Gymnast’s Academics Do Complete Flip : Titans: Delia, headed to NCAA championships, applies same dedication in classroom as in her sport.

About a year ago, Lynn Rogers, the Cal State Fullerton women’s gymnastics coach, asked his team members to draw pictures of themselves “just for fun.”

The drawings are still there, on a bulletin board in his office. None will be regarded as great art; some are little more than the kind of stick-figure illustrations kids draw in grade school. They show the gymnasts performing in various events.

But the one drawn by Celeste Delia stands out. There are two figures. One is practicing on the beam, a cartoon-like thought bubble rising up from her head with the words, “All-American” and “NCAA Championships.” The other part of the picture shows her seated at a desk, studying for a test. That bubble says, “Honor Roll.”

It is a revealing self-portrait.

Delia, 21, is more than ever the person in her picture. She will compete in the NCAA championships, Thursday through Saturday in Salt Lake City, and will have a chance to be an All-American in her senior season. And it will be next year before she is scheduled to graduate from Fullerton with a physical education degree, but she clearly has made the scholar-athlete “honor roll.” She was Fullerton’s Big West female scholar-athlete of the year for 1992-93, when she had a 3.57 grade-point average.

“Without a doubt, I’m proudest of the fact that she’s done well academically and will graduate,” Rogers said. “She was a talented athlete when she came here. We knew what she could do in gymnastics, but to see her grab hold of the academic side of college is a real treat for me as her coach. Isn’t that what college sports are supposed to be all about?”

Rogers is especially proud of Delia because she entered Fullerton as a Proposition 48 student, which meant she had to sit out her freshman year and meet the school’s academic standards in her first two semesters to become eligible.

When she was in her mid-teens, her life revolved around gymnastics, and her work in the classroom suffered. She spent so much time at the Charter Oak Gliders gymnastics club in her hometown of Covina that it virtually became her second home. “In high school, I really didn’t apply myself,” Delia said. “I was training five or six days a week, for four to five hours a day.”

Like many gymnasts, she dreamed of becoming a member of the U.S. national team and competing in the Olympics.

But by the time she was 17, she realized it was not to be. Women’s gymnastics on the international level had become a sport that demands so much from those who are still so young. If Bela Karolyi had not heard of you by the time you were 13, and you didn’t have a gymnastics maneuver that bears your name by 18, you were almost like an aging, sore-armed pitcher struggling to avoid being sent to the minor leagues.

Delia became an elite gymnast in 1990, which put her in contention for one of 20 spots on the national team. The demands on her time were immense. “The coaches expected so much from her,” said her mother, Jacci. “She had very little social life of her own and couldn’t do things with her friends. She also traveled quite a bit to meets, including one trip to Romania.”

But she finished 26th in the all-around at a major national competition that she felt weighed heavily in the selections for the national team. By then, Delia’s dream had vanished, and she was left with a Scholastic Aptitude Test score that didn’t allow her to qualify for a Division I school under NCAA rules. Her academic record at Covina Northview High School was average.

“My grades were certainly nothing to brag about, an average of something like 2.3 or 2.4,” she said. “I wasn’t even thinking about going to college at the time. When I took the SAT test, it was just another test I had to take. I didn’t think at all about how important those scores really were, and how much they meant.”

So then what?

Rogers had recruited her for Cal State Fullerton, and she accepted, but because of Prop 48, she couldn’t receive any scholarship money, practice with the team or compete in meets her freshman year.

“Sitting out that year was very difficult for me,” she said. “There was no one telling me where to be and what to do, and it was all new for me. There were a lot of new challenges for me academically. Gymnastics always had been my challenge before, and now it wasn’t there. But I learned to discipline myself that first year. I had learned discipline from gymnastics and that carried over.”

Despite those trying times, she emerged from that first year with a more balanced perspective, and on solid ground academically. “I realized that gymnastics won’t carry you through life, that it won’t be there forever,” she said.

She also quickly returned to top form, winning the Big West all-around title as a sophomore, qualifying for the NCAA championships and finishing 25th in the all-around.

Delia also won the Big West all-around championship as a junior and again this year in her senior season, but there also was the disappointment of not advancing to the nationals last year when she didn’t perform well in the regional.

She also starred in the classroom her junior year. In addition to being chosen as the school’s Big West female scholar-athlete of the year in 1992-93, she also earned a national academic honor in 1993 given by the gymnastics coaches’ association and was on the dean’s list that spring with a 3.8 GPA. Her college average is 2.93.

Her bubbly, engaging personality and quick laugh have kept practices mostly lively and relaxed. Her teammate, Cristi Clifford, who also has qualified for this year’s nationals, said Delia has been a positive influence with her work ethic as well.

“As a sophomore, I really look up to her,” Clifford said. “She keeps everyone going in the gym. She’s very dedicated and very energetic.”

And now Delia is eagerly awaiting her final college meet.

“I felt a lot of pressure from myself this year to make it to the nationals, because this is my last year,” she said. “It was a real relief when I made it. I really want to finish well and end my career on a positive note.”

Delia finished fourth in the all-around at the West Regional a week ago in Boise, Ida., scoring 9.7 or better on all four events, including 9.775 on the bars.

“What makes it difficult for Celeste in national competition is that she’s very good in all four events but not overwhelming in any one,” Rogers said. “She’s consistently in the high 9.7 range but not in the 9.8 or 9.85 range in any of them.”

The top six performers in each event at the nationals will be named All-Americans, the second six on the second team.

But all this preparation comes down to a relatively few minutes of opportunity. In gymnastics, as in figure skating and some other individual performance sports, a routine can be performed flawlessly day after day, only to turn to shambles when the spotlight is brightest.

“The individual events are 10 times more difficult than the team sports from that standpoint,” Delia said.

The bigger the event, the greater the pressure, but Delia said she has become a more consistent gymnast now than she was in high school.

“I feel I’m mentally stronger now,” she said. “I’ve been competing for so long that I feel I’m better able to deal with all the emotional feelings and thoughts that go through your mind in big competitions.”

Regardless of what happens this weekend, she’ll be happy, and so will her parents. “We’re very proud of her,” said her father, Ron, a landscaper.

Delia said she hasn’t decided what she will do after graduating next year. ‘I’ve been thinking about getting my credential and teaching, but there are so many different things going through my mind. . . . ,” she said. “I sort of feel like I’m still too young to decide anything so important about my life right now.”

She thought for a few seconds and smiled.

“I’m so thankful now for the direction my life has gone,” she said. “College has been a great experience for me. I wouldn’t change a thing. Just getting my degree will be an awesome feeling.”