Golden girls
Houston has legacy of world-class gymnasts.
From the gymnastics dynasty of Bela and Martha Karolyi in the 1980s through the current splendor of three-time world champion Simone Biles, Houston has been home base for many of the nation’s greatest female gymnasts. • As Biles, 19, of Spring, prepares for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, here’s a look back at the best that Houston gymnastics has had to offer — Olympic gold medalists Mary Lou Retton, Dominique Moceanu and Kerri Strug and world all-around champion Kim Zmeskal — and a half-dozen others who have represented the U.S. in Olympics or world championship competition.
Each of the more than 140 former Olympic gymnasts who gathered in San Jose, Calif., for a grand reunion in July got a rousing ovation as they crossed the stage and saluted the crowd.
But only one needed no introduction as she walked to center stage, waving and smiling as the cheers built even before the announcer called her name.
More than 30 years after her golden moment in Los Angeles, America still loves Mary Lou Retton.
“I think it’s the parents who mostly yell for me now,” Retton said, laughing. “These days, when I speak to the little kids who don’t know who I am, I tell them that I was the first Gabby Douglas. Then they say, ‘Oh. OK.’ ”
Retton indeed was the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around gold medal, the face that launched a million cereal boxes and sparked the ambition of Olympic gold for generations of gymnasts to follow.
But even though the U.S. is on a roll when it comes to Olympic all-around champions — Carly Patterson in 2004, Nastia Liukin in 2008, Douglas in 2012 and, perhaps, Simone Biles in 2016 — Retton remains one of a kind.
“There is something special about being the first,” she said. “I came from a different time. People still come up to me and tell me they remember where they were in the summer of 1984, when watching the Olympics on television was a family thing.”
Retton was among the earliest generation of standout gymnasts coached by Bela and Martha Karolyi. She came to Houston in the early 1980s from her hometown of Fairmont, W.Va., and, except for her years at the University of Texas, where she met her husband, former Longhorns quarterback Shannon Kelley, and a brief return to West Virginia, she has been here since.
She was one of a kind in her time, and now, her style of gymnastics is the standard as embodied by Biles.
“No one had seen a gymnast like me,” she said. “Fastforward to today, and that is all you see because the sport has evolved toward that powerful, athletic build.”
Retton in the 1980s hosted a show called “Mary Lou’s Flip Flop Shop,” But her flipping days are over. She has had both hips replaced (she notes that hip dysplasia issues run in her family) and underwent back surgery before traveling to San Diego for the Olympics reunion.
Three of her four daughters were involved in gymnastics, including one at LSU and one at Baylor, and her youngest daughter, Emma, 13, has designs on becoming an elite gymnast with hopes of making an Olympic team.
“Emmais like her mama — low to the floor,” Retton, 48, said. “She’s very talented, but gymnastics is a tough gig. I had mixed feelings when Emma said she wanted to try it, because I know that life. You sacrifice your teenage years, and there’s a possibility that it might not happen.
“But I hold my tongue and let her do what she wants to do. I won’t squash her goals. I taught all my daughters to live life with no regrets. You don’t want to wake up at my age and say, gosh, I wish I would have tried.”
Besides, unlike the crowd in San Jose, Emma Kelley doesn’t think Mary Lou is that big a deal.
“She is so not impressed with me,” Retton said. “I’m just mom.”