Wednesday, November 11, 1998
Athletes hold Olympic hopes in hand
GYMNASTICS: McCain, Foody struggle to qualify, achieve athletic
greatness
By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Contributor
"You can always tell how good a gymnast is by his hands," said
Steve McCain, throwing wide his palms.
His hands are rough and callused, raw pink in some spots and a
dingy yellow in others where the skin has deadened.
"The worse they are, the better," he added.
Teammate Jim Foody is a little embarrassed by his hands. "I wish
they didn’t have to look like this. Sometimes I go to the store and
ask for change and the cashier stares at them," he said.
Like McCain, Foody’s hands have been sorely worked, with small
flaps of hard, dead skin clinging to its surface. Like McCain,
Foody’s wrists bear scars from being cut into by the hand grips
where the skin literally ripped and bled.
And like McCain, Foody feels a certain pride in his hands. "When
my hands are this beat up, it shows I’ve been working hard. It
gives me more confidence," he said.
Currently ranked fifth and 12th in the nation, respectively,
Steve McCain and Jim Foody are the remnants of a once-great UCLA
men’s gymnastics tradition, dismantled in the wake of Title IX.
They leave today for one of the top international meets in the
world, the Chunichi Cup in Japan, which handed the USA Gymnastics
Federation two invitations.
The Federation, in turn, picked McCain and Foody to be the sole
representatives of the United States.
For McCain and Foody, the path to where they are today was a
turbulent one.
McCain got his start in gymnastics when he was 9, not at a club
or studio, but on Saturday mornings in front of his living room
television.
"I used to watch this karate show where they jumped off roofs
and did these ridiculous, amazing flips," he said.
He taught himself back handsprings, roundoffs and other moves in
his backyard. Before he had taken a single gymnastics class, he
could walk up the stairs on his hands.
His mother decided she would put him in gymnastics. He refused,
defiantly declaring that he wouldn’t take "ballet." And right
around then, the 1984 Olympics started.
As he watched the U.S. men’s team win the gold for the first
time ever, McCain was hooked, imitating the men in his living room.
He then totally dedicated himself to the sport.
"I watched that Olympics and thought, ‘That’s it. I’m doing
that.’ From then on I got focused. Until I came to college, I never
missed a practice in my life," McCain said.
His college choice was decided by the 1984 Olympics as well:
three members of the men’s team were from UCLA. So McCain was going
to be a Bruin as well.
Foody got his start five years earlier at age 4. When he went to
watch his older sister compete at her gymnastics meets, he would
run around and play on the mats. This enthusiasm made his parents
place him in tumbling classes.
But gymnastics was just one of his many sports. "I was pretty
good at soccer and baseball, but there are so many more people who
play them," Foody said.
Although he was on the Junior National Team and had other
impressive accolades, he never thought he could get an offer from
UCLA.
But when the offer came, he decided to come here.
"The No. 1 and 2 guys on the 1992 Olympic team were from UCLA. I
wanted to make the Olympic team, and it seemed like they were doing
something right here," said Foody.
During their first season in 1993, Foody and McCain were UCLA’s
top freshmen, both qualifying for the NCAA Championships.
McCain went on to win the NCAA high bar title as well as the
same title at the U.S. Championships. He also made the National
Team, 15th in the nation.
Representing UCLA, however, would be short-lived. After the 1993
season UCLA had to comply with Title IX, which states that there
must be an equal number of men’s and women’s scholarships in the
NCAA. The university chose to drop the men’s swimming and men’s
gymnastics program.
The team attempted to sue the university into reinstating the
men’s team, but the court ruled in UCLA’s favor. The men were left
with one year of NCAA eligibility and the feeling that they had
been abandoned.
"It was difficult to feel respectable after they dropped the
program. I’ve been doing gymnastics for 15 years, and all of a
sudden because there’s no program, I’m suddenly a schmuck training
in the gym," McCain said.
Although the option was there, Foody and McCain, like the rest
of the team, chose not to leave UCLA for another school that
retained its program.
The mood then was one of frustration, but the two harbor little
resentment today. Having no NCAA competition didn’t affect their
eligibility for competing at Nationals.
In 1994, Foody won the NCAA high bar title while McCain went to
Nationals and placed third all-around in the nation. He later went
to World Championships where he was the second highest scorer on
the U.S. team.
But just as everything was falling into place, McCain began
having a personal dilemma.
"I just started getting bored and depressed about things. A lot
of people were putting pressure on me, and I was sick of being the
gymnast," McCain recalled.
The frustration was to persist. He was forced to skip gymnastics
in 1995 because of a shoulder injury. In 1996 McCain placed third
at Winter Nationals and, at World Championships, placed 11th on the
parallel bars and 13th on the floor exercise. But the year ended
badly when McCain didn’t make the cut for the Olympics.
He admitted this was his own fault.
"I was a perfectionist and I kept making things worse than they
really were. I was a time bomb, detonating at Olympic tryouts,"
McCain said.
Depressed, he left for Africa with a friend who grew up there.
In his mind he told himself he had given up gymnastics for
good.
In the middle of their travels, he was one day dragged by his
friend to go work out at a gym.
He went to a gym in the middle of South Africa  and
everyone there recognized him.
"I couldn’t believe it. Everyone wanted my autograph and was
asking me to help them," he recalled, the shock of it still evident
in his face.
"I realized how hard I had been on myself. I was 11th in the
world on the parallel bars and I thought that was nothing because I
didn’t win the gold medal," he added.
McCain came back to the United States with a renewed sense of
energy and began enjoying activities outside of gymnastics, such as
yoga and hypnotherapy.
His enthusiasm immediately made an impact in his gymnastics. In
1997 he placed 11th in the United States and earlier this year he
had a spectacular summer Nationals, placing fifth in the
nation.
Foody also struggled for a time deciding whether or not he
wanted to continue with gymnastics. After the program was canceled,
a shoulder injury took him out of action until 1996.
Discouraged, Foody gave himself one last chance in 1997 Â
he’d either make the National team or quit gymnastics.
"I didn’t want my parents still paying my rent by the time I was
24 just because I liked doing gymnastics for fun," Foody said.
Foody stepped up to his own challenge, however; he placed
seventh at Nationals and went to World Championships as an
alternate on the U.S. team.
Foody had another scare this summer at Nationals. In the two-day
event, he had a horrible first day and came in 30th place. The
National team accepts only 14 members.
"I lacked the mental strength. My head just didn’t seem to be in
the right place the first day," Foody recalled.
But Foody had a stellar second day. He shot up the ranks,
improving better than any other gymnast in the two days. The second
day alone he came in sixth and ended Nationals 12th in the nation,
where he stands today.
The two have high hopes for the Chunichi Cup. In 1989 McCain
left the country for the first time for an international meet. The
country he went to then was Japan.
"For a year I had dreams I was back in Japan," he laughed.
Foody just wants respect.
"A lot of the best guys in the world will be there. I’m not
expecting to go kick anybody’s ass. I just want people to look at
me and say, ‘That guy’s good,’" he said.
They are headed on the right track. If, until the Olympics,
gymnastics continues to pose a beckoning challenge, then Foody and
McCain have decided, whether it’s with yoga, hypnotherapy or
practicing enough hours a week to fill a part-time job, to accept
that challenge.
Just look at their hands.DERRICK KUDO/Daily Bruin
Steve McCain, a UCLA gymnast for six years, performs Thomas
flairs on the floor exercise mat.
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