Whatever it Takes
January 22, 2010 12:12 PM | General
By Steve Stone for MSNsportsNET.com
January 22, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University gymnast Chelsi Tabor is one of the best vaulters in the East Atlantic Gymnastics League, gradually improving each season to reach what she hopes is the pinnacle of her career.
What might separate her from several of her competitors, however, is not necessarily her routine, but the inner drive she possesses to be the best. The Beckley, W.Va., native can be a thorn in her own side, sometimes feeling that her performances that might look great to others are just good in her opinion.
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| Chelsi Tabor has been performing on the vault since her senior year in high school.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Simply put – she is a competitor. When you finish your junior season tying for the EAGL vault title, the expectations are heightened for an even better senior season.
“I’ve always been like that,” Tabor said of being hard on herself. “No matter how I do, I want to do the best. I was on different sports in high school, and the one team I was on was bad, but I still wanted to win states and I knew it was never going to happen. With gymnastics, I set my standards high because I know what I can do. Being an EAGL champion has something to do with that. Now I have to live up to it.”
Whether it’s on the vault or in any other realm, Tabor won’t stop until she comes out on top. She’ll even do it at the expense of others making fun of her, which she half-heartedly takes pride in.
“I’ve always been a competitive person. I’m a Phys. Ed major and I go into class and play to win. All the guys make fun of me, but it’s always a competition,” Tabor said with a laugh.
Last season, Tabor’s standout vault routine was on display in just about every meet. In 12 meets, the former Woodrow Wilson High standout scored below 9.8 just once, setting a standard that many vaulters across the country can only envy.
However, her senior season started slowly (in her opinion). In West Virginia’s meet against Penn State, Western Michigan and Michigan State, she tied for ninth in her main event with a 9.7, a shade below what she is accustomed to scoring.
But as great competitors do, Tabor worked diligently inside the confines of Cary Gym to make sure she did the little things right, with the emphasis of sticking her landing. She came back to score a 9.8, tying for first place and helping West Virginia to a victory over Pitt and Kent State.
“I wasn’t pleased at all with how I vaulted the first meet,” Tabor admitted. “I got back into the gym and busted my rear to get better. I know what I have to do to keep my rankings going the whole year. I hope it carries. This last meet definitely gave me confidence.”
Tabor’s confidence in running at full speed and contorting her body in mid-air started her senior year of high school. From the time she started taking gymnastics seriously, she knew that although she’d like to try other events, her crown jewel was the vault.
“Vault kind of clicked for me my senior year in high school,” Tabor mentioned. “I started running harder and understood that I had to go aggressive in order to do the vault I wanted to do. It’s been the event that clicked, more so than the other ones my senior year.”
Building enough courage to attempt such a daunting event can be different. Someone who wants to learn to play tennis can pick up a racket and do so without any real danger, as is the case for other mainstream sports like basketball, baseball or even hockey.
But in gymnastics, when one is trying to learn a risky event like the vault, it takes countless hours of practice before even attempting to go up several feet in the air and coming down properly.
“The very first time I ever did vault I got a zero because I was too small to get on the horse. I’ve come a long way,” Tabor insisted. “The vault I do now, the first time I attempted it was my senior year, and it was scary. I was looking at a stationary object and somehow you have to flip your body and twist and go in the air. But now, it’s just like second nature.”
As one of four seniors leaders, along with Shelly Purkat, Kiersten Spoerke and Ashley Wilson, Tabor is a true anchor to this year’s team. Much of West Virginia’s success will be attributed to her performance, especially if she eventually sees time on the beam or the floor.
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| Tabor shows off her West Virginia pride after a successful meet in her junior season.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“I would like to see action in the beam and floor before I’m done,” Tabor said. “I try hard to push for a spot on the beam every week and I know I can hit but I want everyone else to have confidence in me before I’m out there on the floor. If I have to do a billion routines in practice to get that, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Before she attempts to multi-task her routines, Tabor admits that she must become acclimated to her new role as a senior. Since she began as a freshman in the 2007 season, she has always been guided by her veteran predecessors. Now it is her turn to become a teaching tool for the incoming freshmen.
“Every year you build yourself up, and now all of the sudden you’re the backbone of the team,” Tabor said astonished. “It’s crazy for me to think that the seniors and juniors now hold the team together. Of course, the sophomores and freshmen do too, but we kind of lead them.”
Aside from doing whatever it takes to succeed in the gym, Tabor is just as versatile away from gymnastics. She is an avid bowler, admitting that she bowled a personal-best 150 with her mother last Sunday. The former Junior Olympic team member also shows no preference for music and enjoys dancing whenever the time is right.
So it is nearly guaranteed that after she set a career-high 9.925 on vault in her sophomore season against North Carolina, the outgoing gymnast was unleashing some dance moves. She believes she can attain that score once again, and also has faith in her team the rest of the way.
“We have to figure out how to take our practices into the Coliseum and be able to perform under pressure,” Tabor insisted. “I think we’ll be fine. We have the whole season to build and if we peak now – and we don’t want to do that – then we can go one week at a time or one meet at a time and get better.”
As the WVU gymnastics team moves forward in its quest for a seventh EAGL championship and a fifth appearance at nationals, it will need the inner strength that Tabor carries in order to accomplish its goals. Doing whatever it takes to come out on top, the accomplished senior is looking to make her fourth and final season her best yet.
