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The Road to Gold
Many athletes have said there is no greater honor than to represent their country in the Olympics. When an Olympic athlete puts on his uniform, he no longer is simply representing himself, his coach, and his family—he is representing an entire nation. And for some athletes, in their eyes at least, they are also representing their faith. The first time a Church member competed in the Olympics was in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912. In front of a sold-out crowd of 24,000, a young man from Parowan, Utah, stepped out of obscurity as he walked to the infi eld and knelt in prayer prior to his Olympic event. Alma Richards shocked the world as he then proceeded to out perform all of the competition, bringing home a gold medal and setting a new Olympic record in the high jump. In his memoirs, he recounts his prayer. “God, give me strength. And if it’s right that I should win, give me the strength to do my best to set a good example all the days of my life.” Alma may have been the first member of the Church to compete in the Olympics, but he certainly would not be the last. In 1960 Jack Yerman won a gold medal as part of the world record-setting 4x400 meter relay team. Four years later in Tokyo, L. Jay Silvester brought home a silver medal in the discus, and then a bronze four years after that. A number of other athletes competed throughout the 80s and 90s, but it has been in two Summer Olympics that LDS athletes have flourished. In the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics in Sydney and Athens respectively, there were at least thirty-one LDS athletes competing for seven different countries. These athletes accumulated nine medals, including five golds. While the Olympic rosters have not all been set, surely there will continue to be many Church members competing, and they will have quite a legacy to live up to. Peter Vidmar Peter’s Olympic dreams began when at age thirteen he placed third at the U.S. Junior Olympics. He thought to himself, “Wow! If I can be third in the country when I’m young, maybe I can be at that level as a senior athlete. Maybe I could be an Olympian!” But being a world-class athlete and an active member of the Church didn’t always come easy. When he was young, his coach insisted that he train on Sundays. When he told the coach that he would not do that, the coach didn’t want to work with him anymore. Peter was devastated. Looking back, Peter recalls, “My coach was a very good man, and he simply wanted to give his very best effort to help me to become an Olympian. He expected my complete devotion in return. I believe he thought my parents made the choice for me, and he met with them. He understood it was my choice, and I believe he respected that choice.” After this meeting, the coach agreed to keep working with him. Peter worked as hard as he could six days a week, earning his rest on Sundays. “In the long run,” he says, “I know that keeping the Sabbath holy was not only right for me spiritually, but it was very good for me physically and mentally to take one day a week off and let my body and mind recover and rest.” In any decision that he had to make as an athlete, or as a professional, there was one rule that he always lived by: Peter decided to never compromise his family or his Church activity. “It is very sad that people feel they need to compromise their good name, their integrity, and their character to win at a sport,” he says. “No victory or amount of money is worth your integrity.” Despite his success as an athlete in college and in the Olympics, Peter felt it was very important to get a college degree. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in economics. Currently, Peter takes the skills and lessons he learned in gymnastics and applies them as a motivational speaker. His inspiring presentations have been in demand by Fortune 500 companies ranging from IBM to General Motors to Disney. Jon Keith Russell Keith, a native of Mesa, Arizona, started swimming at a young age in an attempt to beat the heat. It wasn’t long until he was invited to be on the Mesa Aquatics swimming team. Soon Keith developed an interest in diving, but his family could not afford the coaching fees attached to it. Understanding this, Coach Dick Smith worked with the family and allowed them to simply pay what they could. Thus the diving career began. In 1968 Keith won the NCAA three-meter diving championships for Arizona State University and was selected to compete in the Olympics later that year. The opportunity to represent his country was overwhelming. “It is difficult to put into words,” says Keith. “It’s a great honor. I remember a dual meet [USA/East Germany] in 1974 where I was selected to carry the flag as the USA Team marched onto the pool deck.” He finished sixth in the three-meter and fourth in the ten-meter platform—a disappointing showing, in his mind. Shortly after the 1968 Olympics, Keith put his diving career on hold for two years in order to serve a full-time mission. Following his mission, he enrolled at BYU where he became an All-American in 1972. By 1973 he was ready to try and redeem himself from his discouraging performance in the Olympics as he competed in the world championships. This time he would not return empty handed. He won a silver medal in the platform diving, and a bronze in the three-meter springboard. He considers this performance to be his greatest achievement as an athlete. Throughout his career Keith always sought to live his life in harmony with the gospel. There weren’t many conflicts, but there were a few. Problems arose when it came to the issue of training on Sunday. Keith decided early on that he would not. While there were small sacrifices that he made throughout his career, he recognizes that they made him stronger. “I’ve learned that sacrifices have a certain enabling power to them, which goes a long way in balancing apparent losses that might be felt,” he says. One of these “enabling powers” he noticed was the ability to make and keep commitments. By living the gospel, he says, you make commitments to practice certain behaviors and avoid others—an ability that, as a coach, Keith has seen firsthand. “I feel the biggest difference [with regard to athletes] is that those who are Church members know how to make commitments. Making a commitment is something, as I see, that will make the difference between doing well and actually doing something with a level of uncommon expertise.” Throughout his career as a coach he has earned thirteen Mountain West Conference Diving Coach of the Year awards. He has also coached a number of athletes to conference titles, including his son Aaron. Mark Schultz Mark began his wrestling career during high school. Despite only mediocre success throughout the season, by the time the state championships came around, he was ready to go. His senior year he won the state championship in his weight class. After high school, Mark continued his wrestling career with the University of Oklahoma. Here he would become a three-time NCAA wrestling champion. The most memorable of these titles came in 1982 when he wrestled Ed Banach in the finals. Ed was on track to become the first four-time NCAA champion in history, but Mark had other ideas. In what would later be ranked by W.I.N. magazine as the secondgreatest match in NCAA history, Mark rallied from a 4-0 defi cit to win 16-8, earning himself the outstanding wrestler award that year. Two years later, Mark and Ed both qualifi ed for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and teamed up to represent the United States. What made the occasion even more special was the fact that Mark’s brother Dave also qualified, as did Ed’s twin brother Lou. All four wrestled in different weight classes, and all four brought home gold medals. They became the first and second pair of American brothers to bring home gold medals in the same Olympics. Due to the scheduling of the matches, Mark and Dave have the distinction of being the first. To this day, Mark and Dave remain the only brothers to win Olympic gold medals and world championships. After winning the gold medal in 1984 and a disappointing performance in the 1988 Olympics, which led to no medals, Mark decided to travel the country. He liked skiing and was trying to find the most vertical drop for the least amount of money. This led him to Utah. Once he got to Utah, he decided he wanted to work out with some college wrestlers and, as luck would have it, the only place in the state of Utah that had a collegiate wrestling team was BYU. “I went down to BYU, walked in there, and met the coach,” recalls Mark. “He liked me, and we got along. He offered to pay me to stay the rest of the year and to make me an assistant coach. Then he offered to try and pave my way to become the head coach there.” In the meantime, Mark decided he should find out a little more about the Church that was sponsoring the school. Initially his efforts were focused on proving to the head coach that his religious beliefs could not be true. He started researching as much about the Book of Mormon as he could. “I got into the history, archeology, and the language,” he recalls. “I researched this issue as thoroughly as I thought I could to come to knowledge of the truth. After I got enough knowledge, I realized there is no way Joseph [Smith] could have made it up.” On September 22, 1991, Mark was baptized a member of the Church, and the gospel would later help him get through the hardest trial of his life. In January 1996, his brother Dave was murdered. Mark eventually became the head coach of the BYU wrestling team until the program was discontinued in 2000. In addition to being an Olympic gold medalist, Mark is a twotime world wrestling champion and a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Beijing Melanie Roach During the Olympic trials, Melanie easily lifted 228.8 pounds over her head in a move known as “clean and jerk.” Then, on her second attempt, she hoisted nearly 240 pounds. In that moment, she secured a chance to compete in Beijing and achieved a goal that seemed beyond her grasp just a few years ago. Melanie was introduced to weightlifting after experiencing an injury as a promising gymnast. Part of her rehabilitation included the use of free weights, and soon an Olympic dream was born. By 1996, she was fully committed to the sport of weightlifting, setting her sights on the 2000 Olympic Games. Melanie soon stunned the weightlifting world by exceeding the world standard in the clean and jerk at the 1998 U.S. National Championships. She became the number-one ranked U.S. weightlifter and the first American woman to clean and jerk more the twice her body weight. With so much success, competing at the 2000 Olympics seemed like a sure thing. Devastatingly, weeks before the Olympic trials Melanie suffered a herniated disc, and her career in weightlifting seemed to be fi nished. She moved on with life by opening a gymnastics business, starting a family, and helping her husband, Dan, get elected to the Washington State House of Representatives. But with her new life came a new test of strength when her two-year-old son, Drew, was diagnosed with autism in 2005. Heartbroken and depressed, Melanie mourned the loss of a normal life for her son, and each night she prayed fervently that he would recover. Overwhelmed by the responsibilities of caring for an autistic toddler, she went to see her bishop. “I told him, ‘This is not what I signed up for,’” she recalls. “Then, in his infinite wisdom he smiled at me and said, ‘Melanie, this is exactly what you signed up for.’ The experience in the bishop’s office is what helped change my perspective. I have learned to recognize the opportunity we have to teach our children love and tolerance and to help them rally around our son. It has been a wonderful learning experience and a blessing to our family. Now I enjoy every moment I have with Drew.” Melanie says she now has the same perspective about weightlifting, as well as every other aspect of her life. “I try to enjoy the process and not worry so much about what may or may not happen,” she says. “If you’re busy worrying about the past or the future, you can’t enjoy what you’re doing right now. You’re missing it.” In the summer of 2005, Melanie returned to competitive weightlifting. By March of 2006 she had reclaimed her spot on the U.S. National Team and won her sixth U.S. National Championship. She went on to place twelfth at the world championships. Afterwards, she underwent state-of-the-art back surgery, not available years earlier when she left the sport. The result was her seventh U.S. National Championship in 2007 and the first time since 2000 that she clean and jerked twice her own body weight. All of these accomplishments paved the way for her to finally make the Olympic team—an honor she does not take lightly. “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to not only represent the United States, but to be an ambassador for the Lord, as well as for autism awareness,” she says. “Whatever happens now, it’s not for me. I feel totally fulfilled by the process of getting to this point.” Since this article was published, the following LDS athletes have been added to the Beijing roster: • Jake Gibb from Bountiful, Utah is ranked No. 9 in the world with his teammate Sean Rosenthal in beach volleyball. The two will team up as one of the United States’ tandems for the sport. • Former BYU runner Josh McAdams of Orem, Utah will compete in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, an event he didn’t even start running until five years ago. McAdams won the 2006 NCAA title for the event, as well as the 2007 Pan American Games and 2007 USA Outdoors championships. • Lacey Nymeyer of Tucson, Ariz. has won a spot on the USA Swim team and will compete in the 100-meter freestyle and 4x100-meter freestyle relay swimming events. Nymeyer was a member of the 2005 World Championships team, and earned six first team All-American honors at the 2006 NCAA championships. • Lindsey Anderson of Morgan, Utah, a former Weber State distance runner, will compete for the USA in the women’s steeplechase, an event new this year to the Olympics. • Rich Lambourne and Ryan Millar were teammates on BYU’s first NCAA championship volleyball team, and they’re teaming up again, but this time on the United States men’s indoor volleyball team. For Millar, this is his third time competing in the Olympics, and Lambourne’s Olympic debut. • Tairia Flowers of Tucson, Ariz. will hit the Olympics softball fields again, playing first baseman for the U.S. women’s softball team. In Athens 2004, Flowers and her team took home gold. • Alicia Hollowell, from Suisun City, California, is on the Olympic softball team as an alternate. Hollowell was a 4-time All American pitcher for the University of Arizona and won the NCAA national championship in 2006. • Niklas Arrhenius of Utah County and NCAA individual champion while on the BYU Track and Field Team will be competing for the Swedish Olympic Team in the discus throwing event. LDS Living, July/August, 40-49
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Today's date: March 19, 2010
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