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Sunday, June 1, 2008
Flying High
Greater Louisville, KY
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Louisville’s gymnasts have made the national scene.
The rings menacingly sway back and forth. A teammate reaches out to steady them. Within seconds, sixteen-year-old Parker Raque is ready to defy gravity. With legs held perfectly still and his entire weight supported by only the muscles in his arms, this teenage gymnast doesn’t even break a sweat. A few more moves, a few more ups and downs, and then Raque frees his hands and flips his way onto solid ground. The younger gymnasts, still learning the ropes, take a few seconds to watch it all unfold. It’s just another day at practice, but Raque isn’t just any ordinary athlete. He is quickly vaulting onto the national stage. In May, the sixteen-year-old became one of the top junior gymnasts in the country.
Raque recently qualified for the VISA Championships, an elite gymnastics competition with a role in deciding who makes the national team. He took on the top two hundred gymnasts in the country to earn one of only sixteen spots in the competition. “It’s thrilling. I mean the accomplishment is making it to that point. I had to do really well to qualify for VISA, so that is a big achievement,” he says.
It has been a long road for Raque; it all started with his first gymnastic lesson at age four. Six years ago he teamed up with Doug Burton of Champion Gymnastics in Jeffersontown. Raque credits Coach Burton’s approach to making him the athlete he is today. Instead of an aggressive, in-your-face, style of coaching, Burton guides the gymnasts into making the right choices.
“When we come in here, he doesn’t necessarily push you to work out really hard; he lets you choose to do it on your own. You’ve got to want to work hard and practice to get better,” says Raque.
Coach Burton has been working to build a strong boys’ gymnastics program in Kentucky for almost a decade now. When he started nine years ago, money and talent were scarce. Gymnasts from Kentucky had to travel across the river to participate in competitions. Often coaches from other regions overlooked the Bluegrass state as a possible threat. That’s all changed now.
“They definitely have realized we have talent,” says Burton. Raque is leading the way as the first gymnast from a Kentucky team to reach the VISA Championship, a feat that is not going unnoticed. At a recent competition, Burton overheard two coaches commenting on Raque’s performance. The coaches were surprised that one of the best gymnasts in the competition came from a Kentucky gym. “I told them, this is only the start,” said Burton.
Also helping improve Kentucky’s reputation in the sport are rising stars Eric Johnson and Christopher Coombs. The two students at Crosby Middle School recently competed in the Junior Nationals along with Raque. All three teenagers spend an incredible amount of time training. Typically, their practices run five nights a week for four hours at a stretch. That kind of time commitment requires a great deal of balance and coordination.
“I leave for practice at 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m there until 8:30, so I know when I get home from school, I have to get my homework finished,” says Johnson.
“If I had all that extra time, I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” says Raque, who admits to missing out on school dances and football games. However, the sophomore at Christian Academy of Louisville says there is a definite tradeoff since going to competitions allows him to travel all around the country.
“It’s an all-or-nothing sport,” chimed in Charmaine Coombs. Her son Chris has been involved in gymnastics for the past ten years. “They give up a lot socially,” says Coombs. “Eric and Chris have both missed field trips this year.”
Parents make sacrifices as well. Besides paying for lessons, moms and dads of young gymnasts also foot the bill for equipment and uniforms, not to mention extensive travel arrangements.
“Uniforms, grips for their hands, knee braces, heel braces, doctor’s visits, cost of classes; it’s a new car or a really good vacation!” jokes Coombs.
As for Raque, right now his focus is on the VISA Championship. After that, he’s hoping a college scholarship is in his future. Earning one would be a huge achievement by itself considering there are fewer than twenty universities that offer the sport at a collegiate level. However, Raque’s coach has faith in the young gymnast. “He’s a very positive kid,” says Burton. “Where Parker is at this point, it’s opening up more and more doors.”
Holly McArthur is a freelance journalist living in Jeffersontown.
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