Stanford gymnast who excelled at trials now turns toward Tokyo and hopes for gold.
Raised in Georgia and tested at Stanford, it’s been long road to Tokyo for Brody Malone
Brody Malone was vaulting over bars from infancy. The new star of the U.S. men’s gymnastics team escaped from his crib when he was 2, catapulting over the side and breaking his arm.
It wasn’t long after that Malone’s mother, Tracy, enrolled the toddler in a tumbling class, hoping to channel that daredevil energy.
His father, J.D., said, “He was a very active child.”
Who has grown into a very active adult. Now 21, Malone, who led Stanford to national championships in 2019 and 2021, vaulted into the Olympic spotlight last month, winning the allaround title at both the U.S. championships and Olympic trials. He will be the anchor of the men’s team at these delayed Olympics.
“I think the extra year definitely gave me an advantage,” Malone said. “I was pushing a lot of difficulty and it wasn’t going super well. But the extra year gave me confidence in the upgrades I was doing and may have played to my advantage.”
Brody grew up pushing difficulty and taking risks in northwestern Georgia, not far from the border of Tennessee, where his parents met, and where he was born. His family were rodeo riders and ropers. J.D. was a high school agricultural science teacher, and the couple ran a roping magazine. Brody grew up on a farm with 13 horses because Tracy was, as J.D. says with a chuckle, a “horse hoarder” who couldn’t bear to part with a gentled horse even if her children’s
skills had moved on to one more advanced.
Brody could rope and ride stock. But he fell in love with gymnastics and, when he was 8 and watching the Beijing Olympics in 2008, began dreaming of being an Olympian.
Those dreams were accompanied by heartbreak. Tracy had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer earlier that summer. By the time the next Olympic cycle was complete, Tracy Malone was extremely ill. She died in December 2012, leaving behind four young children, Brody and three younger siblings.
“It definitely made me mentally strong,” Brody said. “I look up to my dad so much and he is so strong. It made me realize how strong I needed to be for my siblings. I felt I needed to be a role model.”
As Malone elevated through junior gymnastics, the sport provided a refuge.
“We were all just heartbroken,” said J.D. “But life is going to keep happening whether you choose to participate or not. I wanted my kids to be well rounded, and they stayed extremely busy.
“For Brody, gymnastics was an outlet. A way to channel his energy and take a lot off his mind.”
He continued to do roping on the weekends, competing with his brother Cooper, who is on the rodeo team at West Alabama.
“There’s a lot more moving parts in rodeo,” Malone said. “You have to control the horse and react to the steer. In gymnastics it’s all up to you. But like in any sport, you still have to have that competitor mindset and get into the zone.”
Malone was recruited by Stanford and visited when he was in high school. He noticed it was quite different from where he grew up, pointing out to his father that all the election signs they saw then in 2016 were for Hillary Clinton.
“Once I got on campus, I felt I belonged there,” he said. “But it’s definitely different. My freshman year I was talking to one of my professors and saying, ‘Yes, sir, no, sir,’ and he said, ‘This is California. You don’t have to call me sir.’ ”
The hardest part was the distance, away from his father, grandparents and siblings: the tight support group that had gotten each other through Tracy’s death. It was particularly hard when tragedy struck the family again: J.D.’s second wife died unexpectedly from a brain hemorrhage a year into their marriage. Brody was competing for Stanford when he learned and immediately went home.
“He didn’t want to leave me,” J.D. said. “Brody and I are pretty close, and he saw me hurting and didn’t want to go back. But he did.”
When the pandemic shut everything down in spring 2020, Malone went home.
“Truly and honestly, that was the best time of life,” J.D. said. “To have all four kids
“When you see the elevation they have, I’m just on pins and needles.”
J.D. Malone, father of U.S. and Stanford g ymnast Brody Malone
under one roof, not having to shuttle anyone here or there.”
Malone and his brother rose early to go turkey hunting. But eventually he had to get back to training, first in a gym near his girlfriend’s house in Georgia and then with Stanford teammates in Cypress, Texas, before returning to campus in January.
When Stanford won its second national title in April, the team celebrated while wearing “36 Sports Strong” Tshirts. The gesture showed their support of the 11 sports that Stanford had decided to eliminate — a decision that was reversed in May. Malone and other gymnasts know how fragile their foothold in the NCAA remains; one of his Olympic teammates, Shane Wiskus, made the Olympic team just a few months after his school, Minnesota, decided to cut its team.
“We’re a smaller, not as popular sport,” Malone said. “It’s definitely important for all the sports to come together.”
Malone still has two years of eligibility left in a vastly changed collegiate sports world. Just as he was becoming known beyond collegiate gymnastics circles, the name, image and likeness ruling came down. Malone quickly signed a contract with a product called Endless Rope, which he uses in training.
Becoming a recognizable name in a minor sport, just as NIL rules have loosened,
is fortuitous.
“It’s perfect timing with this being an Olympic year,” Malone said. “In other years, we’re not a very popular sport. I’m definitely excited to be able to capitalize on my work. I realize how much publicity our team can get.”
Part of whatever money Malone raises will go toward the Tracy Malone Foundation, an organization his father started with a family friend in the wake of Tracy’s death. The foundation tries to help families going through prolonged cancer treatments, with money for meals or hotels or gift cards, in an attempt to make life easier.
Brody’s trip to the Olympics will be without that support system that has held him all these years. Back in 2020, before knowing whether Brody would make the team, J.D. planned to take everyone to Japan: the three siblings, Brody’s three grandparents.
Though he watched his son grow up trying to ride and rope large animals, seeing him on the high bar puts J.D. on edge.
“When you see the elevation they have, I’m just on pins and needles,” J.D. said.
So, this month, J.D. may find a quiet place at home to watch his oldest son vaulting through space in Tokyo. He will be holding the cross that contains some of Tracy’s ashes, the memory of the mother who channeled her little boy’s energy into gymnastics burning strong.
“She would be on cloud nine,” J.D. Malone said. “I like to believe Tracy knows what’s going on.”