OH NO!

If this were anyplace else and I were anyone else, I'd certainly take that advice because it just makes good sense.

But, since right now the decision to quit gymnastics has still to be made, I'm gonna just keep my fingers crossed and pray that she can tough it out for another 3 years.

That's a purely selfish reason on my part and has to do with nothing but money! although gymnastics is a very expensive sport at the level she's at, the rewards outside of the the sport are also extremely high.

Unlike baseball where no one talks to the kids until they are juniors in HS, because of the places the gymnasts have many of their meets and the incredibly closed community it is, college coaches get to know these kids and sometimes work with them when they're as young as 8YO.

I almost had a stroke last season when we got a few letters from college coaches telling us they had seen my daughter in this meet or that one and wanted to send congratulations. I know what they were really doing, and was frankly flattered, but this year is getting even scarier.

Sometimes the girls will help out down at the college for some of the big college meets and of course they get to mess around with the "big girls" a little. Well, if you've never been to a gym meet, when someone is doing almost anything, people are watching. So, when one of these little bits get up on a beam or starts flying all over the place on the bars, people watch much closer than they let on.

My daughter's best event is the floor. Someone happened to pop in her music during the transition from one group to the next at a meet that included USC, the AF Academy and several other Big D1 schools and of course she started miming her routine on the side. The coach of the AF Academy told her to go out on the floor and do her thing since it would do nothing but provide a little bit of entertainment during a slow time.

You can't understand the feeling when a couple of thousand people just stop in their tracks for the minute or so it takes to do the floor exercise and are totally caught up in your child. My boy has had some pretty impressive moments in his career, but nothing to compare to being the only one on the stage!

I don't know how the word spread, but all of the girls at her gym at her level and above got letters or phone calls from some pretty impressive people. What it looks like is that a scholarship to a really good school is almost a lock. There just aren't that many girls competing at that level in the whole country.

The question is, is it worth it to her to spent the next 3 years in her little world just so she can get a free education? Its funny that most people think nothing of boys doing virtually the same thing in baseball where the chances of that scholarship are so minute, but there is a hesitation for a girl. I'm actually ashamed of myself for reducing it to dollars and cents.

I wouldn't even approach a HS coach, or any coach for that matter until I thought she could compete. If this thing happens, personally, I'd hope she would look at other sports before softball. With her strength, I think she's much more cut out for track and field. things like the high jump, pole vault etc are very similar to the things she's been doing all these years.

And of course there's always the dreaded CHEERLEADING! But from what I understand, those girls get into that almost as bad as gymnastics!

BTW, Kommie Kickball is not an option! LOL