Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 328 | My First Day as a Pro Gymnast

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

We’re taking another trip down memory lane! This week, Shawn is looking back on what it was like turning pro at just 12 years old and sharing the stories, nerves, excitement, and little moments she still remembers from those early days in gymnastics. What story do you want to hear next?! Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew ➜ Shop SKIMS Cotton, and all of my favorite pieces, at [www.https://SKIMS.com] After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you! Select "podcast" in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. ➜ Treat yourself to a childhood favorite. Go to [www.https://kachava.com] and use code EASTFAM for 15% off your first order. ➜ Find egglife wraps chillin’ in the fridge at Aldi, Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, Walmart & more. Visit [www.https://egglifefoods.com] to find a retailer near you. ➜ Get prepped for patio season for way less. Head to [www.https://wayfair.com] right now to shop all things home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to be a professional gymnast? Maybe that's a helpful place to start. I had to make a decision at 12 of what does this look like. This is fascinating to me that I am going back here. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. The nostalgia series.

This is interesting. That's right. Don't call it a series because we're not going to be that formal with it. We're just going to do little salt and pepper episodes here and there with it. Okay. Okay. But the last episode we did was about my first day as a professional football player. I want to hear about something that I've never heard about from you.

Which is your first day as a professional gymnast. Interesting. I am excited. So I feel like very different than you. We had very different careers in many different aspects. Yeah, you were successful. Stop. That is not what I meant.

It's not what I meant at all. You were like actually an adult when you were in the pros, and it was to a certain extent not that long ago that you were in the pros. I think technically my first day in the pros, I was 12. That's crazy. What does it mean to be a professional gymnast? Maybe that's a helpful place to start. I think in my brain I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

I think back in my day, which is crazy to think about, before the NIL, pro was defined as accepting money to compete. Why? Because in your journey in competing and trying to get a spot to the Olympics, you would have to decide at some point within that journey, either A, I'm going to go to the Olympics and not accept any endorsements or any money so that after the Olympics I can go and compete in college and get a, scholarship or be accept money have endorsements go to the olympics but then you can't compete in

college and for me because i reached that elite level or olympic level at the age of 12 and i started quickly like climbing the ranks and getting scouted not just by colleges already but also by like the national team and the Corollies and like the selection committee for all of these, you know, competitions, I had to make a decision at 12 of what does this look like. Like are we going to go, what direction are we going to go? This is crazy.

What is it? I know. We have not really talked about this in depth. And I'm curious what you mean, what is the process of getting scouting? it look like how did you make that decision we're speaking here in 2026 in this world of nil yeah where you can take money and be in college yeah you can you can crazy but the route you took seems to be more risky because yes the let's just say there's three outcomes if you're a top 100 gymnast in your class

or your age group you can either go to the olympics which how many people made the olympics your year um i had eight eight people made the olympic team six and two alternates You can turn pro and take money but not go to the Olympics. Yes, which is risky because majority, again, back in my day, again, I am retired. Things are different. People have more brands leading into the Olympics than they did. Social media. But back in 2008, you built your brand at the Olympics.

And a lot of times all of those endorsements that you had signed, think of like the McDonald's that you would see people's faces on the bags. or Coca-Cola or Nike, a lot of times those contracts were contingent upon your performance at the Olympics. Does that make sense? So you aren't like making money when you sign pro when you sign these contracts. You weren't technically making money or not money of any substance before the Olympics. You're signing a deal to say like, I know you're going to back me. I get to wear the swoosh. I get to be in some campaigns,

but I actually won't get paid unless I perform. But it still puts you in the pro category. So you're pretty much not making money unless you go to the Olympics, but you pretty much make that choice before you know if you're going to make to the Olympics or not. So that's the risky choice. Yeah.

The safer choice would be not going pro. Absolutely. If you're 12 years old. Way safer. Because you could still go to the Olympics and just not take money. And the likelihood of you getting injured in that sport at that age is like so,

high that it's like luck but fast forward if you go to the Olympics and don't turn pro then you're pretty much past the Olympics you're getting you're using your college degree maybe you're working as a doctor is what you wanted to do or like you have a career that's gymnasts aside yes or you could not go pro and go to college yes which is let's just call it 200 grand well you could also not go pro compete in the Olympics and go to college. Yes. Yeah. Sorry,

I'm getting lost a little bit. Well, it's just interesting because you took the... Most risky. Chips all in, I'm going on. All that. So here's what happened. Around the age of 12, in gymnastics, I think this is still the case,

but let's just refer to it as back in 2008. The way the ladder climbing system worked for the Olympic level was you would start in some beginner talk level and you would go to intermediate and you go to advanced. And at some point, you would find yourself with a skill set to where you could start competing. You could start competing, let's say, around a level four. Once you compete well enough and hit certain skills at certain sanctioned competitions, like your states or your regionals, you can qualify to level five. Do the same thing in level five, qualify to level six, level seven, level eight, level nine, level ten. And then after

level 10, you can go into this level called elite. Elite is what you have to be in order to compete at an Olympic level. We could get into the nuances of elite technically has four levels to it. Think of like a lower level and a higher level. And you have to be the highest level elite to qualify to a national team, to go on an international competition to make the Olympics. Look at these two. What are they doing?

We have paparazzi. Oh my gosh. Ridiculous. For those who are more familiar with traditional sports like myself, elite is not some descriptor of like they're an elite quarterback. It is a class. It is a class. And in gymnastics at the age of 12, I made that elite level.

And it's all by qualifications, skills. You have to do certain amounts of skills and certain competitions. So I climbed the ladder. and I'd made it to that elite level, and I'd made it to that highest elite class, because there's four. Are you following? What are they?

The senior? Is that what is junior and senior elite? I don't remember. Sorry. Go ahead. I think it was senior elite. I don't remember. International, no, it was international elite.

Gotcha. I don't know. I don't remember that. So don't quote me on that. But at these certain, very specific competitions, where you're qualifying to this elite level, A lot of times, you would see a lot of university scouts. You would see the selection committees.

You would start seeing representatives from these high-level institutions. And so the quote-unquote scouting in legal, non-legal ways, you know, wink-wink ways of like, hey, really like what you're doing. I had gone to enough of those elite competitions and scouting to start having conversations with a lot of head coaches to the head coach of UCLA and of Stanford and of Georgia and of Florida and like of we would love to have you basically back in the day. And then I started having conversations with scouts of the national team

and of the selection committee to the Olympic team. And they were like, we really want to come, we really want to invite you to come to camp and come work out with us and see if you can qualify to a U.S. championship or whatever it is. So there's a tryout camp kind of. Like what was your first? Yeah.

So all of this is happening and I'm at one of these elite competitions and I qualify to this senior or international, whatever it's called, the highest class of elite. I get an invitation to my very first camp, which is still not, I was still not pro. I was not, you know, elite or. Could have been an amateur Olympic camp, right? Amateur national camp. Well, I was, how do I explain this? This is fascinating to me that I am going back here.

Okay, so I got an invitation to go to the Karoli camp, which is like where you go and you perform, you're kind of competing, but you're also working out. This is the one in Houston. This is the one in Houston, where all eyes of the selection committee are now on you. They get to see you, but you are technically, I would say the equivalent is like a free agent.

You're unsigned. you're not a USA athlete. I was not pro at the time. I didn't have an agent. I wasn't committed to a university. I was a floater. Wow. I was invited to come to camp.

And so at camp, I was around Nostia Luka and Alicia Sacrimony, my idols, Chelsea Memel. Who were signed. They were signed. Gotcha. So they were all wearing USA leotards. They were on the team.

And you show up wearing your Mickey Mouse. Yeah. I show up wearing that I had hands. selected to find my coolest leotards to be most impressive and I'm 12 um and I remember going to this first camp and it was always a four-day camp maybe four nights four three nights four days can't remember either that and we were in some a version of like dorms and in those four days you do a competition. So you'll, you'll train for two days and then one day you do like a mock competition, kind of like where you would go out and run a game just for practice.

Scrimmage. But the selection committee would be standing at each event and they would have judges there and you would salute and they would score you and see how you perform under pressure. Like an exhibition maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. I don't know. I remember what we even called it. they would post the scores. Sometimes they would hand out medals as far as like, yeah. At the camp. It would depend. It would depend.

Because some of our exhibitions were formal and some were just training routines. Sometimes you could go to these camps and not be competition ready. So when you're doing your exhibition, you might be showing a skill or you might be showing half of a routine or a combination, not the full picture. Does that make sense? Would you ever go to the camp and if there's an exhibition going on not do it or do they not let that? No, they don't let that. So there's always some pressure moment where you're performing something, always.

And this is not the same as like the nationals you would watch in June on TV. No. These were always private, private closed doors, no filming at the Houston camp. Interesting. This episode is sponsored by Skims. There are clothes you wear at home because no one is coming over. And then there are clothes that you are comfortable enough for the couch, but still make you feel put together if the doorbell rings.

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And because the protein is already built into the wrap, it is one less part of the meal we have to overthink on a busy night. Find Egg Life wraps chilling in the fridge at Oldie Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, Walmart, and more. Visit www.aglifefoods.com to find a retailer near you. So I go to my first camp, I go through the motions, and at that specific camp that I was invited to, the exhibition was formal as far as I was performing full presentation routines. This is your first camp. First camp. There's this, like, timing-wise, it just lined up? We knew this.

Okay, gotcha, got you. We knew that we were informed of, like, come ready with your tryout. It was my tryout. It was like a formal tryout. So I'm doing my exhibition and my formal tryout, and at the end of it, my scores allowed me to, quote-unquote, qualify or get an invitation to the U.S. challenge. the U.S. challenge was the very first ladder tier to formally qualify to U.S. championships. Is the U.S. challenge a public event?

It used to be, I don't think it is anymore. Interesting. So they used to have more public events for gymnastics. I don't think you have as many anymore. And I think it was some small exhibition style competition at like a gym. It wasn't like a big event. So I go to the U.S. challenge.

I do well. I qualify to the U.S. Classic. That's tier two. I go to the U.S. Classic. Those are on TV. Yes. The U.S.

Classic is the first time you're going to see any names that you recognize, come back into the picture. Though it is not necessary for any current competing pro to go. Okay.

For them, it's kind of just like a... What does it mean to be current competing? So like... Sorry. This is so specific. Yeah. So like if I was on the national team right now, every single year I have to re-qualify to the national team. But it's like a re-selected.

12-month contract kind of? 12 months. Gotcha. So from the day that I place high enough or get selected to the team at U.S. championships, one year from that day, I'll come back to U.S. championships to like get my name back on that roster. Is that locked in for a year? So like say a young Sean comes along and I'm on the older side and, and, oh, my, gosh, Sean's this newcomer who's insane and talented and I, she gets signed.

You could be wild carded in. There's no fixed number on the roster. Oh, so it could be 20 people. It could be 10. Because in football, it's 53 people make the roster. For us, it was 24. It was 12 juniors and 12 seniors. Okay.

But they could wild card in people. As many. Technically as many, but I don't think we ever had more than like five. Gotcha. Okay. A lot of times those wild car. are event specialists who aren't going to technically qualify by a score. They're going to be hand-selected.

But it was usually 12 and 12. We really didn't go over that. So one year from when I qualify to a team to the USA national team or pro, I have to re-qualify at championships. If I want, for the heck of it, I could go to U.S. classics and kind of like get the rest off before I have to go, but I'm not required to. That would be what a vet would do. A vet.

Like if I know the pressure and I know the whole vibe, then I'm... Because I'm on the team, I don't have to do anything to qualify to championships. Interesting. But for my first year, since I didn't, I wasn't, you know, I didn't have that luxury. You have to qualify to each latter step. So I went to U.S. classics. I did really well. I qualified to my first ever U.S. championships.

I am still a free agent to use terminology that other people might know. I am not pro. I'm not signed to university. I'm not signed to the national team. I make it to U.S. championships. The rules of U.S. championships are the highest first through 10th place in the all-around qualifies immediately.

That makes sense. So if you place first or 10th in the all-around in juniors or seniors, you're automatically on the national team. You're pro. And junior and senior is just an age thing? Junior and senior is just age. 16 and under or 16 and over.

So I could be a pro junior or a pro senior. Yeah. Or I'm using the word pro because you're on the national team. You're wearing the USA. You're wearing the team logo. Right. And then that allowed four wild cards if you do that math back in 2008. Okay.

So at my first championships, 20 qualified and four were hand selected. Okay. Make sense? I think. That was their numbers. They could still wild card in more later. But for that particular championships, they were taking the top 10 of each group.

So I go to my U.S. championships. I'm wearing my leotar that I've designed. I'm not wearing a USA leotar because I don't have any. You know, I'm not. Other girls might. But technically at that competition, the roster is wiped. So nobody's technically on the national team.

So you could wear USA leotar, but you don't have to. So a lot of times people wore their own. I compete. I was so nervous. It's also my first two-day competition, which is what pros or vets or national team members do, where you go in on day one,

you do an entire competition, every event, full out. You come back the next day. Do it all again. That's crazy. So they want to make sure it's not a fluke, basically. And you can average out flukes. So I go in, I'm very nervous. I make a lot of mistakes, uncharacteristic mistakes.

And I came in 10th. Oh. My first year. Really? Literally, I came in 10th. Wow. And I remember feeling like I was going to vomit. I was like, way to skirt myself in right there.

Vomit because, oh my gosh, that was close. I almost didn't make it? Very close. Yeah. Or vomit because I'm not pleased with my performance or vomit. Everything. It just like. Yeah.

It was the first time, it was the first time I ever competed in an arena. It was the first time I ever competed on podium. So that's where when you watch gymnastics on TV, when the floor is like raised up four feet, which feels very different. That means on podium? Yeah. It's just like what the big dogs do, you know. It's the first time I had the big flag.

I love hearing you talk about this. So in every, in every USA competition in an arena, there's a check. enormous American flag hung behind the beam. I know it. And I also remember very specifically at that competition for the first time ever having a depth perception issue because of how high the ceilings were. Oh, wow. So, like, finding myself in the air felt different.

It was just, it was crazy. Wow. I remember doing the walkout, so you actually do, like, a full lights. fireworks like walk out onto the podium and they're announcing your name and I was wearing my uniform and oh my gosh it was so cool I remember dreaming my whole like upbringing the very first Olympics I ever watched was that I remember was um Sydney 2000 and I were watching the gymnasts and I don't know what it was about their leotards but there was something about the USA emblemed leotard where I was like I want that outside of the gymnastics outside of everything I was like

I want to wear that I want to wear the emblem on my shoulder I want the number on my back I want that and going to the championships since being with them all I was like holy crap this is crazy so I came in 10th um they announced you know We went to the award ceremony first where they're announcing, like, who came in what? I line up on the 10th podium on top of the floor for the arena to see. I walk down, and this is like the moment, and it happened so fast. But it's the moment I immediately went from Free Agent to I'm on. And I will never forget it.

Everything's chaotic because TV shows going on. people are watching, they're trying to get it, but they list off, they're like, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-so, and they list off the wild cards. They say, come here, take your uniform off, like our track suit, you know, because we were all wearing individual track suits. I was wearing a Chow's track suit, and they hand over the USA track suit. And they're like, put these on, and I was like, holy crap, this is crazy. And so we all put on, they had, the formal emblemed

USA gymnastics USA track suits and they say march up and they are announcing over the intercom they're like we're pleased to introduce the

USA team of 2005 wow and I just remember being like more excited than I ever been in my lifetime

I was like, what is happening? And so my first day pro was technically not even a competition. It was just my first day pro would have been the morning after. If you made the national team, you had to extend your stay one day. Parents included, because remember, we're all minors. And it was just an entire day of meetings. We went through the Code of Conduct, our contracts that we had to sign. I had to register into WADA, which is World Anti-Doping Agency.

I had to register into USADA. I had to get drug tested by all entities. We got, we had to get signed up for our financial. You technically get like a per diem. And then. What, like a monthly per diem? Yeah. For being on the team.

Yeah, I think it was like $1,000. And you could take that and not be a pro. Yes. So a lot of these U.S. Olympic teams, if you make them, we have a friend on the soccer team. It's like you sign a contract to be on the national team and they give you a monthly stipend, kind of. But it did not affect my eligibility. Because back in the day, it used to be, again, this is old school rules. If you took, you could take a small amount of money, maybe like $10,000 or there was some threshold and not be considered pro.

Tennis has the same setup, maybe golf too. And you can accept prize money from specific competitions. But if you breach those rules or take more than the threshold number of dollars, you're automatically pro, your eligibility for NCAA, which has this whole clearing house and their whole, their whole operation vets every athlete that goes through there, you're ineligible to be in the NCAA. So you could still do,

I mean, there's still like, I guess technically non-NCAA schools that you could have gone to, maybe, but it's not like the household names. Nobody that I wanted to go to. Yeah. And what's crazy is I will never forget that per diem, that stipend that we got. I think it was $1,200. I think it was $1,250 a month. It was the first time I was able to go get PT.

Wow. And help cover the expenses for my parents with, my tuition for gymnastics. It helped cover my flights to go to Houston and everything. It was amazing. But then I just remembered this. So we're in this full day of meetings. And this is not even on my radar.

Okay. At the very end of the last meeting, the Corollies and the selection committee come up. And they say, okay, last thing, we're here to hand out assignments. Didn't know what that meant. because this is very new to me. It's my first day pro.

I'm in the uniform because they required us all to come with our track seats on. And I was like, what are assignments? And so they're up there and they're naming countries. They're like, assignment one is Italy. Our team is

and they would announce names. Wow. And so assignments were international competitions where they were choosing teams based off of ages and your status of vets, your vet status, you know, there were harder competitions than others. They were beginner international competitions, whatever.

So they're handing out all these ones and the very last one they had. They said Belgium. Oh. And they named me to Belgium. And they were like, I think the date even was like two weeks away. Wow.

So also thinking back to my poor parents, their child has just made the international USA team and is now being sent off on her first assignment without them because that was not allowed to Belgium. Wow. For I think eight days. And so because of that, in that same day,

oh my gosh, it's like flooding back in. this is really cool. That same day, as soon as I got named the assignment, each team would be called to another room. And I got my leotards. The dream come true. Yeah. So in each assignment or each country or each team,

they had different specific USA leotards that they had like put together for those teams. And I got my. bag and it had five custom-made leotards and I got my fittings and every single leotard was now going to be custom-made for me for the national team by size. I was getting free grips for the first time. There were so many tiny little perks back in the day. But I felt like a big dog. It's so fun. It just strikes me hearing you talk about this. It's so fun that often, often Oftentimes when we speak about our sports, it's from the pro perspective. Yeah.

And like from the how the road ended perspective, not from the young kids dream come true. So it is so fun to see you giggly about that. And I don't know if I've like, we've definitely not walked through this sequence. So thank you for sharing that. Also just little nuances like the contingent contracts make that 2012. decision to retire so much higher stakes, you know. But so that would have been, go ahead. You made that team in 2005 in what month?

Usually summer, June, July, August. And so that goes from June, yep, June, 2005 to June 2006. So you were like, okay, 12 or 13. Yep. And then if that's in June, when did you sign an agent? So let's use that term of the pro. The pros for you was a big league. And now it's actually used the professional getting paid.

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Wayfair, every style, every home. Remember the commercial you were in for them? I do. You and Kelly Clarkson. Yeah. Good work, babe. So that was my first. day in the big leagues on the USA team, which I would consider professional level, probably.

Pro status as far as like signing an agent. So I think I was, since that was in June of 2005, I think I had just turned 13, or I was 13, six months into 13. And so I think one year later, I had done a few international competitions or assignments. I had done really well and I was climbing very fast. Climbing meaning just becoming more of an all-star score. Yeah, becoming more of a competitor in bigger and bigger competitions. Like I got sent to my first assignment in Belgium and I did really well. So then the selection committee when they start hands,

handing out assignments. They're like, okay, now let's test her in a little more challenging country that has better gymnasts or a competition that's a little bit bigger and it feels more pressure-filled. You know, they would just start dropping you in different atmospheres to see how you held up. Are all those international assignments kind of experiments to work towards the Olympics? They're all experiments. They're all dropping people to be seen by their judges. other countries to see how those judges will score them.

It's all an experiment to see who starts performing the most impressively internationally. For the Olympics. It is the Olympics. Yeah. I mean, that's always the goal. Penultimate. Okay. Yes.

And I do think there's some sort of system the selection committee actually has where we are not privy to this or I was not back in the day. where each competition might have like a point system that they assign you, you know, so that by the time it comes around that they're actually selecting a team, they're looking at point values, who's are, you know, but I was not privy to any of that. So in that year time span, I would say it was probably like a year and a half, trying to think, maybe two years actually.

I might have held out two years. Well. Because I think it was middle of 2006. So I competed in 2005, U.S. Championships. I competed in 2006, and I won. So I went from 10th. In one year, I won the competition. My girl.

Casual flex. And then I remember in 2006 was the first time I got sent on some big assignments. So like the Pan American Games, more world-sized competitions and I started winning them and doing very, very well. Getting a lot of, yeah, just doing really well. And kind of surprising people.

And so I think it was between 2006 and 2007 was when we, we, we, we as a family start started getting scouted by agents. So these are agents of sport who are looking now at up-and-coming athletes and saying who's the most marketable, who has the potential to get the most endorsements, heading into the Olympics. And I remember my first day pro technically, there was one specific agent who was reaching out, and we are kind of fielding a bunch.

and she was like, I want to meet with you. I'll fly to Iowa. Let's have a meeting. And it was just the perfect fit. She felt like family from the beginning. My parents loved her. I loved her. Her name's Cheryl Shade.

And I remember she had really direct conversations with me as far as like, what do you want to do? Like, do you want to maintain your status and go to college after the Olympic? or is signing pro something you want to do. And I just remember I was sitting in, we were sitting in some restaurant together in a booth in Des Moines, Iowa with her.

And I remember saying something along the lines of, in that moment, I already felt tired. Having gone from level 10 elite free agent, having fun to the very serious USA national team that kind of took a lot of the fun out of it and it was a job and it came with so many expectations and so much like professionalism at such a young age I already felt a little tired and I told her I said you know I have no doubt that I want to go to the Olympics and I want to win I said but now That's already two, three years away.

I cannot see myself going four years after that. Meaning going to the Olympics, going to college, and competing for four years. I said, I'm ready to sign. It had nothing to do with money at all. I was just already tired. So that's more color. So my first A pro was in that restaurant signing with her. Nothing changed.

Which would have been 2006? Yeah, the middle of just that. And then was Adidas your first sponsor? No, Hyvie was. Oh, did they cut you really? Oh, immediately. Yeah. So you signed with Cheryl and she pretty much already had that ready. Yes, if I remember correctly. Shout out HiV. HyVee is a grocery store in the Midwest, but they truly became family. They're my first sponsor and my first backer and especially in Des Moines, Iowa being such a small city. And yeah, they were they were at our wedding.

They picked me up from Beijing and brought me home with my parents because of so many crazy circumstances, which we can tell that story later. If you know about Hy-Vee, then you know it's like a big deal. It's the best. They got brunch is super good. But for more color, just like that concept of being tired, I guess if I'm piecing things together, you go from, hey, you're going. going to Chowell's gym every day after school, you're a freshman or sophomore in high school now

to I made the national team now I have to go to Houston once a month for three or four nights now I'm doing multiple international travel trips which it's like the dream on the front end and then it becomes complicated on the back for last better word I absolutely loved it and it was my dream and I knew I was living out my dream but before I made the national team and added all of that complexity. I was just a girl doing one short season of competition a year, dreaming about what college I was going to go to. Back in the day, it was Georgia,

because I was like the best gymnastics team. Yeah. And then when we added on, and my coach preserved the joy of our sport so well that before I ever touched the national team, I had nothing but fun. There were hard days. but I had nothing but fun.

And then the USA National Team had such a different coaching strategy. My coach tried really hard to preserve his strategy, which was fun. But it just, it bled in a lot where it's like no fun perform. And adding in missing school

for a week, once a month, on top of assignments, I was probably doing six assignments a year, but with each assignment would come a selection camp, So it's another camp you're adding onto it on top of US classic US championship American cups like Which just like let's trickle down that that means the training is more aggressive more intense There's the expectations of the contracts that you've now signed dollar wise it might be contingent and it's not just like oh let me learn this new skill on the beam

It's I need to learn this yeah So I would say going in before I ever signed the pro signature of like I'm going to accept money. I'm going to do endorsements. I'm going to do this instead of go to college and compete. My bandwidth was another eight years, if you can do that math. So like the four, three, four years headed up to the Olympics and four years after. As soon as I signed on that dotted line, my eight year bandwidth became four and I said,

let's spend it. As far as like. Send it. Let's send it. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. I meant spend the bandwidth of energy that I was holding out for eight years.

Yeah. We basically condensed that end of four and said all out. So on top of that schedule we just talked about, now for the next two years after signing, heading into the Olympics, we had to add in commercials and endorsement deals and dinners and all the crazy stuff. Also, I could see people pushing back against, you know,

the Olympics being the penultimate. I made that statement, not you, but like world is also big, all these pan ams are big but you mentioned being pro having interest by agents and by derivative by brands nothing is marketed like the olympics is even if we're like world championship is a big deal but as far as dollar signs it's the olympics when you're rolling the dice back in my day of whether i was going to accept money or not because on that day when i was having to the conversation with my agent who wasn't my agent yet but was becoming my agent and i just had the

realization of like i'm tired i was saying that in the sense of like this is such a risky dice to to throw and risky decision because it all comes down to luck i cannot guarantee that i make the olympic team i can't guarantee that i stay healthy but since i already know i'm tired and i'm not going to go to college gymnastics. Like I know that right now because I was too tired for it. I might as well earn enough money in the next two years to pay for it. And that's where I went solely focused into, I'm not now going to go to a school for the best gymnastics program. I'm going to go to the best school for the medical program, which was the plan back in the day. And also this is with the backdrop of a lot of sacrifice being made by your parents where

the tuition for gymnastics monthly was a significant portion of the budget, multiple jobs being worked, middle of the night shifts. So there was like pressure to not reimburse, but to alleviate the stress on your parents as far as the financial commitment. I will say maybe I felt that in the back of my head. but my parents did the world's best job at bubble wrapping me from that. Though they did, like we all, we know it now.

Like we know we've had so many adult conversations now of like how financially stressful it was, but they never showed me that. I never once thought about money as far as being a hurdle to my dream or to gymnastics. My parents made it to every single international competition I ever went to. And that's for parents who had multiple jobs and multiple mortgages.

So the airplane tickets are not covered by the team, hotels, the, and that's, yeah, I remember our whole campaign around the 2024 Olympics. It's like, yeah, that's a big deal. But yeah, so all in all, going back into this reminiscing, I would consider the excitement of kind of like you said, the first day you walked into. the Redskins wearing the jersey playing your first game to me that was when I got that that uniform and made the national team signing pro was not a monumental moment for me it was more of a futuristic decision of what does my life look like now there was nothing

exciting to that that's good that was really fun. It's just gymnastics. You know, I've been getting the tennis and we went to the U.S. Open and there was a blast and then I know a couple other tournaments and you see the ESPN broadcast of the top 20 best players of the world and you just assume that, oh my gosh, these people are making millions of dollars and everyone who's a professional tennis player makes millions of dollars. tennis, golf, gymnastics, all these Olympic sports are brutal and so unforgiving in a different way than an NFL where I pretty much knew, hey, I'm either going to make a roster this year or not. I'm going to sign a contract or, you know, I'm getting tryouts. So that's a good positive signal.

and okay I signed with the team again that's a positive signal that I can make this there's a clear path to to this being a career with tennis golf gymnastics you're like oh there's so many things that go into it it's a passion more than it is a career yeah but also there's no clean delineation of hey okay yeah I'm a pro tennis player or I'm a pro gymnast I made the Olympic team but that doesn't mean you make money. You know what I'm saying? That means like the range within each of these from top to bottom is huge. You're also talking about a risk of like you said,

staying healthy, a risk of like the whole gymnastics is insane. A wiggle on the balance beam. Yeah. During the, you could have been stone cold the whole year, all three years leading up at the Olympics, wiggle on the balance beam, no contract, no money, no nothing.

It's like brutal, dude. Yeah. So I'll take football any day over that. I will say, I think you're, the league minimum is more than I made in four years of competing and even at the Olympics. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's also crazy to see.

how much has changed. Could you go back and do college gymnastics now? With the rules? Because with the old rules, you removed your amateur status. It was deleted. You can't go do it now. But if you wanted to, could you go back? I don't know.

With the new NIL rule, though. I think you can't. Why? Oh, because it got overturned. Yeah, and we got all these college football players going pro and then coming back. I mean, it's a wild west out here. Maybe.

It is the Wild West, so I have no clue. Oh, wow. I'd say, like, 48 hours ago, I couldn't. but 24 hours ago, I could. Yeah. So. Yeah. Interesting.

Maybe I should come back to college. I would be in so much pain. I'd be in so much pain. That was fun. It's so fun to hear you talk about your sport with such joy. It's also, I always say that you're the most capable, ambitious, amazing woman. that I know. And somehow you're able to speak about these accomplishments,

which are absurd, absurdly impressive. And do it with humility. And it brings tears to my eyes. Thank you. With how beautiful you do that. Thank you. It's fun to go down memory lane. Let us know what other stories you wanna hear.

Where do we go from here? Oh, we got a whole list. Okay. But if you want to hear us talk about something, nostalgia, just let us know in the comments. If you made it this far, give the show a rating on whatever platform, give it a thumbs up, and leave a comment if you can. That's all we got. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean.

Until next time.