My Brush with Olympic Fame
Memories of covering Penn State's men's gymnastics team and the 1998 NCAA National Championships at the Bryce Jordan Center
I don’t know if it’s just my wife, but it seems like everyone’s interest in gymnastics is having its usual four year bump in popularity thanks to the Paris Olympic Games.
Yes, Simone Biles is amazing and a truly gifted athlete, but there’s a part of me that thinks Mrs. Lennon might also be enjoying taking in the sight of those V-shaped torsos and big, strong shoulders of the male gymnasts, like Stephen Nedoroscik, the U.S.’s bronze medalist on the pommel horse.
I watched his routine, as well as that of gold medalist Rhys McClenaghan, of Ireland. And while it may look like he’s about to deliver your afternoon newspaper, when Nedoroscik’s glasses come off, he quite literally turns into a Superman. Albeit, one who can’t see very well unless he squints.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Stephen Nedoroscik performing on the pommel horse during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. / Source: NBC.com
Nedoroscik, 25, a graduate of Penn State, competed for the Nittany Lions men’s gymnastics team from 2017-2020. During that time, he also won the 2020 Nissen-Emery Award, which is essentially the Heisman Trophy of men’s gymnastics.
And that’s where Nedoroscik and I have something in common.
No, I’m not a strapping, muscle-bound, lithe, award-winning gymnast who can magically spin my legs and feet above my head while balancing on one arm. I can barely get off the floor these days!
But back in the spring of 1998, while a cub reporter for The Daily Collegian, Penn State’s student-run daily newspaper, I was assigned as the beat reporter for the men’s gymnastics team.
Granted, it wasn’t the most hotly sought after team to cover that spring, but at least it wasn’t fencing!1 And as with anything in life: you get out of it what you put into it.
The cool part about covering gymnastics that semester, other than being surrounded by men in tights, was the fact Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center had been chosen to host the 1998 NCAA Gymnastics Championships.
That’s right! Not only would I be covering Penn State’s gymnastics team, but the national championships as well.2
What this also meant was that while everyone else’s seasons were winding down at the end of the semester, Mr. Journalism 101 here had to pump out daily pieces previewing the championships, the top teams, and top gymnasts contending that year.
Covering the championships was one of my crowning achievements from my time at Penn State, and was a real resume builder.
In fact, I used a number of my gymnastics clips I wrote at Penn State to send in with my resume for the first newspaper job I applied for at the Fauquier Times-Democrat, in Warrenton, Va. I got the job!
Here’s a piece I wrote about the NCAA championships:
https://www.psucollegian.com/archives/jordan-center-lures-ncaa-gymnastics-back-east/article_8e83c77f-55c4-548d-9655-82204a38b2b4.html
The most important person to any success I had on my beat that semester was Penn State’s head coach, Randy Jepson. Although a big shout-out also needs to go to Geoff Mosher, my editor in the sports department.3
Jepson graduated from Penn State in 1983 and started coaching for the Nittany Lions immediately, first as a graduate assistant, then as an assistant coach. By 1998, the year I met him, he had already been the head coach for the Lions since 1992. Some team coaches, Joe Paterno was still on the sidelines back then, were not always so forthcoming and welcoming to reporters, even those students writing for The Daily Collegian. Another coach whose tough reputation preceded her was, Lady Lions basketball coach Rene Portland.
Coach Jepson was the complete opposite. A perfect gentleman.
He always remembered my name! He didn’t have to, but he always greeted me by first name. Even that summer following the season, when I was taking a volleyball class in Rec Hall, where his office was located, we passed each other, and he remembered my name, and said hello.
He always made sure to be available after a meet, so I could get a comment for my story, and he always made three or four of the gymnasts come over to speak with me as well. He led by example.
Here’s a story I wrote about Miles Avery, head coach for Ohio State:
https://www.psucollegian.com/archives/gymnastics-coach-puts-spring-back-in-buckeyes-step/article_4870dbe1-1ddb-5b80-9643-b81d3c227704.html
Miles Avery, the head coach for Ohio State men’s team and member of the 1998 U.S. Olympic coaching staff, and who would eventually go on to be a coach of the U.S. Olympic staffs at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, also could not have been nicer to me.
As you would imagine, it can be nerve-racking for a twenty-something idiot kid reporter to call up a head coach in another state, let alone one of his school’s biggest rivals.
Would he rush me off the phone? Would he give me the dreaded one-word answers? These are all the thoughts that go through a reporter’s head as he prepares to call his source.
Here’s a story I wrote about Roy Malka, a Penn State gymnast from Isreal:
https://www.psucollegian.com/archives/malka-is-real-about-life-after-lion-career/article_1f59fa19-8585-5c45-9ee7-a08725a8171d.html
But Avery put me at such ease, that I still remember us having a nice, long conversation one spring afternoon. It was a good interview, and I remember thinking to myself after hanging up with him, I might be able to do this journalism thing.
It was only after working as a professional journalist that I really learned most people, especially public figures, would rather step in dog-doo than speak with journalists, and will do anything to avoid, bully or mislead them, including one public school superintendent I had to deal with while working at the Times-Democrat.
Coach Jepson, who is still coaching at Penn State, wasn’t only training gymnasts. He was training young journalists too.
I guess a good coach just can’t help themselves.
That spring, the fencing team was the beat of Donnie Collins. Collins is currently a sports writer (he may be the last one remaining) at our local newspaper, The (Scranton, Pa.) Times-Tribune.
I still remember being somewhat star-struck when Bart Conner, a member of the 1984 U.S. men’s gold medal team, popped into the media catering room.
Geoff would go on to a journalism career that includes working at daily newspapers, hosting sports radio shows, and television. He founded his own media company, Inside The Birds, LLC, which covers the Philadelphia Eagles.