Rekindling a love for gymnastics

Phillips-Bannister finds her sport again as teacher

When she was 14, gymnast and Olympic hopeful Kristie Phillips- Bannister adorned the cover of Sports Illustrated, which proclaimed her the next Mary Lou Retton. In the years that followed, her Olympic dreams crumbled. The strict training regimen and cold, demanding style of her coaches left her feeling isolated and unloved. When she hit a growth spurt, the sport passed her by with hardly a passing glance.

For years after, she hated gymnastics.

But with the love of her husband and a newfound purpose, she rediscovered her passion and now trains young gymnasts at her Iredell County gym, where she emphasizes a gentle approach to coaching and strives to build confidence.

"We're not going to lose a child to be No. 1," she said. "We're not going to destroy self-confidence."

Kristie Phillips, as she was known in her youth, began gymnastics in her native Louisiana at age 4 and showed promise. Just before she turned 12, she started training in Houston with Bela Karolyi, the legendary coach of Olympic champions Nadia Comaneci and Retton.

The move paid off: From 1985 to 1987, she was the top finisher in every American competition she entered.

In 1986, Sports Illustrated dubbed her "The Next Mary Lou." In the article, the head of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation called her "our outstanding hope" for the 1988 Olympics.

On the magazine's iconic cover, she displayed a signature move: a reverse planche on the balance beam. She's smiling straight ahead at the camera while in a handstand with her back arched so her buttocks touch her head.

But underneath that astounding flexibility and cheerful persona was a teenager who longed to go home and "be a cheerleader, be popular, be normal," she said.

"I may have been the national champion, on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 14, but I felt very alone," said Phillips-Bannister, 36. "My teammates were my competitors. The people I spent all my time with, they weren't my good friends."

She was training eight to 10 hours a day in the gym with coaches she said didn't give her any of the "compassion, the love, the bonding, the role model of a parent."

A year after the magazine cover, Phillips hit puberty and underwent a growth spurt. She left Karolyi for other coaches, only to return. At the 1988 Olympic trials, she was chosen the U.S. team's second alternate but didn't travel to Seoul.

"When it was over, it was over," she said. "They just moved on to the next gymnast, and no one cared what I accomplished."

Teaching with compassion

At the Kristie Phillips Athletic Center in Troutman, Phillips-Bannister aims to teach her athletes all the good she learned from gymnastics and none of the bad.

Unlike many other gymnastics clubs, hers doesn't turn away kids with the "wrong" body type. Anyone willing to put in the work that competitive athletics requires is given the opportunity to reach her maximum potential -- "and that doesn't mean the Olympics," Phillips-Bannister said.

Still, she has a cadre of young children so committed they home-school at the gym. Someday they could be champions, Phillips-Bannister said, but that's up to them.

Gymnasts who slack off are assigned extra strength conditioning, but Phillips-Bannister radiates positively as she coaches. While she focuses on one girl at a time, she somehow has an eye on everyone working out, shouting out corrections and affirmations to all with a smile every time.

"Not that way, silly goose," she tells Natalie Wilson as she helps the 6-year-old roll backwards into a handstand on the beam. "What do you use your eyes for? So you can see. Watch your toes."