AMERICAN PRODIGIES
EPSIODE 4
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. Previously On American Prodigies:
JORDAN CHILES: I stopped going to gym because I just couldn't handle it anymore.
JOYCE WILBORN: I didn't want I didn't want to do gymnastics no more after that.
BETTY OKINO: I wanted to find my identity in something else and I didn't want people associating me with gymnastics.
JOYCE WILBORN: It affected me really bad to the point where it still bothers me today. And I'm fifty-one years old, haven't been in gymnastics for years and just talking about it still affects me.
BETTY OKINO: I wanted a voice. I wanted to speak out. I wanted to like... be emotional and for it to be okay. I wanted… I wanted freedom.
Amira (Voicemail): Hey, it’s Amira. If you’ve called to share your memories about Black girls in gymnastics, you’re in the right place. Who’s the first Black gymnast you remember?
Monica (Voicemail): I was about nine when I found out who Dominique Dawes was. And she was just everything to me.
AMIRA: For Americans of a certain age, there is only one answer to the question: “Who was the first Black gymnast you remember?”
Daisy (Voicemail): The first Black gymnast that comes to mind is Dominique Dawes.
Monique (Voicemail): Of course, it was the Olympics, and it was Dominique Dawes.
Megan (Voicemail): I wanted to be Dominique Dawes.
Monique (Voicemail): I never saw anyone who looked like me.
Monica (Voicemail): To finally see a Black gymnast and someone who was so excellent at her craft and so graceful, it was just... it was everything.
Daisy (Voicemail): I mean she was just magic, right? Like, she just had incredible energy and she could do those kind of non-stop tumbling passes.
AMIRA: We got voicemail after voicemail about Dominique’s tumbling and her style.
Zachary (Voicemail): And I just remember her dynamism, and just how graceful she was.
Megan (Voicemail): And she was so bouncy and energetic and that was how I wanted everything to be in my gymnastics.
Daisy (Voicemail): And I even remember loving like her little bangs. I always wanted little bangs [laughs] because she had these short bangs.
AMIRA: Oh, yes! The bangs! People remember the bangs. I have friends that recreated the bangs.
SAM SHEPARD: I singed my hair trying to create that little tight look to the point that I was just like, “OK, well, you won't have bangs anymore. You'll have baby hairs that resembled bangs at one time.”
COURNEY COX: I had a similar bang at the time. And for me, my little sponge roller heart was just locked into Dominique Dawes.
AMIRA: All these memories of Dominique - they’re really personal. But they’re not really about Dominique.
COURTNEY COX: Dominique is for me is like, early, early memories of seeing myself in sport.
AMIRA: For all that people remember about first seeing Dominique or the ways her bangs and tumbling were inspirational, they don’t really remember a whole lot of specifics about her.
SAM SHEPARD: The last time I even heard of Dominique Dawes, I think it was on some Fox News tip and I was like, “Ugh. Disappointing.” You know, it was just… like, I don't think about her as a woman, and I don't think about her athleticism beyond this framed moment in my head.
AMIRA: For a lot of us, Dominique Dawes is frozen in time. Back in 1996 in Atlanta, with the Magnificent Seven. Becoming the first Black woman of any nationality to win a gold medal in Olympic gymnastics.
JASMINE SWYNINGAN: I remember like watching her in the '96 Olympics and just sitting next to my dad and I'm like, “Look at Dominique Dawes! Oh, my God!”
Daisy (Voicemail): What a treat as it was all ready to get to kind of grow up watching The Magnificent Seven, but she was far away my favorite.
JASMINE SWYNINGAN: She was my girl. She was the person that helped me understand that, like, I can excel. No matter what other people say, I can excel.
Bart Conner (Archival): I think for the American public, The Magnificent Seven is one of those Olympic moments that will be etched in people's memories forever. You know, and many years later, people won't quite remember all the circumstances, but they'll say, “Yeah, I remember those girls. They were amazing - and they won the gold medal.” I mean, if that's the legacy that they have, that's good enough.
AMIRA: Yeah, see... that’s not good enough. Not when we’re talking about the Dominique Dawes. But it is hard to say what her legacy actually is. Because other than that one particular moment, people don’t really have that next thing to say about Dominique. Trying to piece together who she is is like trying to hold hands with a ghost. There should be so much more to say. Dominique was one of the first African American gymnasts to win an Olympic medal, the first to win a gold medal, the only American gymnast to have competed in three consecutive Olympic games. And she’s the Black gymnast everyone seems to remember. So, why don’t people have a second sentence about her?
AMIRA: I’m Amira Rose Davis. On today’s episode, I’m going to show you what you don’t know you don’t know about Dominique Dawes, the prodigy. And how being an elite gymnast at a very specific time created the adult she is today.
[AD]
AMIRA: When you set out to piece a puzzle together, the first thing you want to do is talk to the people involved. Unfortunately, Dominique Dawes’ agent politely declined our request for an interview. So, the tape you’ll hear of Dominique today comes from scattered interviews she’s done elsewhere. If you can picture me and my production team standing in front of a cork board filled with clippings from 90s issues of Inside Gymnastics magazine, plotting connections with red string, that’s basically what this is.
CLUE #1 - AGE
AMIRA: So, join me on the upper left side of our cork board, where our first clue is "Age". And more specifically, "Youth". Here’s Dominique from 2021 on WNYC’s The Takeaway.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I started the sport of gymnastics when I was six years old.
AMIRA: Age really matters when you’re trying to become an Olympic champion. If you want to make the team, you’ve got to “peak” at the right time – and the right age. So, six-year-olds like Dominique who show any kind of promise are immediately tracked and scouted for spots on competitive teams.
Kelli Hill (Archival): Oh, Dominique was about six years old the first time I met her...
AMIRA: That’s Kelli Hill, Dominique’s former coach, in a documentary called “Art of the Athlete” for FitTV.
Kelli Hill (Archival): And by the end of that summer, we had put her on pre-team, then moving up through the pre-team ranks, I had her training with all my older girls even though she was six and they were between twelve and sixteen...
AMIRA: In gymnastics, age also comes with all kinds of unique contradictions. On one hand, we’re talking about little girls who are preened to look like little girls. Of course, Nadia Comaneci’s husband knows:
Bart Conner (Archival): Many of the public see these pretty girls with bows in their hair and cute leotards and glitter in their makeup, and they somehow see a vulnerable young woman. And yet, these are tough, focused athletes.
AMIRA: In the 90s, the culture of gymnastics crafted that vulnerability on purpose. In our episode about Betty Okino, we heard about the brutal training practices and the prevalence of disordered eating. That combination delayed puberty. Which meant that many gymnasts looked younger than they actually were.
1994 US Nationals Narrator (Archival): But these fragile youngsters are always in a race against their own bodies. These bodies, trained for elegance and grace, are now under scrutiny. It's almost as if there's a hidden side to these powerful athletes…
AMIRA: It’s this contradiction that draws us in. Elite gymnastics is a very specific merging of super young girls and high risk in a semi-controlled environment. And it’s exciting!
Domique Dawes (Archival): What we are doing are very difficult maneuvers, even as an eight, nine and ten-year-old in the sport of gymnastics.
AMIRA: In 1992, Dominique Dawes was a very tiny fifteen-year-old. That was the year she started doing back-to-back tumbling passes in her floor routine - with no breaks to catch her breath. No other Americans were doing that at the time. And it earned her the name “Awesome Dawesome.”
NBC Announcer 1 (Archival): Dominique Dawes will be the first competitor we see on the floor exercise.
NBC Announcer 2 (Archival): Her first tumbling pass, it goes on forever.
NBC Announcer 3 (Archival): And everyone loves this one, this is such a crowd-pleaser. It's actually two in one.
NBC Announcer 4 (Archival): Watch what she does here: two whip backs in a row, she’ll continue through to a double twist...
NBC Announcer 5 (Archival): She continues on to a very difficult double back. That's a lot of tumbling!
NBC Announcer 3 (Archival): Very explosive. You wouldn't even know that she was injured. Wow.
NBC Announcer 1 (Archival): And a smile throughout the whole routine.
AMIRA: Audiences in the early 90s loved Dominique Dawes because she defied gravity - with a smile.
Kelli Hill (Archival): Are you having fun? OK!
Announcer 1 (Archival): She had a little shrug at the “having fun” question, but when she sees the score, I suspect she will be having more fun.
Domique Dawes (Archival): But it really wasn't fun. When I look back at my childhood, I was nervous every single day. I had tears almost every single day.
AMIRA: For Dominique, the pressure to be a champion was inescapable – she didn’t even get relief when she was winning.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): There is a focus on perfectionism and there is constant critique. And so you are always, at a young age, taught to strive for that perfect ten. And so as a young gymnast, you are groomed at a very young age to believe that you're never good enough.
AMIRA: The older Dominique got - and the closer she got to being the right age to make the 1992 Olympic team - the more pressure to fit into the sport’s idea of perfection increased.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I struggled with self-esteem for so many years, and it is a shame. If you reach success in the world's eyes and you still don't think you're good enough. And that is failure, and that is disappointment. And I experienced that for many, many years thinking that winning a gold medal or making history was going to make me love myself more.
AMIRA: Dominique Dawes’s Magnificent Seven teammate, Dominique Moceanu, felt this pressure very publicly. Her parents were both Romanian. They planned for her to be a gymnast when she was still in utero. Trained by the Karolyis, she was supposed to be the new face of American gymnastics – a natural champion who could make no mistakes.
Dominique Moceanu (Archival): That pressure that was put on me definitely made me so much more mature. At times it didn't like it, but I didn't understand it - and what you don't understand, you fear. And I think that's what it came down to. I was scared at times because I didn't know what all this was for.
AMIRA: The maturity brought on by putting young girls into high-pressure situations doesn’t mean that they become "adult" in the full sense of the word. The fact that they’re so young, in very high-risk situations, surrounded by adults with their reputations on the line, means that girls have no control over their lives.
Dominique Moceanu (Archival): We can't speak up because our Olympic dreams are held in these coaches’ hands. And these people are the most powerful people in USA Gymnastics, and they make the decisions: if you are put on a World Championship team, if you are put on an Olympic team, if you get an international assignment. Who wants to throw that away by speaking up?
CLUE #2 - WHITE SPORT
AMIRA: OK. Over in the top right corner of the corkboard is the second clue. And it’s something we’ve unpacked already in the series. Not only was Dominique very young in the late 80s and early 90s, she was also a Black girl in a super white sport.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And there is a certain look that they want in gymnastics - that European look, that lean, classical look - which is a look that I did not have.
AMIRA: While Betty Okino might have had “long lines,” Dominique was born with bow legs. Which made it seem like they were separated during her routines. And that’s usually a deduction.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): It's being told for so many years, “Your legs are not the shape that we want. Look over at that athlete, Shannon Miller. Those are the legs you're supposed to have.” Or if you had a little bit more of a bigger butt, you were going to get a deduction! They didn't have to always say it, but you knew it.
AMIRA: The early 90s were also a time when NBC displayed a gymnast’s age, height, and weight on screen next to their name before each event. So Dominique’s body was being judged not just by actual gymnastics judges, but by commentators and audiences who compared her body to Europeans. Then, when Dominique was about ten, Kelli Hill moved her gym to a bigger facility - further away from the Dawes family. Desperate to keep training, Dominique went to live with her white coach.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And the morning practices were starting and my mom was going to have to get up at 4:45 in the morning. And my mom did that for a while, but having three kids, my mom just didn’t want to do that anymore. So I ended up moving in with Kelli, with her husband Rick and her two boys, Ryan and Jason, and just kind of built another life with them as well as going home on the weekends with my parents.
AMIRA: You might be thinking: why would any kid do this? Why would they commit so hard to a sport full of immense pressure – to an unbalanced childhood away from their family? Dominique was driven – and she was fiercely independent.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And I think my parents maybe realized at a young age - that, you know what, she's kind of self-sufficient. She is a middle child. She'll figure it out on her own kind of thing. And they kind of let me be.
CLUE #3 – 1992
AMRIA: Okay so, age. White sport. The third clue - it’s tucked at the bottom of our cork board. It’s a crucial one. But it means stepping back from Dominique for a second to look at what was going on behind the scenes of her early success. First, there’s Dominique’s coach, Kelli Hill. She was famous at the time – for not being famous. She wasn’t a Bela Karolyi. She didn’t have any other elite gymnasts before Dominique. She’d never coached anyone to the Olympics.
Kelli Hill (Archival): It was terrifying. [laughs] And I knew she had it. I just didn't believe in myself as much as I believed in her. So, I didn't want to be the reason she didn't make it. I used to call our women's program director – her name is Kathy Kelly – and say, "If this kid doesn't make the Olympic team, it's my fault. Should I send her to Bela?” And Kathy kept saying, “No, no, no. You're doing fine. You're doing fine.”
AMIRA: Kathy Kelly didn’t have a clue what it took to train a prodigy for the Olympics. She was the “Director of Women’s Gymnastics” for USAG. But she’d never competed or coached herself.
JOAN RYAN: But as far as the 90s, what was shocking to me was that USA Gymnastics was like a mom and pop shop.
AMIRA: That’s Joan Ryan, author of Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, the book that details abusive training practices in figure skating and gymnastics in the late 80s and early 90s. It’s also the book that inspired the Lifetime movie of the same name.
JOAN RYAN: They had so much responsibility for all of these gymnasts, you know, male and female. But you talk to them on the phone and you talk to other people about it and you're like... “Are these people trained or have they had any education on any of this? Do they know what they're doing?”
AMIRA: In our last episode, we dug into the culture of gymnastics that USAG promoted. It was a culture they thought was necessary for molding teenagers into champions. And it led to the deaths of at least two gymnasts from the late 1980s. One from a vaulting accident and one from an eating disorder.
JOAN RYAN: You know, when something like this happens, USA Gymnastics, you know, the higher-ups say, “Well, where were the parents? The parents are the ones that are supposed to keep them safe." You know, "She could have walked out the door whenever she wanted! Parents, you could have gone in there and taken out your daughter. It's not our fault!”
AMIRA: So, these are the adults in charge - but not taking responsibility for their charges – leading up to the Olympic Games in 1992. Dominique Dawes placed fourth at Trials that year – at just fifteen years old. Dominique’s personal highlight from the 1992 Olympics is telling because it has almost nothing to do with gymnastics.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And I remember when we were in the Olympic Village, The Dream Team came up for a accreditations. And we ran over to their big bus, we lined up tallest to shortest, and Larry Bird stepped off the bus and told us young girls to come on and to meet them. And that was a highlight and that's something I'll never forget. Because as a gymnast, you normally don't have that Olympic experience. You normally don't stay in the Olympic Village, you don't go to opening ceremonies, you don't go to closing ceremonies. It's all a job.
AMIRA: Dominique Dawes and Betty Okino were the first Black gymnasts to get Olympic medals when the team took bronze. That team bronze was a disappointment to the American media. And to Bela Karolyi, who announced his retirement on live TV before the medal ceremony even started. (He was wrong. He’d be back – and in charge.)
JOAN RYAN: The gymnasts really did come under a lot of criticism and USA Gymnastics did... I think it was '92... where they were just so thin, and they looked hollow-eyed and so unhappy. Nobody smiled, you know, nothing.
AMIRA: At least one person took notice. Nancy Thies Marshall had been on the 1972 Olympic Team and served on USAG’s board of directors. During the cycle between the Olympics in Barcelona and the Games in Atlanta, Nancy started calling for investigations into eating disorders, injury, and abuse in elite gymnastics. So USAG made her the director of a new wellness program. Marshall designed a safety manual for athletes and parents that supposedly went out to gyms across the country and to everybody at USAG. According to Joan, it really seemed like change was happening.
JOAN RYAN: And she was trotted out at, you know, different conferences to talk about safe sport, that USA Gymnastics was ahead of everybody else in other sports because they had this manual and they understood they were dealing with children and, you know, so it did seem like things were getting some traction... only to discover that it was, you know, worse than ever.
[AD]
CLUE #4 – GLORY
AMIRA: Now, our fourth clue in the puzzle of who Dominique Dawes became: is glory. After following the threads from age, through race and the gymnastics federation, we arrive at the triumph of prodigies – and how adults capitalized on their successes.
1994 US Nationals Announcer 1 (Archival): And in a sport for the young, we have our relative oldster in the lead at the moment.
AMIRA: By the time Dominique got to the US National Championships in 1994, she was already seen as “gymnastics old".
1994 US Nationals Announcer 1 (Archival): Time is running out for seventeen-year-old Dominique Dawes. Could this be her final chance to win the U.S. all-around crown?
AMIRA: Dominique swept the competition. Like Dianne Durham before her, she won gold in the all-around. But also all four event finals. I mean, straight stuntin' on the young girls like Aunt Viv in that ballet class on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air."
1994 US Nationals Announcer 2 (Archival): Nobody quite performs a floor routine like Dominique Dawes.
1994 US Nationals Announcer 1 (Archival): Bouncing like a spring! That's why they call her Awesome Dawesome!
1994 US Nationals Announcer 2 (Archival): Almost tears from Dominique, tears of joy.
1994 US Nationals Announcer 1 (Archival): Floor exercise score: 9.925 - and that'll do it! Dominique Dawes will be the new U.S. all-around champion for the first time, defeating her rival, Shannon Miller.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): After winning the '94 championships in Tennessee, that put a lot of pressure on me. You know, I thought, “Oh, a championship - this is gonna be great! It's gonna put me on a high.”
AMIRA: That’s Dominique from the "Art of the Athlete" documentary again.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): It actually sent me into a low because there was so much pressure put upon me.
AMIRA: That pressure to be the best caused Dominique to think about leaving elite gymnastics for something else.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I signed a full scholarship at Stanford in 1994, and I'm kind of like, “Oh my gosh, if I would have made that decision...” – the trajectory of my life would have been quite different.
AMIRA: Her life - and the lives of so many other Black girls - would have been different if Dominique had gone to Stanford for gymnastics in 1994. She wouldn’t have been part of that Magnificent Seven in Atlanta. She wouldn’t be etched in our memories the way she is.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): But someone did get in my ear. They brought up the fact that there was an Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. I could become a professional athlete. We didn’t necessarily have a great deal of money. And so, when an agent approached me and said, you can make six figures like that and you would just have to do the sport that you loved, it was appealing for a minute. But it really was for me- what the driving force really was the impact I could make on those that looked up to me.
AMIRA: And so, Dominique went pro. She swept the National championships again in 1996. She placed first at the Olympic Trials and secured her ticket to Atlanta. She was the oldest member of the Mag Seven at nineteen years old.
1996 Team Final Announcer (Archival): Marching as to war! These seven little girls... and they are as cool as they can be. Game faces for all of them. A tremendous amount of pressure from this home field crowd.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): Right before marching out during those Olympic Games, I had a little bit of a breakdown. I was overwhelmed. I was dealing with a lot of self-doubt, anxiety, fear. You know it was very overwhelming and a great deal of pressure. And our team captain, Amanda Borden, knelt down and prayed with me and really helped me relax. And she was overwhelmed because she was like, “You've been to the Olympics before! You should be able to handle this pressure!”
1996 Team Final Announcer (Archival): Russia... The United States...
AMIRA: But this wasn’t just any old Olympics. First of all, it was happening in Atlanta, on American soil. The last time we hosted the Games was 1984, when Mary Lou Retton had won the all-around title. That turned the pressure up. And leading into the Games, there was a lot of talk about “the Summer of Women.” Basketball, soccer, and softball joined gymnastics as highly anticipated events featuring American women. This was the Title IX generation: the girls who had grown up with new opportunities in sport. They were ready to announce to the country - and the world - that women’s team sport had arrived. That turned the pressure way up. And while the other women’s sports were announcing their arrival, American gymnasts - coming off of the Olympic bronze in '92 - they were expected to win. The pressure was off the charts! And it was palpable.
1996 Team Final Announcer (Archival): And you are hearing the US Team being announced to this crowd, who are on their feet! Dominique Moceanu, Kerri Strug... Dominique Dawes, Amy Chow, Shannon Miller... Jaycie Phelps, Amanda Borden - they’re all here... And really for the first time in history, with a tremendous chance, the best chance they have had in history to win a gold medal.
AMIRA: Which of course, you know they did. Dominique Dawes rallied after her breakdown and helped the US team take home the gold.
1996 Team Final Announcer (Archival): The Russians are in tears.
AMIRA: A few days after the team competition, Dominique became the first Black woman to win an individual Olympic medal in gymnastics when she got bronze in the floor event finals. But individuals have a way of getting lost in watershed moments like this. Even Kerri Strug, who famously landed her second vault on an injury during the team finals, did what she did “for the team".
1996 Team Final Announcer (Archival): There she is with the rest of her six sisters who are all going to get gold medals in just a few moments. They worked together as a team perfectly. And they close it out as a team.
AMIRA: While the Mag Seen was hailed as the most diverse Olympic gymnastics team to represent America at the time, Dominique Dawes was the only Black woman. And the first Black gymnast to win Olympic gold. That’s why we connect her so strongly with 1996.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I'm not one to celebrate that much. So if you probably look back at the footage, I'm just smiling.
AMIRA: Meanwhile, Prince invited Dominique Dawes to be in his video for "Betcha By Golly Wow." She won an Essence award. And she finally started college at the University of Maryland. After the Games in Atlanta, gymnastics was huge in America’s public imagination. The Mag Seven appeared together on Wheaties boxes and they went on the Tour of Champions. And just like after 1992, Bela Karolyi retired… again. In 1997, the International Gymnastics Federation, known as FIG, raised their age limit by one year. Going forward, you’d have to turn sixteen to be eligible to compete at the senior international and Olympic level. An issue of USAG’s Technique magazine quoted FIG board members who said they’d been concerned about the connection between young gymnasts, injuries, and stunted growth and had pushed for an increase in the age limit since at least 1988. But it was Kerri Strug’s injury in Atlanta in 1996 that “renewed” their concerns. The age limit was only increased by a year – from fifteen to sixteen. But the article is full of hope from FIG members and doctors – including Larry Nassar – that that one year would make a huge difference in preserving gymnasts’ bodies and careers.
JOAN RYAN: And then, you know, the last few Olympics... they're bigger, they're stronger, they actually have some energy, they look like they're having a good time... They seem like a team and not just these individuals. I feel so much better just looking at them!
AMIRA: But… they were not okay.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): You know, I do respect and have a whole new appreciation for my teammate, Dominique Moceanu, who came out many, many moons ago in the 90s talking about the experience that she had. And no one wanted to hear it.
AMIRA: In 1998, Dominique Moceanu filed for emancipation from her parents just before she turned eighteen. She wanted control over her life, her career, and the money she made as an elite gymnast. In interviews, she outlined the Karolyi’s abusive training and her father’s physical abuse at home.
Dominique Moceanu (Archival): I lived at the Karolyi Ranch the summer before the '96 Olympics, and I can tell you that that place holds some of my darkest memories in the sport, unfortunately. There was the constant psychological abuse, the screaming and yelling of... just not being able to be perfect enough. And also, the threats of calling my father to enforce physical punishment... the humiliation and body shaming, regularly.
AMIRA: But no one wanted to hear it because the Mag Seven were champions. American gymnasts were finally bringing home respectable Olympic medals! Even Dominique Dawes didn’t pay much attention to Moceanu’s protests… at the time.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): Many people in the sport had said, "No, she's just bitter because she didn't get the attention following those Olympic Games." Now, I kind of listened to a number of individuals and thought, “Yeah, maybe she's bitter because someone else," you know, "took the platform or got more of the stardom.”
AMIRA: Remember that Dom trained with Kelli Hill, not the Karolyis. And according to USAG, whatever happened in gyms across the country or between parents and kids, none of that was their responsibility.
JOAN RYAN: Over and over and over again USA Gymnastics, you know, is doing it like right up until, like, now. You know? It’s not “their fault.” Nothing is “their fault.”
AMIRA: Bela Karolyi’s “second retirement” only lasted three years. American gymnasts hadn’t been winning as many international medals as expected, following such a solid performance in Atlanta. So, in 1999, USAG pulled Bela out of retirement and named him “National Team Coordinator.” They tasked him with crafting the next American Olympic champions. Junior and Senior gymnasts were now required to attend grueling training sessions at his Ranch every month. The brutality of life at the Ranch, or the immense pressure put on the girls, didn’t matter as long as our team was on top. Besides… they had the safety manual!
JOAN RYAN: But the national governing body didn't change... Bela Karolyi didn't change... It's one thing if you don't have the information... Everybody had the information! They knew exactly what the environment was like. They knew exactly what the Karolyis did. And they were like, “Yeah, let's put them in charge! That's a good idea!”
AMIRA: Meanwhile, Dominique had been out of gymnastics for about two years. And then…
Dominique Dawes (Archival): A little birdie got in my ear prior to the 2000 Olympic Games and said, “Hey, have you thought about a comeback?” That’s just in my nature to try to reach higher heights and to be very determined.
2000 National Championships Announcer (Archival): She came out of retirement, looked awesome at the training camp in June. And you know that Bela Karolyi would love a veteran with this experience for the team.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And I decided, "You know what, Let me get back out there in the gym and train." It was very challenging to come back at twenty-three years old. I'm glad I did.
AMIRA: After Sydney, Dominique retired - for real this time. At the time, her grandfather tried to convince her to open her own gym.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And I thought, “No, that is not how I want to live the next part of my life because I spent eighteen years in the gymnastics gym training, day in and day out – a full time job as a young person.
AMIRA: Instead, she finished college and starred as Missy Elliott’s gymnastics coach in the video for “We Run This” – a song off the "Stick It" soundtrack. Which, by the way, was a gymnastics movie that couldn’t be bothered to include any Black gymnasts but could apparently use Missy and Dominique as cultural capital. But I digress. Dominique Dawes went on to become President of the Women’s Sports Federation. Obama named her to his council on Fitness Sports and Nutrition. And in 2010, the American gymnasts that competed in Sydney were awarded team bronze. The Chinese team had been stripped of their medals, accused of age falsification. At the time, Dominique was making a living as a successful motivational speaker and it seemed like she was done with the sport for good - aside from a few appearances on the news during the Olympic cycles.
CLUE #5 – 2016
AMIRA: So, to review: Dominique Dawes started gymnastics the age of six, sacrificing her childhood to be a Black girl in a white sport, under the immense pressure that came with being a champion. Our last clue takes up a lot of space on the cork board – all those red strings pass through here. It’s the moment, starting in 2016, that hundreds of gymnasts began to speak out about abuses they experienced at the Karolyi Ranch and beyond.
JOAN RYAN: The fury that I felt when the Larry Nassar thing broke…
60 Minutes Narrator (Archival): He's charged with possession of child pornography and criminal sexual conduct involving the daughter of a family friend. Investigators were able to make the case against him because gymnasts went public after years of silence.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): Larry Nassar, someone that I knew near and dear for my whole career, and knew him as a friend and even worked closely with him the '96 Olympics and the 2000 Olympics.
60 Minutes Narrator (Archival): That's him right after Kerri Strug’s famous ankle injury in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Announcer 1: She’s being carried off by two of the medical technicians…
John Manly (Archival): I believe what- at the end of the day, there are members of every single Olympic team since 1996 he did this to. That's what we're gonna end up with. Because this is somebody who is a serial predator. But the story here is that no one was watching to protect these girls and they put medals and money first.
AMIRA: In 2018, Joan called Nancy Thies Marshall to ask, “Whatever happened to that safety manual you wrote for USAG back in the 90s?”
JOAN RYAN: And she said they cut her budget in half... Eventually that manual was, you know, in some dusty drawer somewhere never to be seen again.
AMIRA: After they got off the phone, Nancy sent Joan a copy of the manual from 1999.
JOAN RYAN: And I'm just flipping through the manual. And there it is...
AMIRA: Joan’s eyes land on the foreword. It’s full of praise for Marshall and for USAG for “enhancing our effectiveness as teachers, coaches, parents, administrators, and health care providers.” It was written by Larry Nassar.
JOAN RYAN: And I'm like, "God! How sick is that culture?" I mean, how perverse is that culture? How tone-deaf and blind are those people... that here is this guy writing about the safety and wellness of the gymnasts that he is sexually abusing?
Dominique Moceanu (Archival): It happened because there was a culture of psychological abuse going on rampant for thirty plus years he went unchecked because the Karolyis wanted to keep him around. He was Marta’s doctor because he said what she wanted to hear.
AMIRA: Like most of the Black gymnasts I’ve talked to from the 80s and early 90s, Dominique Dawes did not have a voice while she was in the sport. The culture of gymnastics at that time didn’t allow it. Even when she was a twenty-three-year-old on the 2000 Olympic team.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): In the beginning I... you know, I was very politically correct and I would say how great of an experience it was and how thankful I was with certain things in the sport... And then I started to wise up.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And so, when all of that came out and the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, emotional abuse, the verbal abuse, the fear, the control, the intimidation... I knew that this is my opportunity to change the culture of the sport of gymnastics, starting with my own kids and with today’s young generation of athletes.
AMIRA: It took tragedy to startle her into reality. But it also took being allowed to grow up. It took time to reflect and a safe place to reflect in. Gymnasts don't normally have that. They’re kept young and unprotected.
JOAN RYAN: And that's the most heartbreaking is that we're talking about children. All of this abuse started... whether it was, you know, physical, mental or sexual abuse while these girls were still children. And these girls, you know, these kids, have no recourse. There is absolutely no safety net for them.
AMIRA: But Dominique is interesting because she’s not just focused on the tragedy. She’s focused on the future and what else is possible for children in gymnastics. Especially her own.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I have a different perspective of my experiences now that I’m a mother. I want something different.
LEGACY
AMIRA: So, at the center of our cork board, where all the strings intersect, we find the legacy that Dominique wants to be known for - beyond being a member of the Magnificent Seven, and much more than just a second sentence to say about her. Today, Dominique is opening recreational gyms in Maryland because she wants to give all four of her kids the childhoods that she didn’t have. Childhoods that aren’t colored by fear, injury, pressure, or work.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): And so, part of me, to be honest, part of me as a forty-three-year-old mother, I weep you know for my younger self.
AMIRA: But…she also wants her kids to have access to gymnastics. For Dominique, it’s not gymnastics that’s the problem.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): I don't regret that I chose gymnastics because I wouldn't be where I'm at today. I wouldn't have learned from those painful moments that have driven me to my passion and purpose today.
AMIRA: As of this recording, Dominique’s gyms are not registered with USAG - and that is completely on purpose. For her, the real problem is the institution that allowed adults to chew kids up and spit them out.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): They still need to make changes with their federation. For me, as a mom of four kids, I don't feel comfortable having that federation as my lead. And so we don't have a competitive program...
AMIRA: What Dominique is doing is pretty unique among formerly elite gymnasts. Even Dominique Moceanu owns a gym - and her gym is registered with USAG. But Dawes wants a different legacy. Particularly, a different legacy for little Black girls like she once was. And recently, in celebration of Black History Month, Dominique announced the opening of a second facility.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): This is the thing - my facility is not focused on building Olympic champions. So, I'm not about trying to find the next Simone Biles or the next Dominique Dawes, or the next Gabby Douglas.
AMIRA: If building Olympic champions means breaking kids along the way, then Dominique Dawes is not interested.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): These young athletes need to have inner voices that they trust, that they hear, and that they’re guided by. And it should not be this very controlled environment based on fear, based on silence and based on intimidation. And that's what it was about back then.
Daisy (Voicemail): I feel like because I grew up loving Dominique Dawes. Then I was very like protective as a fan of people like Gabby Douglas.
Monica (Voicemail): You know, I saw a tweet once that said that, you know, "Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles are Dominique’s children." And I think that that's very true. When I saw Gabby, when I see Simone, I think of Dominique. I think of how proud they are making her.
Monique (Voicemail): The growth that happens when a young girl can see herself in someone. And if you can see how it's grown on the Collegiate side to bring the culture and how they perform, I do believe it will grow more.
Daisy (Voicemail): It really it will always be Dominique Dawes. She will always be the first one I think of - which is great, I love that. And I'm glad that so many other people remember her. She's fantastic.
CREDITS
AMIRA: This episode of American Prodigies was reported and hosted by me, Amira Rose Davis. Story editing and production by Jessica Luther. Thanks to everyone who left us voicemails about Dominique: Daisy, Monica, Megan, Monique, and Zachary. 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 former gymnast and current judge, Jasmine Swyningan.
JASMINE SWYNINGAN: One thing that my experience in gymnastics has taught me is to just really grasp onto the things that make you feel good and hold on to the things that you're passionate about so that you can kind of grit your teeth and get through the rest of the shit that you have to deal with.
AMIRA: Search "Blue Wire" in Apple Podcasts for access to all the extended interviews. It's free for the first seven days. Subscribe today. This episode featured archival audio from NBC, ABC, Fox, "60 Minutes", FitTV, WNYC, "MoCo’s Most Famous", and "What’s Up Cuz". 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. And we had research help from Shwetha Surendran, Mariam Khan, and Mary Mathis. American Prodigies is executive produced by Peter Moses and Jon Yales.
POST-CREDIT JOY
AMIRA: Dominique swept the competition, getting the gold in the all-around and all four event finals. Take that, you young bitches! Sorry I can’t say that. Stuntin' on the youngin's! You can say that.