,” Karolyi said.

“He has proved, being a strong leader on his club, that he’s capable of not just organizing but leading his teams, and that makes me feel good, because that is very important.”

Marsden said in Kansas City that remaining apolitical is a major goal.

“I’m determined not to let (politics) interfere,” he said. “I’m not training these kids. I’m organizing them. The people who are responsible for them will continue to be responsible for them. They’re the coaches. My job is to bring these kids together and have a unified effort.”

At the moment, Karolyi is confident half of the gymnasts Marsden will be organizing will come from his gym.

Phillips, 15, of Baton Rouge, La., and Phoebe Mills, 14, of Northfield, Ill, rank 1-2 both in Karolyi’s gym and in the nation.

But Karolyi also has Olympic hopes for Rhonda Faehn, 15, of Houston, the national vaulting champion and sixth-place finisher in the all-around competition, and Chelle Stack, 13, of Endicott, N.Y., the runner-up in the junior women’s competition.

“Surely Rhonda can be the strongest vaulter in the world right now with her unbelievably high and difficult vault,” Karolyi said. “In addition, I’m thinking very seriously right now about this little one (Stack). She has a year to go and it is the most of the productive years of their (gymnasts’) life.

“Between 13 and 14, these kids are doing spectacular progress. It’s just biologically their most productive year. They’re excellently receptive--physically and mentally. They have no other concerns, no boys, no anything else, and they’re 100% dedicated. Besides these things, they are physically much lighter than they are after 14, so their performances can be brought up real, real quick and very efficiently.

“I know and I hope and I promise, she gonna do a big splash during the next year in American gymnastics. Chelle, probably is gonna be the new sensation at that time.”

Splashier than Phillips?

“Well,” Karolyi hedged, “it’s going to be a beautiful competition. It’s going to be a tremendous fight. It’s going to bring even closer this tremendous competition which exists between Phoebe and Kristie.”