AMERICAN PRODIGIES
EPSIODE 3
TRANSCRIPT
AMIRA: Before we start, a content note. This episode contains accounts of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, eating disorders, racism, and death. You’ll also hear some swearing.
AMIRA: Previously On American Prodigies:
WENDY HILLIARD: I was like, oh my God, this girl’s about to win Nationals!
DIANNE DURHAM: It showcased to the entire country that a little Black girl from Gary Indiana could be the best gymnast in the country.
WENDY HILLIARD: My mother sure did get in the car and drive four and a half hours just to witness Dianne win.
BETTY OKINO: She was one of a kind. And opened the door for so many young, Brown skinned girls…
DIANNE DURHAM: Life is too short to be bitter and live in the world of what might have happened if I was on the 1984 Olympic team.
TOM DRAHOZAL: She felt, you know, maybe America wasn't ready for a Black gymnast to be on a Wheaties box.
AMIRA: In the early 90s, NBC hosted an annual sports special called the “Sudafed Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular.” Why they would name it after something that puts you to sleep...? Not a question I can’t answer. Shows like these were usually post-Olympics tours - but the 1992 special was all about pre-Olympic fever.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Nadia!
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): Bela! (Continues to speak in Romanian.) [laughs]
Bela Karolyi (Archival): (Speaks Romanian.)
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): That means hello.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): [laughs]
AMIRA: In this part of the special, Nadia Comaneci visits her former coach, Bela Karolyi, at his gym outside Houston, Texas. They walked around the gym, reminiscing on training sessions and former glory. But Nadia was also there to get a sense of what audiences should be excited to see at the upcoming Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Bela’s latest prodigies, Kim Zmeskal and Betty Okino, were poised to dominate.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): By the way, did you hear that
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): No?
Bela Karolyi (Archival): -Betty does three pirouettes on the beam?
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): Wow!
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Can you believe?
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): No!
Bela Karolyi (Archival): It's amazing. You wanna see it?
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): Yeah.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Hey, Betty, where you? You want to try one? Great. Let’s see it.
AMIRA: Betty stands tall, squares off with the end of the beam, and quickly spins around three times on one foot, with the other foot pointed gracefully near her ankle. She doesn’t wobble at all.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Whoo!
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): Wow!
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Is it amazing?!
AMIRA: This triple-turn on beam is called “The Okino.”
REBECCA SCHUMAN: I think the first time I saw her do the triple-turn, I just couldn't even believe that someone could do that on the balance beam.
AMIRA: That’s Rebecca Schuman. She was a gymnast in the 80s and 90s. Now, she coaches and writes about gymnastics for Slate.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: Because it doesn't flip people think, “Well, how hard can that be?” I will just say that no one does it. Even now in a system that prizes difficulty over execution - or has been accused of doing so - you just still don’t see it. You don't see it. You see it in the wolf position! The ugly ass wolf turn! But you don't see it up in the beautiful, upright Okino position very much.
BETTY OKINO: I loved the precision of beam. And I think I always loved that in order to do beam, you have to be able to bring yourself down to here and completely focus.
AMIRA: That’s Betty today. When you watch that clip from ‘92, she looks completely focused. It’s as if her hero, Nadia, isn’t just standing off camera.
BETTY OKINO: I came into the sport through the book of Nadia. My mom read me that story over and over and over from like the age of five.
AMIRA: I mean, Nadia... she’s standing right there! And Betty is still cool as a cucumber.
BETTY OKINO: Learning how to like, bring your anxiety to a place of calm and then focus it... Taught right, it is a powerful tool. Like, in life!
AMIRA: The stakes of a fluff piece during a “Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular” might not seem high. But not only is Nadia watching, Betty knows she can’t slip up in front of Bela. Once the cameras were off, there would have been consequences.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: In the early ‘90s, the U.S. program is a dictatorship. Marta and Bela are the dictators. What they say goes…
AMIRA: Labeled “Lord Gym” by Sports Illustrated, Bela had total control over his gymnasts. And he demanded perfection. Especially as the pressure of success at the Olympics loomed closer and closer. Training got more intense.
AMIRA: I mean, I heard you tell a story once that like, really stuck to me. And you were talking about how, like the night before the U.S./Romanian dual meet in Houston, you were hitting everything.
BETTY OKINO: Mm-hmm.
AMIRA: And you were like, living your best life…
BETTY OKINO: I was. [laughing] I was so good!!
AMIRA: Betty finished her assignments early that practice before the rest of her teammates, who had been falling all over the place and putting Bela in a terrible mood. He lashed out at Betty. Instead of rewarding her effort with rest, he told her to go train a new beam dismount - something she wouldn’t even need to do in the upcoming competition. And Betty, of course, obeyed.
BETTY OKINO: So, the fear was, if I stand up and say something right now like, “Dude, I'm done. I did the assignment. I did it really well. These guys can't work it out, but that's not my problem. I should be able to…” obviously, not with so much sass… I should be able to go, sit down and stretch like there's no need for me to do this. It’s an upgraded dismount. I’m not gonna compete it. Doesn’t make sense.
AMIRA: Betty was tired. It was the end of practice. And she kept landing short. Then, on maybe her eighth dismount, Betty felt a pop. The next day, she couldn’t walk. She had partially torn her hamstring and had to sit out of the U.S./Romanian meet. And take the next four weeks to recover.
BETTY OKINO: And if I could’ve just had that conversation... But I didn't feel like I could have that conversation. I felt like that conversation - if I were to have that - would turn back around on me into either them kicking me out, them not coaching me, them somehow alienating me in the gym. And I felt like I needed him. And I didn't want to lose that.
AMIRA: I’m Amira Rose Davis. On this episode of American Prodigies, we’re following Betty Okino. Her story unpacks the legacy of injury and replaceability in the sport. We’ll start to understand why it’s been so hard – for Black gymnasts in particular – to find their voice, to stand up for themselves and advocate for their needs. Even when it goes against their coaches, their parents, or the whims of U.S.A. Gymnastics.
BETTY OKINO: Anything slightly askew, any little bit of like perceived talking back is going to be... misjudged because of the color of the skin.
AMIRA: Right. Cause it's not just that you're a sassy gymnast, you're a Black girl.
BETTY OKINO: Exactly. Exactly.
AMIRA: You're ungrateful. You're...
BETTY OKINO: You’re all whatever stereotypes they have already laid on you.
[AD]
AMIRA: Betty didn’t start gymnastics until she was nine - pretty late by prodigy standards. Like a lot of girls, it wasn’t until Mary Lou Retton got perfect tens and won gold in LA in 1984, that Betty really formulated her dream.
BETTY OKINO: Then after I watched the Olympics, I was like, “Ah... That's so cool! I want to do that. I want to be on that stage.”
AMIRA: Betty put in the work. She became an elite gymnast at age thirteen. In 1990, it was time to follow in Mary Lou’s footsteps (and Dianne Durham's, too, though Betty didn’t know it then). She left home to train with Bela Karolyi.
AMIRA: Were you excited, were you nervous? Were you a little of both? Where was your head at?
BETTY OKINO: All I knew is this man made Nadia an Olympic champion... Mary Lou an Olympic champion... and like all the athletes I look up to today. So, this is where... this is where I'm supposed to be.
AMIRA: Now, I keep thinking about your mom.
BETTY OKINO: Yeah.
AMIRA: Cause I'm thinking about, like, what it feels like to go from reading your daughter a book about Nadia and then all of a sudden shipping her off to train-
BETTY OKINO: With the person that trained Nadia, right?
AMRIA: Right. Was she just like... over the moon?
BETTY OKINO: She did not want me to go. I begged. She kept trying to find ways like, “Can't you just like, make it work here?" You know... But I- that was insistent. And she didn't want to be the person that stood in the way of my dreams. So in her mind, I feel like she felt like I would go down, try it out for a couple of weeks and then be done with it and come home. And that's, like, kind of like where she was at for, like, the whole four years that I was there. Like, every time I talked to her, she was like, “So... I mean, you're kind of tired and complaining a lot. You can come home, you know!” [laughs] And that would just piss me off.
AMIRA: There was no way. Betty was too driven. And she was really, really good.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: The first time I saw Betty Okino in the United States leotard walk out onto international competition floor. I was like, “Yeah, that's right! Gymnastics is not just for white people!”
AMIRA: That’s Rebecca Schuman again.
REBCCA SCHUMAN: But then I saw her compete and I was like, “She's got the body of a Soviet legend." Like, she has the lines of, you know, someone from the greatest era of the Soviet team.
AMIRA: OK - weird compliment, yes. But in 80s and 90s gymnastics speak, it’s a huge one. Back then, international judges heavily favored what Rebecca refers to as “the Soviet-style body”.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: They had to look like ballerinas. They had to be thin and their legs also had to have like beautiful musculature and just be perfectly, perfectly straight every single second that they were in the air.
AMIRA: Like Dianne Durham, Betty Okino had a strong dance background. But flawless gymnastics is especially hard if you’re over five feet tall, like Betty was. There was just more of her to see - more chances for the judges to spot form breaks and take points off.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: And so... for Betty Okino to, first of all, be Black and walking out there with a U.S. uniform on and second of all, be like “I can Soviet Union my body better than these Soviet Union girls can!” In 1992, Betty Okino was more graceful than half of the former Soviet team. And American gymnasts... the American program has always been more of a power gymnast program, largely because of the incredible feats of Dianne Durham and Mary Lou Retton, sort of Karolyi’s earliest two proteges, were both power gymnasts.
AMIRA: But did you ever like... look around and say, “Oh, I look different than..." you know, "my peers." You know, "that are also tumbling beside me?"
BETTY OKINO: Yeah, all the time. And then people pointed it out to me - the fact that I was skinny, I was tall, I was Brown... I was old. I mean... gymnastics old to like all the other people that were doing it. By thirteen, they were veterans. They'd been doing it since they were five, you know. At thirteen, I only had, like, a few years under my belt of doing gymnastics, so... And it's never... it was never, like, direct. It was always me overhearing conversations. You know, “Well, she started too late. But you know, she could have been good!” It was always that.
AMIRA: Betty overheard a lot of conversations. She got famous for it – even as a kid. In interviews with NBC during the 1991 McDonald’s American Cup, she and Bela told this story:
Betty Okino (Archival): When I first came to the gym, they didn't know that I can speak Romanian. And when they didn't want us to hear something, they’d speak Romanian.
Bela Karolyi (Archival): You know, after a while, I figured it out. “Oh, wait a second... Even before I started to step into this scene, they were already following some indications. What was the matter?” I said, “Golly! These kids really, really read my mind! Read my thoughts! What’s going on?”
AMIRA: What’s going on was Betty was eavesdropping on Bela and Marta’s conversations in Romanian and translating and reporting back to the other girls.
AMIRA: My question has always been: why was it assumed that you didn’t? [laughs] If your mom...
BETTY OKINO: Why do you think, though?
AMIRA: I know why. But I want it on tape… [laughs]
BETTY OKINO: Exactly. Exactly.
AMIRA: [laughs] You know...
BETTY OKINO: This is why it was assumed: because I do not look like I would speak Romanian. Just like Kobe does not look like he could speak German, Italian, French...
AMIRA: But I'm also interested in... because... so when you go down to the ranch, it sounds like there's also very little communication between, like, the Karolyis and your parents. Because my thing would have been like, at some point before my child went somewhere, I would talk to them. And I feel like if I was a Romanian mother, sending my child... [laughs] like, that... I would of, like...
BETTY OKINO: [laughs] You would have had that conversation?
AMIRA: Yeah. [laughs] I would have been like: We’re Romanian!
BETTY OKINO: So the first time she went with me - and she did speak with them, and they knew that she was Romanian, but I think they assumed, again because my father's Black and Ugandan and because I don't look Romanian, I am also Brown, Ugandan, and Romanian - that he- they just assumed that my mom only spoke. But I never would have learned the language? Whatever.
AMIRA: All the melanin blocks out the other languages...
BETTY OKINO: I know! Yeah, exactly. And you can't absorb...
AMIRA: You can’t get it.
BETTY OKINO: [laughs]
AMIRA: So, Betty had great lines, but she didn’t fit the mold of an American gymnast. She understood Romanian, but she wasn’t “European enough” for the Karolyis - because she was Black. Like many mixed kids, she belonged everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But the culture of elite gymnastics required fitting in. And Betty tried.
BETTY OKINO: I was frustrated with my hair texture.
AMIRA: Mmm. With your curls?
Betty Okino: Mm-Hmm. Well, because... Houston... Do you live in Texas?
AMIRA: I do. It’s humid as hell.
BETTY OKINO: OK, so you know what this turns into...
AMIRA: Yes.
BETTY OKINO: ...in that. And especially combine like a bunch of sweat and then like chalk dust, it was like a Brillo... was what my hair was like. And there wasn't any, you know, anything I could do about it. So I would just pull it back or I started wearing like, the braid. It was frustrating ‘cause all my teammates... it was during that time everyone was doing, like, the... [laughs] The one, like, bang-
AMIRA: Flat bang curl?
BETTY OKINO: -all curled up. [laughs] And, you know, my hair didn't do that.
AMIRA: Did you try once?
BETTY OKINO: Of course!
AMIRA: [laughs]
BETTY OKINO: I tried lots of times! I tried everything that they did! You know, just so I could make, like, my ponytail look like theirs did or my- And it didn't. So... It was just one of those things that you... you deal with, right?
AMIRA: The desire to fit in wasn’t just internal. Betty got constant messaging from her coaches. Elite gymnastics isn’t a place to be different. You do the bangs. You don’t add “personality” to your floor routines. You do the choreography you’re told to do to the music that Marta Karolyi pulled from her closet of cassette tapes.
BETTY OKINO: She would always like... (does a Marta impression) “Here are three choices you can choose from. I really like this one.”
AMIRA: [laughs]
BETTY OKINO: [laughs] Okay!
AMIRA: As robotic as it can feel, you try to fit in because you know you’re replaceable. At the Karolyi’s gym in the early 90s, there were dozens of girls vying for a chance to be a member of the “Six Pack” – the elite gymnasts the Karolyis paid attention to. And if you didn’t do as you were told, someone else could take your place.
JOAN RYAN: The icon for success was Bela Karolyi, who was this awful narcissistic.... I mean, you could almost call him a sociopath just because he had no conscience at all about what he would put those girls through.
AMIRA: That’s Joan Ryan, author of "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes". An oral history of the cultures of women’s figure skating and gymnastics in the 80s and early 90s. Joan wrote about how Bela always had a shining star on his team. But his approval was conditional. He’d try to motivate the others by pitting them against each other, making them angry, making them want to be the star. He’d give them horrible nicknames, usually something to do with their weight. Betty, with her long arms and legs, was a “pregnant spider".
JOAN RYAN: It was like a cult. He did produce some champions. You know, we don't see the bodies, you know, stacked up on the path to the Olympics of all the ones who didn't make it. But what he did and what that culture produced, it echos through every level of gymnastics. And it’s totally hidden.
AMIRA: Julissa Gomez – another brown girl at the Karolyi’s gym – didn’t make it. She trained with the Karolyis in the late 80s, just before Betty’s time there. Bela pushed Julissa mentally and physically. He promised her parents that she’d be somebody. Then called her stupid, lazy, and fat in the gym. Or punished her for being injured – which she often was. Julissa didn’t fight back. She trained through the pain, doing dangerous skills that even her teammates knew she wasn’t ready for. But she didn’t complain. See, Julissa’s parents were the children of migrant farmworkers. They were first generation Mexican Americans who took on multiple jobs to be able to afford to send their talented daughter into these elite gymnastics spaces. So, Julissa didn’t say… anything. Eventually, she stopped telling her parents about her training sessions.
JOAN RYAN: And the parents don't even know that that slowly had happened - that corrosion had happened in the relationship in their own daughter - who is not going to say anything because she wants to succeed more than anything. She doesn't want to disappoint her family. She doesn’t want to embed any doubt. She doesn’t want to disappoint them.
AMIRA: One day, in 1987, Julissa had had enough of the Karolyi’s abuse. She got in the car after practice and told her mother she never wanted to go back. They started looking around for another coach and they found Al Fong. Fong thought he could take Julissa all the way to the 1988 Olympic games. She just needed some consistency – especially when it came to vault. With Bela, Julissa had been training a Yurchenko – a relatively new and popular high-scoring vault. It requires gymnasts to roundoff onto the springboard, flip backwards – blindly – onto their hands on the vault, and then flip again onto their feet on the other side. If you can’t picture it, just know that it’s the vault style you’re most likely to see on TV today. But on 1980s gymnastics equipment – with less padding and a smaller vault – Yurchenkos were really dangerous. And Julissa’s Yurchenkos? They were either beautiful or terrifying. Which one it would be was always unpredictable.
JOAN RYAN: She knows she can't do that vault. She knows it's at the edge of her ability at that moment. And she does it anyway, in part for her frickin coach. “You can do this! You can do this! You've got to do this. If you don't do this, you're never going to get on the international scene! This is so important to do this.” She ignores her own reality. Her own... everything in her body, I'm sure, is saying, “Oh God, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know...” And of course, you know, what happened?
AMIRA: In 1988, Julissa missed one of her feet on the springboard while doing a Yurchenko at a meet in Japan. She crashed forehead-first into the vault... and snapped her neck. Julissa Gomez lived on a ventilator for three years, slipping in and out of comas. In August of 1991, Julissa died. She was eighteen years old.
AMIRA: According to Joan, USGF only briefly mentioned Julissa’s death in its official magazine. One of the parents of another Fong gymnast reported that nothing was said about Julissa in the gym. If gymnasts around the country knew about her death, they kept their fear buried. And they kept doing Yurchenkos.
JOAN RYAN: We don't want to leave the impression that these girls were hauled into this gymnastics world, you know, against their will or whatever. No, these are the most driven athletes I have ever been around. They loved it. And then that drive and love for the sport was totally exploited until they started to hate it. This thing that was the center of their lives, that was their joy, then became something they just had to endure.
AMIRA: In the early 90s, teenage Betty Okino trained with the Karolyis, enduring negative messages about her hair, her body, her skin tone, her language. Covering up any fear. Refusing to leave and risk being replaced by another Karolyi prodigy.
BETTY OKINO: The fear was that they would kick me out. They wouldn't train me. Then who the heck would train me? Where would I go? Would I not be able to have this dream come true?
AMIRA: Betty just shut up – and flipped. Even when it hurt.
BETTY OKINO: You do simply as you're told. You trust that they know exactly what's best. You came to them so that they can make you a champion or help you achieve this dream that you wanted, which is to go to the Olympics. And they know the way.
[AD]
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): I remember I did twenty or thirty routines a day. But Bela told us always to say that we train only three hours. Was not true. We train seven/eight hours a day.
AMIRA: That’s Nadia Comaneci on NBC again, back at the 1992 Sudafed Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular.
Nadia Comaneci (Archival): Bela, I was just talking with Bob Costas about the training that we did fifteen years ago. It's different now?
Bela Karolyi (Archival): You know, there are some differences, but basically it's the same. The same hard work. The same every day, a lot of hours spended.
AMIRA: As the Olympic trials drew nearer, those numbers only increased. And Betty Okino’s body kept the score of that training in injuries.
AMIRA: What was the full extent of your back injury?
BETTY OKINO: Um... I fractured a clean fracture across the L three and the L four vertebrae.
AMIRA: And then you had a screw in your knee...
BETTY OKINO: My knee... the patella tendon tore away from the bone.
AMIRA: If it sounds like Betty’s just... indifferently stating facts, it’s because injuries, especially back and leg injuries, are that common. Gymnastics hurts.
SOPHINA DEJESUS: I hurt myself at the Karolyi camp at one of the competitions.
NIA DENNIS: I actually tore my Achilles the year of the Olympics. Just three months before.
ELIZABETH PRICE: And I knew the second that I did my beam dismount, I was like, “Something's wrong. Something's wrong!”
AMIRA: There are the everyday aches you just push through. When kids first start swinging bars, for instance, coin-sized flaps of skin rip away from their hands and leave blood stains everywhere. But that’s kind of a badge of honor. You get over it and you keep swinging. It’s also common to hear about ligament tears, concussions, broken toes -- so many broken toes. And stress fractures in the backs of ten year olds.
SOPHINA DEJESUS: The gymnastics doctor looked at my X-ray and was like, “Oh, you're fine, just take it easy.”
ELIZABETH PRICE: “I know something's wrong!” I was like, “Mom, take me to the doctor. I need an x-ray right now.”
SOPHINA DEJESUS: Then I got an MRI. And then I was like, “No, something is still wrong.” And so it was, like- It took three months and I finally went to the third doctor. And he was like, “It's obvious you have a fracture. So you should have been staying off of this.”
AMIRA: In the gym, girls are taught to ignore their pain. To cover up the wounds that don’t leave blood behind with miles of tape. To treat major surgeries like routine procedures. To get shady advice from gymnastics doctors in league with coaches who just want their kids well enough to compete.
ELIZABETH PRICE: The second surgery’s over it’s like, “Okay what can we do to try to stay in shape and make it the easiest recovery process possible?” Not just easiest, but, like, the fastest. Trying to get back out there you know?
AMIRA: And a lot of gymnasts comply. They want to win. And they know there are a million little girls waiting in line behind them to take their places. So, they get really good at keeping quiet - even while their bodies are breaking.
DR. JOHNSON: Well, I had like a disc herniation around ten.
AMIRA: That’s Dr. Courtney Johnson - known as Dr. Co-Jo. She's the director of sports medicine for an advocacy group called “Brown Girls Do Gymnastics.”
DR. JOHNSON: And then when I was thirteen, I was doing a back handspring on beam. I missed my hands, hit my head. It was traumatic. And I felt something not right, like my back. It was a weird pop. It was immediately painful. So, I remember going to the doctor and he just described it as, “Your vertebrae are supposed to sit on top of each other and now one of them has slipped forward.”
AMIRA: Dr. Co-Jo is also a gymnastics judge and physical therapist. She works with people not only to rehab from injury but to protect their bodies and prevent injury in the first place. Because she has experience with the kind of coaching treatment that leads to long-term injuries.
DR. JOHNSON: They used to always, always, always talk about my toe point. I don’t know... [laughs] I remember them, like, hounding on it with other girls, but… I realize now that's kind of a bit of a stereotype for Black women in gymnastics... dance... you know, anything. I didn't have that perfect, like, ballerina... Like, what the image of a perfect toe point is. I definitely didn't have that. I mean, I would, like, sitting on the, you know, edge of a mat, on bars, and just in between all my reps, one coach was just literally just trying to force my feet to point they were just convinced, like, if they physically bent my feet, that somehow they were going to point better. [laughs] And they never did.
AMIRA: Like Betty, Dr. Co-Jo took this kind of training to be normal and didn’t push back. But once she started studying physical therapy and learning to be a judge, something clicked. Normal was bad.
AMIRA: So there's clearly also just like a culture that is like…
REBECCA SCHUMAN: Tape it up and get out there. Tape it up and get out there.
AMIRA: Exactly.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: Yeah.
AMIRA: That’s Rebecca Schuman again.
AMIRA: What does this do to a kid psychologically, do you think?
REBECCA SCHUMAN: Well, it's hard to say because... I'm inclined to say it builds character and that you should be able to deal with a small amount of pain in your life. But, my old coach would say, you know, "If it hurts, don't do it." But it had this undertone of, like, "You're a weakling." And, "Just don't complain about it." I mean, Suni Lee just won the Olympics. She trained for her final two years before the Olympics, essentially, on a broken foot. She was in just constant and acute pain all the time. And was like, “I’m just gonna do it. It hurts. But no, it doesn't. I just- nope it doesn't matter.” And so, some of it is from the athlete's perspective as well. But then you have to wonder, is that because of forty years of conditioning from the Karolyis to be like...
AMIRA: Right.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: ...you're only injured if you say so. 'Cause that was essentially Marta Karolyi’s whole M.O. was like, "Injuries are for weaklings." And, "You're only injured if you complain."
BETTY OKINO: It was, like, the way things were done then. You just keep training and going until something breaks. If it doesn't break, that means you're really strong and you're going to be a champion.
AMIRA: Back in 1992, Betty was hurt. The fractures in her vertebrae meant that she had a 2 percent chance of paralysis if she kept training. After World Championships that year, she started wearing a back brace and popped eight Advils-a-day. Her injuries - and surgeries - meant that she had to sit out of Nationals and the Olympic Trials. Bela started to ignore her - to focus on his other gymnasts. He told NBC he didn’t think Betty was "rising to the occasion".
Bela Karolyi (Archival): Always there’s some nagging things. Sometimes I could consider even childish things. Which never been giving me the full justification. She is not up to the working performances and the working rhythm.
Betty Okino (Archival): Even though some people may think that I am not really injured... I mean, there's nothing I can do to change that - the way they think. The only thing I can do is prove everybody wrong who says that I can't do it.
AMIRA: Okay. Let’s pause right here because I really want to break this down. Here we have Bela Karolyi, insinuating that Betty Okino is being "childish". Not working up to her full ability, that she might even "faking" an injury. Betty, in response, is assuring people that she’s really hurt but still very much dedicated to going to the Olympics. And this is where I want to remind everybody that Betty was giving this interview as a sixteen-year-old who has a three-inch screw literally holding her knee together and a two percent chance of fucking paralysis! Far from childish!
Betty Okino (Archival): Barcelona’s still a very true reality to me. Long as I can still walk, I'm going to try to make it there.
AMIRA: At the time, Betty said her injuries were stress related. Standard gymnastics over conditioning. But of course, there was more layered on top of that.
BETTY OKINO: Food was restricted. And any time we were away with them, Bela in particularly, we didn't eat. We didn't eat enough for what we were training.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: So, when you work out food restricted, you get clumsy. So that's another great thing about this whole system that makes you be hungry all the time. So, you're hungry - that makes you angry, it makes you faint, it makes you clumsy. So not only were Karolyi’s girls always thin and small, they were also always hurt.
AMIRA: Even Betty, who - remember - was out-Soviet-ing the Soviets when it came to having so-called “long, lean lines”, was subject to this culture.
BETTY OKINO: Meanwhile, you know, in the gym, I'm being weighed and being told that I'm... that I weigh too much because I'm taller than every single one of my teammates. So, I weigh about twelve to fifteen pounds more than them. But it was an issue. And of course, my grandmother who lived with me you know, as a large farmhand, Romanian woman... So, she was always like, “You're going to eat!" [laughs]
AMIRA: Right.
BETTY OKINO: "You have to eat more.” [laughs]
AMIRA: So, she was feeding you.
BETTY OKINO: Yeah. “This is not right! You don't look right to me." [laughs] "You got to eat more.” And then we'd get in arguments with my grandma, and she would just get so pissed because, like, her life is baking and cooking and people eating, you know?
AMIRA: As we saw with Julissa Gomez, the pressure of elite gymnastics could be fatal. In 1994, Christy Henrich – who was also coached by Al Fong – died as a result of the eating disorders she developed as a gymnast. She was twenty-two. Today, Al Fong is still coaching. To be clear, this was not just an issue for the Karolyi Six-Pack or Fong’s gymnasts. It was the entire culture. Rebecca’s former coach saw food restriction at the hands of one of the Karolyi’s biggest competitors.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: She once saw a gymnast’s coach restrict her food to a single muffin for one day. So, the gymnast – and this is like a superstar, a United States gymnast – a third of the muffin for breakfast, a third of the muffin for lunch and a third of muffin for dinner. I mean, she could be anybody from this era, really.
BETTY OKINO: And so, these things combined... I think that the lack of nutrition, the lack of rest and the overtraining was what created pretty much all of those injuries.
REBECCA SHCUMAN: And so, as a result, '92 trials came along, and the best girls on the team couldn't even go. Betty couldn't go…
AMIRA: After two days of Olympic Trials, the United States Gymnastics Federation named their women’s team. Sort of. Because so many gymnasts were injured and had to sit out most or all of the Trials, USGF stalled their official decision. They held a second, private trial at a training camp in Florida. And girls who had been announced as part of the Olympic team at the official Trials were now bumped. But Betty was in.
REBECCA SCHUMAN: They got together and they were like, “Listen, we have to get her into the Olympics somehow. We can't... This is our first chance of ever winning a medal at a contested Olympics. And without Betty Okino’s beautiful international look, we can't do it. We have...," you know, "...two tiny ones, three powerful people, and we need her.”
AMIRA: It's wild to me because it's like... I just keep thinking of Dianne being left off the team, you know? Like, what was it, two cycles before?
REBECCA SCHUMAN: Yeah.
AMIRA: And I feel like... I just wish somebody who there was like, “Duh, this has to happen in the same way that...," you know, "...happened for Betty.”
REBECCA SCHUMAN: That would have changed the trajectory of gymnastics in an unbelievable way. She would have won and the face of, like, America finally on the world gymnastics stage would have been a Black woman.
AMIRA: Between the convoluted selection process, the pain and struggle with injury, and trying to fight to prove her worth to her own coaches, Betty says the 1992 Olympics were bittersweet.
BETTY OKINO: It was enthusiastic to, like, realize a dream come true and to be there. Like, there was, you know, so much struggle on the way there. And it was kind of like, “Oh yay!” you know, “We finally made it here!” But then at the same time, there was so much pressure and stress…
AMIRA: Even at the Olympics, surrounded by great smells and foods in new countries, Betty and her teammates were malnourished.
BETTY OKINO: They monitored like everything we ate, so... And so that became, like, the theme for me almost through that whole Olympics. Like, finding and getting food. So Kerri, myself, and Kim shared a dorm room. And then, you know, there's two others in another room. And two others in another room. And we all had the same, like, apartment. There was like a sliding door that kind of like slid across the window and then slid back. So, then you could, like, tuck things behind the door. And as long as nobody moved the slider, then you were good.
AMIRA: Did you guys ever get caught?
BETTY OKINO: Yes!
AMIRA: Betty helped the U.S. take home a bronze medal in the team all-around. It was the first time the American women’s gymnastics team had been on a medal stand at an uncontested Olympics - meaning that the dominant Soviet team was actually there.
BETTY OKINO: I didn't feel like... I... earned my place of value on that team until I made all-around finals. Then I knew that mine was, like, the second highest score on our whole team so that every single one of my scores counted to that team medal. And that's when I was like, “OK, I belong here.”
Commentator (Archival): And we go to Okino for the United States on the bars… 9.887 justifying Bela Karolyi’s decision that she should be on this team in spite of missing the Trials and the U.S. Championship.
AMIRA: As they always do, NBC pulled together some fluff pieces to air in between Olympic events. For the last few cycles - and even during non-Olympic gymnastics coverage - they’d focused their attention on Bela and the lovable-tyrant-with-a-big-personality image that he’d been cultivating. During a fluff piece in '92, though, one commentator paused to reflect, saying: “Many wonder what really goes on behind closed doors at Karolyi’s gym. Do his rigorous training methods border on abuse?” There wasn’t much follow up. And for decades, Betty’s own answer was, “No.” Like the Karolyi’s former gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, Betty publicly denied that their coaching was abusive. She went on the record in interviews and books - even on Oprah - claiming that the Karolyi’s training was tough but fair.
Betty Okino (Archival): I had justified that type of training... as simply... cruel. But not necessarily abusive. And I.... I justified that for a long time.
AMIRA: That’s Betty on her YouTube channel in June of 2020. She had just watched Athlete A, a documentary that follows reporters from the Indianapolis Star as they broke the Larry Nassar sexual abuse story. Betty wasn’t a part of the documentary - or the Nassar case - but seeing young gymnasts speak out about their experiences caused her to question her own past.
Betty Okino (Archival): And it was only recently in the last year... as I... researched that I began realizing that I had trauma from my gymnastics experience. And... the training experience that I experienced at Karolyi’s... to be quite honest.
JOAN RYAN: When enough of that happens day in, day out for years, you start doubting your own truth. You start doubting what you're actually experiencing. You're saying, “OK, I guess I'm not hurt. OK, I guess I am fat.”
AMIRA: That’s Joan Ryan again.
JOAN RYAN: And can you imagine just being totally stripped of your own reality? That everything is about just what other- your parents are telling you? Your coach is telling you? You no longer have any agency over your own body or even over your own thoughts. I mean, and how do you get over that? How do you go into the rest of your life just never really trusting yourself?
Betty Okino (Archival): And it's interesting with acute traumas how... until we're ready to... I guess, process them and see them for what they are, they remain... They can remain hidden to us. That's our body's... denial system, defense system. A sense- our protection that allows us to still function until we can actually deal. And once I started understanding what impact words and those actions, like, weighing someone for a young woman, have on the development of one's brain and one's idea of self and how they look at themselves, it allowed me to sort of unlock that door inside of myself and step in and realize there is this hurt young woman curled up in the corner, there, that had been affected by that experience.
AMIRA: It’s also something that seeps in right at a really formative phase, right? Teenage girls who aren't in a highly competitive environment, like gymnastics, are already having body issues, are already having ideas about food… And then to have the adults around you constantly be picking on that, it buries deep. And it's it's not easy to revisit that.
BETTY OKINO: No! It's totally... it's uncomfortable. It's the best way to put it. It's deeply, deeply uncomfortable and it takes work.
AMIRA: I’m wondering if coming from your family and your background, your parents, it's one of the things that also made it harder to process later, now, when you're going through your journey. Because then it actually required not just the unpacking of your experiences at the Ranch, but actually your childhood. And that feels very fraught.
BETTY OKINO: Absolutely. My parents are amazing and wonderful people. Yet... the fact is they both grew up in very different worlds. As a child... [uncomfortable laughter] you don't speak out. You don't ever challenge authority. You know, adults are adults. And you never challenge them. It's, "Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir." And they always know better, essentially. Sort of a world... And there wasn't exactly like a freedom and an openness to talk, to communicate and especially to an adult. So, move into the world of, you know, Bela and Marta and that training scenario - very similar! I think that's why for so many years after I retired from the sport, I would defend the Karolyis. Because at the same time I was defending my upbringing. I was defending my parents. I was defending, you know, like everything that I that I knew, and that was what I perceived to be good and right and true. You know, and my parents defended them also. So, partially felt like if I, you know... anything else would be an attack against my my family, my history.
AMIRA: After the ‘92 Olympics, Betty left gymnastics completely. She didn’t watch the next Olympics. You know, the one in Atlanta in '96 with the Magnificent Seven. When Betty’s former teammate, Dominique Dawes, became the first African American woman to win a team gold and an individual event medal.
BETTY OKINO: And at the time, it wasn't like clear as to why, but I... I dunno. It felt like I wanted to find my identity in something else, and I didn't want people associating me with that - with gymnastics. I wanted the opposite of what that world provided. Like, I wanted a voice. I wanted to speak out. I wanted to, like, be emotional and for it to be okay. I wanted... I just wanted- I wanted more and it was very restricting. I wanted the opposite of restricting.
AMIRA: Yeah. You wanted freedom.
BETTY OKINO: I wanted freedom.
AMIRA: Betty found freedom. And she eventually found her way back to gymnastics. Today, she’s a member of the USAG National Staff. She teaches dance, choreography, and the elusive concept of artistry to elite gymnasts.
Betty Okino (Archival): So, in 2019, I became a part of the national coaching staff. And I agreed because I wanted to be a part of the change in culture. I wanted to be a watchdog on behalf of the young athletes. I wanted to help foster and create an environment that I knew gymnastics could be. It’s a beautiful sport.
AMIRA: Do you ever have something you do where you're like, “I'm doing the exact opposite of what I was-"
BETTY OKINO: Taught?
AMIRA: Yeah.
BETTY OKINO: [laughs] Yes! Especially when it comes to an athlete expressing that they're having, like, an injury or a physical discomfort or.... something hurts. When it comes to that, I notice, like, that the inner reaction of what I was trained like and how I was trained, and my current and new understanding of: listen, accept, observe, and then guide. That's where I notice, like, the biggest, like, difference between how I was trained and how I now coach. Because you're allowed to have bad days. I grew up in a world where you didn't- you weren't allowed to have bad days. Be silent and do what you’re supposed to do!
Betty Okino (Archival): I am hopeful for the future of gymnastics. And I get to see it in the eyes of the young athletes who were never part of this old system. They are reaping the rewards of that change now, as they get to experience doing this sport in an environment that empowers them.
CREDITS
AMIRA: This episode of American Prodigies was reported and hosted by me, Amira Rose Davis. Story editing and production by Jessica Luther.
If you want to hear more of my interviews with gymnasts, subscribe to Blue Wire's Apple Podcast Subscription Channel. Along with ad-free episodes, you can listen to my full interview with Dr. Courtney Johnson.
Search "Blue Wire" in Apple Podcasts for access to all the extended interviews. It's free for the first 7 days. Subscribe today.
Jessica Bodiford and Kelly Hardcastle Jones are our senior producers. Sound design, mix, and mastering by Camille Stennis. Isabelle Jocelyn, Kayla Stokes and Jordan Ligons provided production assistance. Fact-checking was done by Mary Mathis and Jessica Luther. Production coordination by Devin Shepherd. We had research help from Shwetha Surendran, Mariam Khan, and Mary Mathis.
This episode featured archival audio from NBC, the BBC, and Betty Okino’s YouTube Channel.
American Prodigies is executive produced by Peter Moses and Jon Yales.
POST-CREDITS JOY
AMIRA: I know what the first thing is... Did you know we’re birthday twins?
BETTY OKINO: Are we really? June 4th?
AMIRA: June 4th.
BETTY OKINO: Oh my gosh!
AMIRA: Yes, I know. I was like… I recognize Gemini energy anywhere.
BETTY OKINO: Ahhh, that's so great!