The year of Suni Lee at Auburn
AUBURN, Ala. — After the regional final came a familiar scene for the older sister. She could tell it had become a routine by then, this dance Suni Lee does with herself. Go pose for all the photos? Or slip out of the arena, unscathed by lost time and mental exhaustion, but leaving all those loving fans feeling unrequited?
“Her security guard,” Shyenne says – that preface alone is enough to reveal the extent of Suni's unusual college existence – “would be like, ‘Oh no, Suni. Don’t do it. You’re going to get held for an hour.’” But Shyenne saw this happen at Auburn gymnastics’ recent meet in Huntsville, too. She knew the result.
Suni appeased the crowd.
“I think she feels some type of guilt saying no,” Shyenne says. “I think she feels for them. She just wants people to feel good.”
Lee’s freshman year has been characterized by that tension between her sense for the influence she has as a role model – a sense that’s well beyond her 19 years – and the yearning to just be a 19-year-old. That was always going to be difficult after her Olympic title last July, meaning instant celebrity status as the first all-around gold medalist to compete in NCAA.
Her season ends this week at the NCAA Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. Lee's support system has found various ways to help her find joy through the anxiety of competing with unprecedented expectations.
Rites of passage
The visits to Los Angeles last fall were supposed to be about gymnastics training. Instead, Jess Graba quickly found he was most useful as an adulting coach.
Lee’s schedule on ABC’s "Dancing with the Stars" was so busy, she barely had time to practice her sport. It took 45 minutes to drive to and from her two-hour rehearsal sessions. It was the least she has ever trained in a 20week stretch.
“Gymnastics is kind of her sanctuary,” a space to “just play around,” said Graba. “She didn’t get a chance to do that. So she did struggle with her mental health a little bit because of all the expectations but no release.”
He’s Lee’s Olympic coach and the brother of Auburn coach Jeff Graba. Lee began training with Jess when she was 6, so his new title as a makeshift dad worked smoothly. Suni’s father, John Lee, was paralyzed from the chest down after falling from a ladder in 2019, so traveling is a challenge.
The first time Jess landed in Los Angeles to visit, Lee was busy with rehearsal. He agreed to bring her coffee the next morning. When he arrived, he found Lee trying to hang up a load of damp laundry. The dryer wasn’t working, she told him. Jess checked the machine and found piles of lint that had accumulated over several weeks. “She was running that dryer for probably hours,” he said, “and it wasn't getting anything dry.” Lee needed a lesson in lint traps.
Los Angeles was a daunting setting to experience independence for the first time. Jess had fun with it. Their coffee and lunch outings included pep talks about time management. He prepared her for her first red-eye flight. He taught her how to properly store food in the refrigerator. (“Don’t leave the spoon in there!”)
Lee’s rites of passage back in Auburn often involve driving. When she parks at her building, she often uses street spaces rather than the parking lot. That’s taboo on weekdays. “You may want to observe your signs,” Alison Lim, one of Lee’s coaches back home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Jess Graba's wife, has said after multiple towed car ordeals.
She’s glad Lee is having those learning moments. They’re a reminder that it’s OK to mess up – in life and gymnastics. The sudden pressure of international fame can be consuming. “It’s uncharted territory right now,” Jess said. “Everybody expects her to be perfect all the time, and then if she makes a mistake they assume something must be wrong. Instead of: This is gymnastics. These things happen.”