The next-best thing to being there.
For Theresa Kulikowski, it was a terrific accomplishment. And a huge disappointment.Kulikowski -- now a prized freshman nicknamed "Kulio" by her new teammates on the fourth-ranked University of Utah gymnastics team that opens the 1999 season Friday at 7 in the Huntsman Center against 10th-ranked Stanford -- placed sixth in the 1996 U.S. Olympic Trials.
Normally, sixth would have solidly made her a member of the seven-woman U.S. Olympic team, the one that won America's first-ever women's team gold medal in Atlanta and eventually made millionaires of several teenage girls.
But Kulikowski knew going into the Trials, in Boston in June '96, that injured Shannon Miller and Dominique Moceanu would successfully be petitioned onto the Olympic team, meaning she'd have to be fifth at the Trials to actually make the cut.
Sixth made her first alternate. The next-best athlete to being there. She would sit home by the phone but never get the call to fill in at Atlanta. She understood that the U.S. team needed Miller and Moceanu, but she could claim some right to be there, too.
It's "a bittersweet memory," for Kulio, a Colorado Springs product who turns 19 on Jan. 23. She fell on compulsory beam but was still seventh going into Trials optionals, then moved up a place after the second rotation and finished 0.671 away from Atlanta.
"I was so excited to get that close," she said. After the fall, she got "really aggressive. I was not going to let anybody stop me. I knew I hit my zone because I didn't remember anything." She fell just short.
While watching the Olympics on TV, "all the emotions came out. I cried a lot," she said.
It was one of the few times Kulikowski was ever on the outside looking in. Even when she was 2 years old and too young to officially begin gymnastics, she crashed her older sister's YMCA gym classes in Germany, where her father Tom was in the Army. Theresa jumped into Jaimie's class so often the instructors finally let her join. Mom Franny helped teach the classes.
"I would do gymnastics everywhere. I would sleep in my leotards with my grips and shoes," she said of her youth. The family had a low balance beam in the basement and staged play competitions for Theresa and her preschool friends. She looked up to Jaimie until recently, when her older sister began parachute-jumping and preparing for a career as a pilot. Beam and bars are high enough for Theresa. Younger sister Gillian plans to be a professional dancer.
Theresa wanted only gymnastics. She home-schooled for a couple years to save time at the height of her elite participation. "My whole life has centered around gymnastics," she said. "Being motivated for gymnastics helped me excell in school," she says. She had a 4.025 high-school GPA.
Even after missing the Olympics, she was still aiming high. "Right after Trials, I was, like, yeah, I'm going to go for 2000 (Sydney Olympics). I was so motivated," she said. She dealt with the disappointment fairly well because she was already training for a November meet in Malaysia. "I had something to compete for," she recalled. The U.S. team won the meet.
After that, the excitement wore thin. "I never wanted to go in the gym, and I didn't really know my goals," she said. In Summer 1997, she tore an anterior cruciate knee ligament doing a practice "timer" training for the national championships. Surgery followed. Rehabbing wasn't so bad since the Olympic Training Center, with top help and equipment, was nearby. But she has competed just once since the surgery -- one beam routine in a farewell performance for her Colorado Springs Aerials club in March '98.
Friday, Kulio, the first freshman ever featured on the Ute media guide cover, makes her NCAA debut in three events, maybe four. Her vault is on the edge of making the Ute lineup, said coach Greg Marsden, whose freshman has the potential for a career similar to those of Ute greats Missy Marlowe and Kristen Kenoyer.
If Kulikowski isn't the top recruit in the country this year, she is the equal, he said.
"She's going to be huge for us," Marsden said, noting intelligence, experience and skill. "She won't be intimidated by big meets." Which is good, because Utah hosts the 1999 NCAA Championships in mid-April.
One of Marsden's most-accomplished signees ever, Kulikowski was one of his easiest recruiting tasks. He sweated when she took a recruiting visit to UCLA, but she had always declared herself Utah-bound.
Kulikowski said she didn't often think about college because she harbored international goals, but she says when she did entertain thoughts of college, they were always of Utah. It's near home and family, has mountains, and it's always been a top program.
Kulikowski said Utah has revitalized her career. She's happy doing gymnastics again in a team atmosphere and with the deep mental preparation that is Utah's hallmark. She's learning to be more aggressive and mature.
She's so happy now she actually sees some benefit to having missed the Olympics. "When I look back, part of me thinks it was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't be in school, and now I can say I love gymnastics again," said Kulio.