Rosas Has Never Been Far From Sport She Loves : Gymnastics: San Clemente High graduate quit four years ago but now is happy to be competing at UCLA.

Misty Rosas was wearing a Donald Duck costume and Peter Pan was telling her that she ought to consider going to college.

Wacky as that sounds, it is lucky for the UCLA women’s gymnastics team that Rosas decided to heed that advice.

Rosas, a 20-year-old Bruin freshman, is a former elite gymnast who quit the sport four years ago.

For the last 1 1/2 years, she has played characters in the show “Fantasmic” at Disneyland. That’s where she met Randy Lane, who was playing Peter Pan.

Lane, in his second year as a UCLA assistant coach, knew about Rosas’ gymnastics background and persuaded her to go to UCLA and try out for the gymnastics team.

Once she proved she hadn’t lost her skills, co-coaches Valorie Kondos and Scott Bull gave her a scholarship.

And Rosas is one of the reasons the Bruins are expected to contend for the national championship this year.

“I feel like we’ve been given a very precious gift,” Kondos said.

Getting back into gymnastics has not been easy for Rosas, who once had dreams of competing in the Olympics.

At 12, Rosas moved out of her home near San Juan Capistrano to live and train with the Southern California Acro Team under Coach Don Peters in Huntington Beach. Three years later, she broke her back while doing a release move on the uneven bars. Then she returned to the sport too quickly and her back took a long time to heal properly.

After another year of competing, mostly in pain, Rosas was burned out. She was 16.

She left the gym, finished high school at San Clemente High and worked at a car dealership before auditioning for a part in “Fantasmic.” But she never completely got away from the sport.

“I missed it a lot,” Rosas said. “I would fool around with friends that were either stunt people or gymnasts and we would condition and work out.”

Rosas has the work ethic of an elite gymnast, which is what kept her in good enough shape to return to the sport.

“She is one of these people that when you say, ‘OK, do one more,’ she does five more,” Kondos said.

Rosas maintained her flexibility through dance and increased her strength in her legs through aerobic dancing and running. She has regained her skill in tumbling.

But that doesn’t mean that getting up on a narrow balance beam and doing flips--flips she used to do so easily--does not scare her.

She said she often thinks, “I’m back up here again doing this? I was scared before and I’m scared now.”

But the most difficult hurdle facing Rosas at UCLA is not in the gym, but in the classroom. She did not go through a traditional high school education because she studied with tutors at SCATS and completed most of her work at San Clemente through independent studies.

“It’s definitely going to be a struggle,” Rosas said.

But Rosas, who is 4-feet-8, thrives on challenges and the element of danger. She once jumped off a two-story house and landed on a foam mat, just for fun. Thrill-seeking is partly what led her to return to gymnastics.

“That’s how it is going to be my whole life, I guess.”