Tracee Talavera Takes Off Adapted from “The Story of a Young Gymnast: Tracee Talavera” by Karen Folger Jacobs, published on the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, August 24, 1980
WHEN TRACEE Talavera was one and one-half years old, her parents, Nancy and Rip, received phone calls every night from the woman who lived in the apartment below. She wanted them to stop their older daughter from jumping so loudly. Every time, four-year old Coral was asleep in her bed, but the crib next to it shook rhythmically in the darkness. In it, smiling Tracee bounced up and down. The parents would rock Tracee back to sleep, but often the neighbor would call back within the hour. Nancy remembers, “We never told her it wasn’t Coral. Who would believe a baby could jump like that? Tracee was hyperactive from birth.” That same year, 1967, a child was “discovered” in a Romanian playground. Her parents had replaced their couch four times; six-year-old Nadia Comaneci had broken every one with her nonstop jumping. In 1972, Tracee, age five and a half, and Coral, age eight, watched the Olympics on television. Along with millions around the world, they fell in love with Olga Korbut. When the Olympics were over Coral told her parents, “I have to learn to do what Olga did!” And Tracee added, “Yeah, we have to!” Nancy and Rip looked for gymnastics classes. But in 1972 nobody in San Francisco taught children’s gymnastics. However, they eventually heard of a one-hour acrobatics class held on Tuesdays at a ballet studio. Nancy took her daughters to the classes on buses and helped them keep gymnastics notebooks, records of each class. On days when a student did
very well, the teacher glued a gold star next to the date. Inside the front cover of her notebook, Tracee taped a newspaper photo of her heroine, Olga. In these acrobatics classes the sisters did basic rolls, headstands, handstands, and cartwheels. Nancy encouraged her daughters to take ballet lessons along with acrobatics classes; her sister Shirley danced with the San Francisco Ballet. Coral and Tracee tried a class, but the ballet teacher did not appreciate them; they practiced cartwheels between ballet steps. Later Tracee told Nancy, “Ballet is too boring. We like to move around more. And acrobatics isn’t hard enough. Mom, we want real gymnastics.” Tracee’s sister Coral commented, “Tracee has always been really gutsy. She’d fight kids who wanted to fight. I was afraid to fight them, but not Tracee. She’s always been that way. That’s how she does the beam – aggressively. “At the Raphael Weill School, before busing, almost all the kids were black. Sometimes they would tease us at recess. I would run away, find a teacher, and hold her hand. The other kids would be yelling at us, ‘You white honkies.’ Tracee would yell right back at them, ‘I am not. I’m brown.’ “ By brown Tracee meant Mexican-American or Chicana. Talavera de la Reina (Tiara of the Queen) is a town near Madrid, Spain, where Tracee’s grandfather’s father was born. Nancy’s mother was born in Mexico. Rip described Tracee’s behavior: “Tracee was always playing tough with the
black kids. She would race around like a bee; nobody could ever catch her. She learned to be tough in school. Tracee was not afraid of anything or anybody. In Saint Francis Square our balcony overlooked the schoolyard. Every recess she was out there being rough with the other kids. She was the smallest one, but nobody beat up Tracee. Nobody. She’s like me – in fact, she’s a carbon copy of me as a kid.” Rip did some investigating and learned that free trampoline lessons were offered where he and Nancy were raised, and where their parents still live. On week nights and Saturday mornings, Larry “Mac” McNesbitt, a truck-driver, holds his classes in Portola Park. Mac has coached in the high-ceilinged trampoline room there for four years. On the wall hangs a poster-size blowup of a 1974 photograph from the San Francisco Chronicle. Whenever one of his students lags, he touches the picture and says, to inspire: “See this? It’s seven-year-old Tracee Talavera. I’m so proud to have had a part in training her. Tracee and her big sister, Coral, used to come to all my classes with their father. They were great kids. Coral had beautiful form; she was far superior to Tracee physically. She had great leg strength so she could jump higher and do more difficult tricks than Tracee could. Tracee was always trying to catch up with her sister.” Was there rivalry between the sisters? Mac recalls: “Frankly, I think it helped Tracee. She had somebody to look up to, somebody to model herself on. And Tracee always had a good time in the gym, was always laughing. She seemed so happy-go-lucky, so lovable. But underneath she was a powerhouse, motivation-plus. Tremendous energy.” After Saturday trampoline classes Rip would take his daughters to his parents’
home. There the girls would tumble in the backyard. Rafael, who is five-feet-two and known in the family as “Big Rip”, decided to make something special for his gymnastics-crazed granddaughters. One Saturday they arrived to find his present for them – a home-made balance beam. From then on, they spent every Sunday out on that beam until dark. Former president of the San Francisco Teamsters, Big Rip calls Tracee “T and T” or “Little Dynamite”. After a year of acrobatics, trampolining, and backyard balancing, Coral and Tracee were still pleading for “real” gymnastics lessons. At ages nine and six and a half, they realized they needed to train seriously to be able to do what Olga did. Rip and Nancy found that the nearest gymnastics class was held in Burlingame. Twice a week the family went there, and soon Coral and Tracee were competing in Class III meets, the lowest level of competitive gymnastics. The whole family began to get more interested in the sport – they read about it, talked about it, and they went to watch Diane Dunbar, the only Elite (highest competitive level) gymnast in Northern California. Diane had trained in Walnut Creek, twenty miles east of San Francisco. The Talaveras moved to Walnut Creek so that the girls could train with Diane’s coach, Jim Gault. (Rip already commuted to the east to teach at Laney Community
“[Tracee] seemed so happy-go-lucky, so loveable. But underneath she was a powerhouse, motivation-plus. Tremendous energy.” LARRY “MAC” MCNESBITT
“Tracee, 7, proudly displays ribbons from her first meet. Tracee scored a 7.35 on vault, 6.75 on bars, 5.25 on beam and 5.45 on floor” (Caption from the book; Photo from Nancy Talavera)
College.) From San Francisco came the family belongings, including their largest and most expensive piece of furniture – the living room balance beam. At the local elementary school Tracee was placed in a special class for MGM’s (mentally gifted minors). Tracee and Coral began working out at Gault’s gym four afternoons a week. During their first summer at Walnut Creek, 1975, the Talaveras took a twoweek vacation to Eugene, Oregon, so that the girls could participate in the summer training program of the National Academy of Artistic Gymnastics. All year Coral and Tracee admired the Academy competitors at meets – especially Leslie Pyfer and Amy Machamer, both of whom were just a year older than Coral. The Talavera sisters wanted to train under their coaches,
Dick Mulvihill and Linda Metheny Mulvihill. At a meet, the Talaveras met Gordon Maddux, the gymnast-turned-coachturned-TV-commentator, “the voice of gymnastics in America,” who documented the 1972 Olympics telecast that starred Olga Korbut. He told the Talaveras that one of the finest coaches in the world had just moved from Japan to their area; he was Mas Watanabe, who had been Japan’s high bar champion. Rip checked out Watanabe’s new gym, the American Gymnastics Center. After five nights of watching Watanabe and his few student through a window, Rip brought Coral and Tracee to observe with him. Both girls were amazed; they had never seen training like Watanabe’s, nor had they ever encountered a coach who maintained total control by saying almost nothing and never raising his voice, Rip recalls. All the Talaveras switched to Mas Watanabe. Nancy took a weekly gymnastics class for adults and began studying to become a certified gymnastics judge. Rip watched his daughters train for four hours every evening. “At first I didn’t realize how great he was,” Rip recalls. “At times I thought he was holding the girls back, going over the basics too often. Then suddenly, they’d put the moves together perfectly. He gave them correct foundations. And the foundation was stronger for Tracee because she was younger and smaller. Earlier coaches had paid more attention to Coral because she was so much better. But she had developed some bad habits from incorrect basics and uneven flexibility. Tracee has the advantage of having been neglected. “Everybody thought I went to watch my daughters,” Rip comments. “No way! I went to watch a genius, a master technician. He made gymnastics clean, elegant.
“When the Talaveras came to me, Tracee was only eight or nine. Right away you could see her potential. She’s so light and strong for her body size... makes her agile, coordinated. MAS WATANABE
I’m a mathematician, a mental gymnast, so naturally I’m drawn to a man who understands the physics behind the moves. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And because his students mastered the skills so well, they didn’t get hurt in his gym. Coral was the star of his team.” Coral explains, “Mr. Watanabe never lets you try a move until you felt totally confident. That makes your mind stronger. In competitions we performed better than kids from other clubs because everything we did was with total security.” Before long, Watanabe told Rip that although Coral was his best female gymnast, it was her sister who was championship material. In 1979 Mas Watanabe said, “When the Talaveras came to me, Tracee was only eight or nine. Right away you could see her potential. She’s so light and strong for her body size. This makes her agile, coordinated. It is easy for her to learn moves. Plus, she and Coral worked very, very hard. “Tracee couldn’t stand still for a second. In workouts she used to repeat skills twice as many times as Coral did. She had a big advantage in having a sister who was, at that time, a much better gymnast.” The American Gymnastics Center and the men’s gymnastic team at Berkeley thrived under the coaching of Mas Watanabe. His reputation grew. In the spring of 1977 he was appointed Director of Youth
Development for the United States Gymnastics Federation, the governing body of the sport. The job was in Tucson, Arizona. The Talaveras were heartbroken. Where would Coral and Tracee train? The family now faced a big decision. Would the girls quit the sport or would they train somewhere else? It would be a financial burden for the girls to be away from home, but the Talavera family could make it – if that’s what the girls really wanted to do. Coral and Tracee insisted on continuing. They wanted to go to the National Academy of Artistic Gymnastics, in Eugene, Oregon, where they could train with champions like Karen Kelsall, the Canadian Olympian, and the American Elite gymnasts Leslie Pyfer, Amy Machamer, and Jayne Weinstein. It would mean working out seven hours a day, but that was no problem for the supercharged Talavera sisters. Nancy and Rip respected the Academy and its coaches. They had watched their daughters there for parts of three summers. Rip says, “What really convinced us to send our girls there was Linda. No other club in the west has a great woman coach.” Linda, a three-time Olympian (1964, ’68, ’72), coaches floor and beam; she has a master’s degree in dance. Coral loved to dance on the floor and on the beam. Hyperactive Tracee desperately needed help in the dance parts of her floorwork and beamwork. Living and training far away from home is very expensive – thousands of dollars a year for each girl. Nancy took a job as a clerk typist in a San Francisco school and spends over two hours a day commuting. Every semester Rip requests more teaching hours. They never go out to dinner or to the movies. Nancy explained, “Gymnastics is our only luxury. For recreation
we go running out our front door. It’s free.” People often wonder how it is for young children who live away from their parents, but no one seems to ask how it is for the parents. Rip reported: “It’s harder on Nancy than on me. She lives for those weekly phone calls. It’s a mental strain for a family to be separated. And it’s painful to see your kids do something so dangerous. We always tell Tracee, ‘You have one body, one only one body without replaceable parts. We want you to keep all your parts intact. We don’t want you ruining your knees, ankles or back like so many gymnasts have.’ “After the girls left, I didn’t know what to do with my free time. A few days later I bought an eight-week-old pit bull terrier and named her Pitts. For years I had admired the tenacity and courage of pit bull terriers. With he kids away, I could give the puppy the time and attention it needed and deserved. The breeders told us that Pitts had excellent qualities and would make a great show dog. No way! We already have enough competitors in this family.” Later Rip bought Pitts a playmate, another pit bull, Nitro. At least part of Tracee’s success comes from her personality, her character. Jimmy Tanaka, a former gymnastics coach at the Air Force Academy who now teaches judo, aikido, karate, and sky diving in Sacramento, has been following Tracee since he first noticed her at the gym of his friend Mas Watanabe. On a visit to Eugene, Jimmy watched her again and commented, “Tracee is one in a million. That self-motivation! She’s a fighter; in Japanese we have a word for it, Konjo, that inner drive you see here only in a few blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans – people like Muhammad Ali and Tracee. Plus, she has technique.”
AMID TRANSLATOR and a huddle of Italian journalists stood Tracee Talavera, the center of attention. Her face wore none of the tension of the girls across the gym, members of the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team in a final day of practice before the World Gymnastics Championships, now under way here. Tracee is not competing with them, though she placed third in trials for the six-member team and won the allaround title at the pre-Olympic Sports Festival in July. Tracee was shut out because she’s too young, and the international press hasn’t forgotten. The 57-inch, 78-pound figure answered reporters’ questions in mono-syllable. Looking relieved, she then marched to the balance beam alone and hopped on. Meanwhile, the team practiced vaulting. “She’s in a really hard position,” said coach Linda Metheny-Mulvihill. “She wants to be out there and allowed to compete. If the meet were held four weeks later, she’d be able to.” Tracee, 13, was bumped because rules say she must turn 14 during the year of the meet. She came to Fort Worth to perform before judges in precompetition. Offhand, Tracee appears no more than a thin little girl – she’s far from muscular – with chalk-smudged hands
and thighs. At rest, she squirms, assuming the splits or another contortion. The age rule, she said in a child’s high voice, is unfair. “I think if you’re good enough to make the team you should be able to compete.” Two alternates have gained places on the team. One, because of a team member’s injury, another because of Tracee’s age. “Our alternates are just as good,” said Tracee, who contends her absence won’t hurt the team. Tracee, in other words, is taking it like a pro. That’s something to be expected of a world-class gymnast, according to coach Metheny-Mulvihill. “It takes a lot of self-control to compete, and it carries over,” she said. The combination of self-control and fearless youth make Tracee and attraction reminiscent of Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci. Tracee’s recent top marks on bars, beam and all-around title are Nadia’s best events. Tracee is also a natural performer, reputedly better under pressure than not. “She likes the limelight,” said her coach, smiling. “It doesn’t bother me to have a big audience,” acknowledged Tracee. She once told Johnny Carson on national television that he wasn’t strong enough to hold himself up in a “straddle L.”
She’s too young to compete, but takes it like a pro by Diane Reischel, Fort Worth Star Telegram, December 3, 1979
“He wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she recalled. “He just couldn’t do it.” Her mother, contacted at home in Walnut Creek, Calif., said the notoriety of being littlest, youngest, and best doesn’t affect Tracee. “She’s a happy little girl,” said Nancy Talavera. Since Tracee moved up to the National Academy of Artistic Gymnastics in Eugene, Ore., two years ago with her gymnast sister Coral, the Talaveras have seen her only every few months. “It’s been hard on the family – especially the year when both daughters were gone,” said Mrs. Talavera. Coral now lives at home. “During that time Tracee has become very independent, the rigors of competition making her ‘kind of mentally tough,’ “ said her mom. Tracee’s training costs the family $425 a month, plus travelling expenses that have approached $1,000 some months. Tracee’s father teaches at a private college, and her mother works as a secretary for a grocery store chain
to help keep on top of the expenses. It’s a sacrifice an adolescent doesn’t worry over. (“She’d be working anyway,” said Tracee.) Her mind, after all, is on making the Olympic team this spring, when she will be of age. Tracee is reticent about her prospects, and Mrs. Talavera gave a clue why. “I found in this sport you don’t assume anything. You do the best you can and let the chips fall where they may.” Tracee said she feels that as a gymnast, she has made in regard to seeing new cities and faces, although she does miss the normal life of “just being friends.” “At school (she attends two hours daily) I don’t get to talk to many kids. I don’t really know anybody.” Those school kids look flabby, from Tracee’s perspective. As does the rest of the world. “They don’t have to be in shape,” she said, “because they don’t do this.”
WHEN SHE first arrived on the international gymnastics scene, Tracee Talavera was typical of most of the daring moppets in the sport – a virtual clone of Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gold medalist in the 1976 Olympics. But Talavera is changing, becoming the type of gymnast who can endure the tests of time – growing, aging, maturing. Talavera is one of 80 gymnasts from 15 teams who will compete today and tomorrow in the National Team Championships at McKale Center. The meet is sponsored by the U.S. Elite Coaches’ Association for Women’s Gymnastics. “When she first broke in on the international level, she was daring and innovative,” said Linda Mulvihill, one of Talavera’s coaches at the National Academy of Artistic Gymnastics in Eugene, Ore. “She still is daring and innovative, but she is reaching the technical level, learning the precise skills and moves required to be an international class gymnast. She can do the difficult moves and routines and she is becoming more graceful and precise.” Talavera, 14, who earlier this
When you compete in more meets, you become more familiar with what to think about. Like doing your routine, and not worrying about what else is going on. There’s so many things happening at the same time. TRACEE TALAVERA
Talavera growing to make use of experience by Calvin Reynard Arizona Daily Star May 1, 1981
year won the U.S. Championship, says her improvement comes largely from experience. “The new ones (gymnasts) can usually do all the same tricks and routines, but they don’t have a lot of experience,” she said. “When you compete in more meets, you become more familiar with what to think about. Like doing your routine, and not worrying about what else is going on. There’s so many things happening at the same time. “And you get used to being nervous. I’m usually a little nervous until I start my routine. But I concentrate hard on my routine because I don’t want to mess up.” In major national and international competition, Talavera says she isn’t awed by the competition – no matter who it is. “Everybody competing at the same level is doing the same kinds of things,” she said. “I’m pretty familiar with most of their routines.” Talavera is still thin and leggy, but has grown four inches to 5-foot1 since she competed in the Dial Invitational in Tucson two years ago. “There are a couple of things Tracee does that no one else is doing,” Mulvihill said. “On the balance beam, she does a flair, a move from the men’s side horse, to
One of the great things about Tracee is that she is always looking for something new. I think she gets bored if there is not something new to work on. LINDA MULVIHILL
a straddle split that no one else is doing.” Talavera’s mount on the uneven bars is unique and she has a series of moves in the middle of her routine Mulvihill said a few Chinese girls has since copied. “But no one except Tracee has done it with the pirouette she has at the end of the combination,” Mulvihill said. Her dismount on the bars is a Comaneci with a full twist. “Tracee was the first to do the Comaneci with the full twist, but four or five other girls do it now,” her coach said. “One of the great things about Tracee is that she is always looking for something new. I think she gets bored if there is not something new to work on,” Mulvihill said.
Then the long daily routine – public school from 8 a.m. to noon working out from 1 p.m. to 7, dinner, homework and then to bed about 10 p.m. – takes a grind. “Sometimes I do want to do something else,” she said. “I usually go shopping or sometimes we go fishing.” Talavera said a teammate, Julianne McNamara, helps keep her mind on gymnastics. McNamara won the American Cup this spring, and more recently beat Talavera in the Emerald Cup in Eugene. “I think she helps motivate me,” Talavera said. “I see her working out or performing, and I know that I have to do well too. I have to work harder.”
Talavera returns home; her career comes back strong
by Richard Hoffer Los Angeles Times May 14, 1984
Tracee Talavera, by going home again, has challenged one of gymnastics’ basic tenets. In fact, when news circulated that she had returned to Santa Clara to train, leaving Dick Mulvihill’s powerhouse gym in Oregon, everybody assumed she had gone home to die, surrounded by the comfort of family in her final days. Finishing 13th in the last U.S. Championships seemed to confirm as much. A gymnastics insider noted the slide from prominence – she won the meet in each of the two previous years and finished first in the 1980 Olympic trials. “She’s washed up,” he said. What a sorry decline. But by going home, it seems, was she able to come back. She finished a strong eighth Saturday in the all-around portion of this year’s U.S. Championships at Northwestern University and then won medals on beam and vault in Sunday’s individual event finals. Nice little comeback. “Comeback?” the doe-eyed Talavera asked, surprised by the notion and trashing a lot of news angles. “I had a really rough meet last year, sure, but I had good meets, too”. All the same, almost everyone
gave her up for dead when she left Mulvihill’s camp for Mike Lynch’s local outfit in Santa Clara. According to whom you spoke with, Talavera was either messed up in the mind or body. Certainly she had grown. As U.S. Olympic Coach Don Peters said, noting the relative disappearance of Talavera, “She grew a lot and she had a whole new body to deal with.” And certainly there were pressures at home. Her family dearly wanted her to return. She was 17 after living apart as a stranger for most of her youth, six years in fact. Just the fact that she returned to a local academy, one without the Olympian prestige of Bela Karolyi’s or Don Peters’. Seemed in itself to signal she was no longer taking the sport seriously. In this sport, everybody moves around, jockeying for a better climate, a better coach, a better routine. It signifies ambition. Just recently some eight kids walked out of Bela Karolyi’s Houston gym to join Scott Crouse’s in Fort Worth. A little before that, Julianne McNamara left SCATS to hook up with Karolyi. That’s a lot of ambition. But Talavera’s move was not born
“Comeback? I had a really rough meet last year, sure, but I had good meets, too”. TRACEE TALAVERA
out of surrender. She felt she was getting the wrong training in Oregon; she was always feeling tired and run down. By going home she figured she could also please her family and herself. Lynch, who trains at Golden Gate Gymnastics, did not by any means identify her as a reclamation project. “Not at all,” he said. “One of the reasons she moved was to help her gymnastics. We changed her workouts to suit her body. She’s not doing the repetitions she was, but she’s doing more skills.” He also noted her supposed decline was not so much due to her as to the super field of young gymnasts who have joined her among the elite.
“In the 1980 Olympic Trials, which she won, she made a mistake, had a fall,” Lynch said. “The difference now is that nobody who has a fall can win.” Peters, meanwhile, is encouraged by her comeback, or whatever it is. Her name still has the international cachet that judges respond to. And anyway, she remains among the best on the beam, which she won along with Pam Bileck Sunday. “She’s stronger, more fit and is improving every meet,” he said. “She could even move up.” Meanwhile, she’s enjoying the best of both worlds. She lives at home and still gets the kind of training to make her an Olympian once more. “Hard to believe,” she says, “I ever left home.”
Tracee full of life in Olympic Village by Mike Tully, UPI, July 25, 1984 LIKE A suspect in a lineup, Tracee Ta- ing for you guys.’ Everyone knows about lavera felt every eye in the room go to her. gymnastics compared to some of the other sports like archery, maybe they’re not as Apparently, however, Talavera is guilty well known.’ of only one thing -- being the resident imp on the United States’ women’s gymnastics Talavera has earned perfect scores on team at the Summer Olympics. the vault and uneven bars, and her favorite event is the balance beam. Her best event, ‘Tracee has a machine gun laugh,’ said however, may be people -- getting to know coach Don Peters. ‘You don’t have to look them and making them laugh. She is enfor Tracee. Down the hall, you can always joying her stay at the Olympic Village. hear her, no matter what room she’s in.’ ‘I had heard a lot about Olympic VillagOn a team that includes gold medal es so I had some idea before I got here,’ hopeful Mary Lou Retton and ‘Graceful Old she said. ‘The main thing about the Village Lady’ Kathy Johnson, winning attention is the atmosphere is so exciting. Most of can be a futile business. Talavera, though, the athletes are very friendly. has managed it with gymnastics ability and a sparkling personality. ‘Especially when they find out we’re the gymnasts. They always want to come over At a news conference this week, a re- and talk to us. Everybody wants to trade porter asked if the squad employed humor pins and that kind of stuff. It’s been really to help ease the training routine. Peters fun.’ pointed to the Santa Clara, Calif. native in a way that suggested she was an expert. Talavera has proved she can perform. The giggling of Talavera’s teammates con- She captured the 1984 USGF U.S. Classic firmed the charge. and tied for fourth all-around at the American Classic. She tied for first on the beam A 17-year-old with ponytailed brown at the ‘84 USGF national championships. hair, Talavera began gymnastics at the age By her own admission, she has changed of six. She qualified for the 1980 team but from a ‘cute’ style to a stronger, more mathe boycott kept her home. She was the ture one. all-around champion (76.95) at the 1980 Olympic team trials at the age of 13, but Depending on her performance in the slid to sixth in the all-around at the ‘84 Games, this may be her last year on the Olympic trials (75.516). team. After all, if she had gone to Moscow, she might have left the team four years ‘I’ve been involved in gymnastics all ago. my life,’ she said. ‘I think gymnastics is a very important part of the Olympics. When ‘That’s hard to say,’ she said. ‘I probawe first came to the village everyone said, bly would have (stayed) but I can’t say for ‘Oh, you’re the gymnasts, we’ve been wait- sure. I’ve had a lot of fun with the sport.’