The Night Kerri Strug Made A Nation Cry

Just stay in the air. Don’t land.

Oct 20, 2023

Friends,

I thought you might enjoy this piece from the vault. I had seven very loyal subscribers when I originally posted it.

This was a special moment in time – Olympic gymnast Kerry Strug’s immense courage when the world was watching and everything was on the line. I’m a big sports fan, and this may be the most memorable feat I’ve ever seen.

As always, thank you for your support.

Ben

August 1996. Kearney, Nebraska. I’m in a random hotel. I made it to Kearney from Salt Lake City (756 miles) in one very long day. I don’t remember much about the drive, but I don’t fault myself on that account. There wasn’t much to remember. It was flat, desolate, and hot.

I check into the hotel in the early evening and make my way to the gym as quickly as possible. Done. Sopping went, exhausted, and alone, I return to my room.

The Olympics are on. I love the Olympics. The women’s gymnastics team competition is front and center tonight.

Always searching for the next Mary Lou, I think. That red, white, and blue sprite captured our imagination.

The room is quiet, lonely, nervous even. I turn up the sound. The American women are poised to capture their first team gold medal, and over Russia no less. It comes down to the vault, the final apparatus. Superstar pixie Dominique Moceanu, heir apparent to the American gymnastics throne, vaults and falls. And then falls again.

Everything now depends upon one little-known Kerri Strug of Tuscon. I have never heard of her. She is stocky, solid, and strong.

Strug careens down the mat at seemingly reckless speed. She launches herself into the air, twirls, twists, contorts, and under-rotates. Her left ankle buckles the moment she lands and falls backward.

She hobbles and winces – telling signs from someone who already has endured so many years of pain to arrive on that grand stage. She forces herself back to the start.

U.S. Team Coach, the legendary Bela Karolyi of Nadia Comaneci and Retton fame, tells her on that walk that the team needs her second vault to win the gold. No pressure. The team needs you. The United States needs you – and a 9.493.

You don’t have to do this, I think. You just don’t.

But she does. For reasons only a few of which any of us understand, she does. And so she careens down the mat yet again. Then into the air.

Just stay in the air. Don’t land.

But she does. She lands on both feet and then hops onto her good one. She raises her arms, bows, and then collapses. She must know at that moment what we can only hope: I did it. Before the pain sets in. 9.712.

I cry. I don’t reflect. I just cry – for her; out of joy; who knows why else. I am in awe when any mention of sports is trivial.

There is no one else in that hotel room, but I most certainly am no longer alone.