BATON ROUGE, La. – A few blocks from the McDonald's, a quaint brick
building sits beside an old oak veiled in gauzy Spanish moss. The tree,
with its spellbinding grace, gives a fairytale feel to this mid-scale
commercial neighborhood.
No conspicuous thread connects the Golden Arches and the brick facility,
home of Elite Gymnastics.
But the same Olympic gymnast featured on McDonald's burger bags
nationwide is pictured on framed magazine covers inside the cozy gym.
Carly Rae Patterson was here.
Carly, 16, an Allen resident who trains in Plano, will lead the favored
U.S. women in the team final at the Athens Olympics today.
North Texas proudly claims Carly, a world champion with the chance to
become one of the Games' biggest stars. But as a native of Baton Rouge,
Carly had a life before her Texas years. Among her nurturing influences
was her first gym, where the whimsical flourished and jumping for joy
was its own reward.
Her career began in 1994 at Elite Gymnastics, owned by Johnny Moyal,
whose mother was a ballerina and Holocaust survivor. Moyal, a three-time
Olympic gymnast for Israel and an All-American at Louisiana State
University, instantly recognized that Carly was not your average tumbler.
"What made her unique was that Carly lived in her own 'Carly World,' "
Moyal said. "It was a world that shielded her. She didn't need somebody
to kick her butt.
"I told her she would make the Olympics."
Carly made friends and practiced her flips at Elite before she began to
accrue her string of nicknames – "Snarly," because it rhymed with Carly;
the "Cajun Sensation," because of her roots; and "Harley Davidson,"
owing to her powerful athletic execution.
In her hometown, she enjoyed café au lait as a frequent treat. She and
her cousins romped at her grandparents' riverside home, where alligators
would drift by now and then. And each time she entered the gym, the
towering oak enthralled her.
'Baton Rouge is home'
"Baton Rouge is home," she said. "I had a lot of fun growing up there."
Carly never took herself too seriously, said those who knew her before
her family left for Texas in 1999.
She trained for more than five years at Elite before landing at Plano's
World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in 2000.
At Elite, Carly learned the fundamentals in an environment that
encouraged her to dream big. She polished her technique and added skills
in Texas,going on to win a world team gold medal and losing the world
all-around championship by a margin of just .188 points last year.
As a toddler, Carly, now a 95-pound 5-footer, demonstrated an uncommon
affinity for grabbing onto bars, leaping and flipping.
Her mother, Natalie Patterson, often took Carly to a shady park next to
Jefferson Terrace Elementary School. Carly had become proficient at
swinging on the bars of her backyard swing set and needed more
challenging playground equipment.
"Carly was very muscular from the time she was 2 years old," her mom
said. "She got up on water skis on her first try."
Though Natalie had spent five years as a gymnast, she said she didn't
consider putting her daughter in the sport. Then Carly's cousin, Farin
Fabre, held her 8th birthday party at Elite. Moyal was in the gym
training athletes when he noticed one of the party guests.
As Carly, then 6, jumped into a pit of yellow foam cubes, Moyal decided
to ask her parents for permission to evaluate her skills.
"She had a great physical look for gymnastics," said Moyal, who still
has charts that give the dates of Carly's first time to perform each
skill. "It was the way she was hanging on the bar."
On her first day in training, the other gymnasts marveled at Carly's
physique and fortitude.
"We just looked at her stomach muscles and said, 'Wow!' " said Jodi
Nohra, now 17 and no longer a competitive gymnast. "She had no fear
whatsoever."
Carly's former training partner, Amanda Comeaux, 17, said she and Carly
spent time together outside the gym.
"We both always wanted to be orthodontists," Amanda said. "We'd have
sleepovers and stay up late with our little stuffed animals, pretending
they were our dental clients.
"We did some crazy stuff."
In Elite Gymnastics' black-and-white tiled lobby, Carly's picture hangs
beside a printed reproduction of a speech by Vince Lombardi. The tiny
frog stickers that Carly pasted on her locker still are intact. They'll
stay there, as enchanting as the oak tree in the yard, which Moyal said
is 400 years old and a symbol of power and endurance.
"They made it fun for you there," Carly said. "Johnny was like a frog
freak. We'd give him frogs for presents. We did a lot of playing."
New environment
Moyal, 47, worked with Carly until 1999, when her father, Ricky
Patterson, made a career move to Houston. Carly trained briefly at
Brown's Gymnastics until the next year, when her father's work in the
auto industry brought him to North Texas. Carly started training at
World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, where the atmosphere is more austere
and there are no Dalmatians frolicking among the gymnasts.
"Carly and Johnny had a unique connection," said Ricky Patterson, who
moved back to his hometown of Denham Springs, a suburb of Baton Rouge,
when he and Natalie divorced two years ago. "Johnny had a great
atmosphere in the gym. It seemed Carly knew her path. We never had to
push her one day. It was natural. It was desire."
Natalie – one of John and Bettye Mitchell's five children – consulted
her daughter's first-grade teacher, Sandra Applewhite, about taking
Carly out of traditional school. Applewhite, whose son, Major, played
quarterback for the University of Texas, said she understood Natalie's
desire to try home-schooling her daughter, who would get to spend more
time training.
"Children at different ages get a dream," said Applewhite, who lives in
Colleyville and teaches in Southlake. "Major got his dream in the eighth
grade. When Carly was in the first grade, she had her mind made up. She
was not the type of child who needed a lot of peer stimulation. Carly
and her parents saw her dream and reached out for it."
Natalie Patterson, a nurse, and her three sisters are in Athens to cheer
for Carly. Farin Fabre, who's preparing for her freshman year of
college, couldn't make the trip to see her cousin compete at the Games.
But Farin reminded her mother and aunts that it was her childhood
birthday party that launched Carly's career.
"When she competes, we're usually quiet or nervous," she said. "But we
do yell at the TV set."
Indeed, the family gets animated, affectionate banter flying when
everyone gets together. Leslie Yander, one of Carly's aunts, said Carly
didn't get her gymnastic ability from her Aunt Leslie.
"I was never able to do a cartwheel," she said with a laugh.
"Yeah, well, Carly does enough cartwheels for all of us," said Lauren
Fabre, another aunt.
Carly could become the biggest name in her sport since Mary Lou Retton,
who 20 years ago became the first U.S. gymnast to win the Olympic
all-around title. But unlike the Soviet-boycotted Los Angeles Games, at
which Retton starred, the Athens Olympics are not missing any nations.
"I just hope Carly can achieve her dream," said Carly's grandmother,
Bettye Mitchell. "She's accomplished so much."
It has kept John Mitchell busy. Mitchell, a retired machine shop owner,
handcrafts trophy cases for his granddaughter. At the rate Carly fills
them, her grandfather spends plenty of time in his home workshop beside
the Amite River.
"I remember when Carly would walk across the top of picnic tables," John
Mitchell said, his eyes bright with the recollection. "There's a lot of
discipline in sports, which is good. But there are so very few gold
medals out there."
E-mail
charasta@dallasnews.com
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