TIM LARSON

Although I can’t make it to the big event, I thought I would contribute something to the “Geriatrics Today” blog. Wow…it’s great that so many of us are still walking and talking. Anyway, here’s my story:

After winning a couple of medals at the 1967 state meet, I went to CU and spent a couple of years wondering how I was going to overcome my complete lack of talent for gymnastics. I resolved things by leaving the sport to the rest of you after my sophomore year, but not before getting to know a lot of good people and registering a lot of good memories.

For the past six years, I’ve been the communications manager for the City of Sammamish, a suburb about 20 miles east of Seattle. Moving backwards through time, I was a newspaper reporter for four years, a local TV news producer for 6 years, and a TV reporter, weatherman, and Evening Magazine host for about 15 years. Prior to entering TV, I was a radio DJ for about 6 years, something I had as much aptitude for as gymnastics. Fortunately, I was good at the TV, newspaper and communications stuff.

I married Margaret Larson in 1982. You might remember her – she was the news anchor on the Today Show with Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric back in the early 90’s. She also worked for Dateline NBC for several years. We left New York in ’93 after we figured we didn’t want to raise our newborn son there. I got a job at KIRO-TV in Seattle and we’ve been here ever since. Margaret worked here as a local anchor for several years, but now works as a communications consultant for a bunch of international relief agencies.

Things are good. My son, Kyle, is almost 17 and pitches for the Issaquah High School baseball team. Margaret, Kyle, our dog Molly, and I spend a lot of time watching baseball, working, relaxing and enjoying the Northwest. When Kyle goes off to college, we’re thinking of moving somewhere sunnier, but we’ve really enjoyed our time here.

I want to thank Pat for putting all this together. It’s been great to look at the pictures, both old and new, and to read the bio’s. I also want to thank Coach White. Coach, if you read this, please know that you were a real blessing in my life. When I first met you in 1965, I had just returned from overseas and was going to school in the U.S. for the first time since 6^th grade. I was scared to death. Wasn’t sure I could cut it in the big “USA.” Anyway, stumbling into gymnastics for the first time that year, and getting to know you and the guys on the team, was a huge confidence boost for me. I immediately felt like I was part of something special, and it was all because you were special. You were the kind of coach guys wanted to work for, win for, and, to twist a line from a movie, the kind of coach that made us all want to be better men. That may sound sentimental, but hey, check it out – even Pat turned out okay! Thanks again for everything, and I hope you and the rest of the guys have a wonderful time! Maybe I’ll make it to the next one.

Tim Larson

Fairview ‘67

DENNIS BERG

I have to admit I had heard wind of a reunion and was not particularly interested. After Ben Blea got in contact with me and sent me the Website for the reunion, I have changed my mind. I spent many years of my life with a great bunch of guys that are either responding to your Website or will be there in person for the reunion dinner. Looking forward to old friends revisited.

First, Pat, I should talk about you. If memory servers me, I met you in Junior High School when you were in braces and crutches. Who knew we would end up as gymnasts together at good old CU. I think we went to Douglas Junior High School together for a year. Do you remember Cindy White? They started busing kids the following year and I ended up at Centennial Junior High in north Boulder. I fell in with a rough crowd, but boy I had a good time. I participated in track, basketball and gymnastics when I got there. Gymnastics was my favorite, but I am not sure who was the coach or how much he knew about gymnastics.

I participated in some type of open meet at Fairview for Junior High School students. I didn't know what floor ex was. Enter Art White. He watched me warming up on the mats and stopped me and asked me if I had a floor ex routine. The answer was NO. Coach White says to me, "Show me what kind of tricks you can do". After a quick show of what I could do, Coach White designed a floor ex routine for me. I practiced it maybe twice and did it at that meet. I think I did pretty good, but time distorts how we think of ourselves. I was hooked on gymnastics.

We moved from Boulder in my sophomore year and I attended Wasson High School in Colorado Springs. After competing there for one year we moved back to Westminster where I attended Ranum High School. There I got Lou Baretta as a coach and got to know Doug Watkins who turned out to be my best friend. I competed at Ranum for my Junior and Senior year with some success. One problem. I was doing a Giant Cartwheel on vault and tore up a knee. I thought the scholarship deals were gone since I had to have surgery in my Senior year. Enter Art White, the now coach at CU. He was willing to take a chance on me with my injury and offer the only Scholarship offer I received. With out that offer I may have blown off college and gone to work.

Thank you Coach White!

I attended CU from 1966 to 1971. I had way to much fun my first year there and nearly flunked out and lost my Scholarship. After getting my act together I competed with some of the greatest guys. PAT EDWARDS, ERIC SINGER, BOB FISHER, TOM CASEY, GARY POMERANZ, BEN BLEA, JACK RYAN AND A COUPLE OF OTHER GUYS WHO ESCAPE THIS 61 YEAR OLD MIND. What a trip. Due to another knee injury, I redshirted for one year. That worked out great since it took me five years to get through college anyway.

After graduating, yes I did graduate, I went to work for "Ma Bell". I did a little judging of high school gymnastics and then moved on. I was an engineer for about 15 years and then turned into what I would like to call a "Corporate Puke" for another 12 years. It was time to retire. Doug Watkins and I retired together on July 4th 1998. INDEPENDENCE DAY, how fitting. Now my jobs are golfing, bowling, drinking, smoking and make sure my wife gets to work on time.

Wait! My Wife. You gymnasts are cool, but Marie, my wife, my lover, my girlfriend , my best friend is the best part of my life. I met her when I was attending CU and she was in High School. (Cradle Robber). We got married in Las Vegas in in 1973. Those Vegas marriages just don't last. Only 36 years so far. We did not have kids so we are dog people. Our latest is a Blue Healer/Border Collie mix by the name of "OZ Dog". We like him a lot. Enough!!

Looking forward to seeing many of you at the dinner.

Dennis

TOM JENKINS (click on pages for viewing)

MUTT AND JEFF
(Klanecky and Edwards)

State Meet Results from 64, 65, 66

(courtesy of the Denver Post - send me additional year's clippings)
REMEMBER-Click on articles or photos to enlarge.
AND apologies to Barry Pomeranz, Larry Sarcano and Scott Bolunce to list just a few of the typos)

1966

1965

1964

I guess if I whine like I did in the previous post it does get results! Who says nagging doesn't work. And you know you can leave comments at the end of each post.

The following is from Vince Nicoletti and team photos courtesy of Cliff Gauthier.

Pat,

Here's some more picts and a short bio. The blog is sure growing! Cliff gave me some of the picts below and asked me to send the two team picts. The last pict is of me on a road trip to California. We stopped so we could do handstands in 4 states at once. Something that isn't as novel as I thought. (I'm going to post that one next to mine in the preceding post. Anybody else have photos of the 4 Corners?)

When I was in he eighth or ninth grade my gym teacher at Skinner Jr. High, Mr. Steve Hadley, was running the obligatory gymnastics unit and he noticed I could actually do some of the tricks he was asking everyone to do. He pulled me and some other guys out of the line and gave us individual help. I know we did an assembly with this group of nine fledgling gymnasts because I have 8mm movies. He also introduced us to Coach Kyle from North High. Most of the group went on to become gymnasts at North. Gymnastics was like heroin to us. We couldn’t get enough of it and Kyle routinely had to literally throw us out of the gym. I wound up at DU after Doug DeWitt recruited me for some reason. To say the team was unusual is an understatement. Team members described ourselves as the most unlikely group ever to claim to be a gymnastics team. It was really small. I remember being on a road trip in California where someone on the opposing team kind of sneered and asked me where the rest of our team was. I told him that this was it, we’re here. There was one DU gymnast at each event and a couple standing around. We were nearly invisible among the opposing team. It felt good beating them. Like all the gymnasts I knew, helping each other learn new tricks was second nature and I taught gymnastics in the DU age level classes. This led directly to at teaching degree. What else could you do with all those credit hours in art classes? Teaching jobs were hard to come by when I graduated in ‘71 and I had to substitute teach for two years. Finally I landed a teaching/coaching job at Gateway HS where I coached for five years. Pulling a team together out of nothing was a struggle. Gateway was brand new and so was coaching for me. After five years, I decided to quit trying to deny that the sport was losing ground and stopped coaching but, kept judging until the end. I enjoyed those years immensely! It was sad to see the sport wither and die here in Colorado. At one time it once was such a powerhouse. I continued to teach art classes at Gateway until I retired in 2005. During that time I divorced my first wife who was a gymnast from Lincoln High. One Friday night after being divorced and tired of sitting around doing nothing, I decided to go down to the Denver “Y” and see if anyone was still doing gymnastics. Well, the gymnasts were gone but the Imperial Flyers were still flying and I’ve been doing that ever since. (Check out the web site: http://imperialflyers.org) I met my current wife, Joan, flying trapeze one night and we now have two boys Marco and Luca, ages fourteen and twelve. The boys and I, all do gymnastics at the rec center near us three nights a week and Luca is doing tricks I didn’t learn until I got to college. He told me he set the goal of learning a double back on the tramp before he turned twelve and is proud to have met it. Retirement has been unbelievable. I’ve had time to do all sorts of things. When I’m not ferrying the boys around, maintaining the house or generally being Dad, I’m doing art related projects and teaching myself how to use video, photographic and music software.

I figure this must be the 69 DU team since Cliff would have been a senior and Vince a sophomore. And unfortunately they beat CU. See the following articles - I finally found my scrapbook this morning. I don't know who the really old guys on the right are but I think they have something to do with DU!

For new visitors there are several pages to the blog so at the bottom click on older posts to see more!

Now we're getting some cooperation!

Since Bobby is so busy Cathy Fisher sent me the following website. I can't figure out how to save them into my files to post so you'll have to be happy going to his blog. There are quite a few great photos of all kinds of "old" gymnasts.
I just sent you an email with the web site of photos - it is titled Cole and Calvin Fisher 2009 - you can look at our grandchildren, but to see gymnastic photos click on "Gymnastics" - our grandchildren are as cute as Bobby Fisher was 45 years ago!
go to: http://web.me.com/catfish32819.
Cathy

Got this from Dominick Rose in response to last night's plea for new material.

No pictures here but I wonder how many of us:

1: Walked down the old "Foothills Mall", in Boulder, on our hands (Kirk & I and a few other Fairview Gymnasts... I don't remember who else)

2: Walked through four States on their hands (Kirk & I and our brother Tim at 4-Corners)

3: Did Handstands on the edge of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon (again Kirk & I, gave our mother fits!)

4: Did Handstands on the ridge of Kirk's house in Portales NM (Kirk, Dominick, Tim (other brother Darrryl) & Tom Proulx)

OK so #4 is optional...

Dominick

Except for Kirk Rose finally adding some personal comments to his bio there's nothing new to post on the blog. If you're bored or disappointed when you check here then send me something to post - your bio, a memory, a humorous anecdote, a newspaper clipping - anything to make an old gymnast's heart young and carefree.

I know many of us have been guilty of what I'm doing in this photo - showing off in public - walking on our hands in a mall, doing handstands on railings or tumbling down the sidewalk. This was on my honeymoon and is at Four Corners. My head is in Colorado, right arm New Mexico, left arm Utah and feet Arizona. Got any photos like this you can share? (A day after asking this question Vince sent his 4 Corners photo.)


One of my romantic highlights occurred at a meet at the old CU Fieldhouse. I was far from what anyone would consider a player - I probably dated 5 girls all told in high school and college. But in my sophomore year I met my then-to-be wife. She had a regular guy at Mines and liked to play the field so even though there was some chemistry we hadn't been out yet. So I took another girl to one of my first competitive college meets (where hopefully I would impress her).
As it happened Chris (now my wife) convinced a swimmer who was taking her out to come to the gymnastics meet and he didn't mind because he was a fan of our sport and didn't know it was her interest in me that motivated the suggestion. When I finally spotted my date in the small crowd I waved up at her and she smiled and waved back. But then I noticed something else. Sitting directly behind her but up half a dozen rows sat Chris smiling and waving as well. So there I was for once in my life feeling like I was a mover as everytime I smiled and waved two attractive, blue eyed, long-haired blonds (one Swedish and one German) smiled and waved back. Naturally I had to share my good fortune with my team mates and all of us enjoyed the meet more than normal because of the "cheerleaders" who were unaware of each other's presence smiling and waving to me and them.

Now surely some of you have much better memories than that. So send me something - I'll even clean it up for you if you want.

JACK RYAN - Update

I feel compelled to respond to the editorial comments that are appearing occasionally with reference to the size of my arms, the blubbering fest, the bad photo poses, etc., etc… Besides, my wife keeps telling me I have a weak Bio but can I help it if I live a boring life?

First let me say that if you want to defame me, you will have to get in a long line (see newspaper article titled “Buffs side horse star looks for better days”). I quote “Ryan looks like a partially mashed soda straw.” Fortunately, according to the article, “the side horse doesn’t demand tremendous strength.”

Second, let me say that Pat (the gimp) was the only one on the CU team that had legs skinner than mine and I think he is jealous?

And finally, let me put to rest this “blubbering fest” incident. After the finals of the 1968 NCAA tournament which turned out to be my last routine of my life (due to severe tennis elbow) and after spending all of 3 and half minutes on top of a podium, Pat Edwards and I spent an hour or so walking around the parking lot releasing years of frustration and emotion while I kept asking “Is that all there is?” Eight years of my life had been spent in achieving one goal and once I got there, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more to it.

Well, the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, is that Pat and his wife, Chris, came back into our lives some six years later to tell us that God had the answer to that question. There is more to life than the fleeting moments of fame and glory. Yes, as Ben Blea said, Pat knows God by His first name and he introduced us to that God. Our lives have never been the same. So now that trophy (see photo) which use to sit in a box in the attic, now sits out on the mantle in our home and when people ask what it is for, I tell them that it is there to remind me that the things of this life are temporary and fading but things from God are forever and growing stronger.

“Cracker” Jack