THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 1, 1996 TAG: 9609010069
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 145 lines
In the wake of Bela Karolyi and Kerri Strug comes a local lawsuit that asks: How far can gymnastic coaches push young girls before discipline turns into abuse?
Three mothers have sued Gymstrada Gymnastic School, accusing coaches at the highly rated school of emotionally abusing young girls by forcing them to perform while hurt, calling them belittling names and using demeaning punishments.
The lawsuit was filed last month in Virginia Beach Circuit Court, just two weeks after Kerri Strug became a national symbol - hero to some, victim to others - for vaulting to a gold medal with a sprained ankle.
The Beach lawsuit accuses Gymstrada, owner Jeb Tolley and coaches James Walker, Deena Baker-Walker and Margie Cunningham of assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress.
The three girls are 11, 12 and 13 years old. The incidents described allegedly happened from 1994 until this year.
The case is a local microcosm of the national debate over how to discipline young female gymnasts and figure skaters.
The three mothers say their daughters have been emotionally scarred. ``It's just abuse, clear-cut,'' said one mother, Cherri Davis of Chesapeake, mother of Andrea, 13. ``The mental and emotional games that they played with them, it's all abuse and it needs to be stopped.''
Each mother seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
The school's owner and coaches say the girls were trained hard but were never abused, physically or emotionally. They say the most serious allegations of name-calling and physical punishments never happened.
They also note that Gymstrada has been open since 1973 and has students from more than 1,000 families, yet this is the first lawsuit of its kind against the school on Parliament Drive. ``We have lots of happy parents and lots of happy kids,'' Baker-Walker says.
Gymstrada's owner and coaches blame the lawsuit on disgruntled, pushy parents.
``Everything in there is taken out of context,'' Walker says. ``This lawsuit is about one thing: six figures (damages). That's what this is about.''
Tolley adds: ``I just think there's a lot of pettiness in this. These people could have quit anytime they wanted. . . . I just feel like it's a very needless lawsuit. There's just nothing to it.''
Gymstrada's attorney, Allen W. Beasley, says he probably will file a counterclaim against the mothers for defamation and interfering with the gym's business.
The mothers say their lawsuit is not about money. All three - Nancy Moore of Virginia Beach, mother of Bethany, 12; Regina Petrin of Poquoson, and Davis - say they want to stop abusive techniques.
``I think it's OK to push little girls,'' says the mothers' attorney, Thomas B. Shuttleworth. ``But it's not OK to push them around.''
The lawsuit contains a long, detailed list of accusations. It claims, among other things, that:
One girl had to stand on a barrel with her arms over her head for more than an hour. Gymstrada says this never happened, that it would be physically impossible.
The same girl was forced to stand with her nose against a pole. Gymstrada says this is a form of time-out punishment for girls who are disrespectful or rude.
All three girls were called names during training, including ``retard,'' ``worthless,'' ``sorry excuse for a gymnast,'' ``loser,'' ``pathetic'' and ``anorexic.''
Gymstrada says these incidents never happened, that coaches do not call gymnasts names. ``We don't yell a lot. We coach a lot,'' Walker says. He says one girl was called ``Frank'' - short for ``Frank Perdue'' - not to belittle her, but as a joke to break the ice and make her less nervous during a routine.
One girl was not allowed to go to the bathroom and wet herself.
Coaches told one girl that the only good gymnast is an orphan. They told another girl and her parents that a gym full of orphans ``would be a coach's dream come true.'' Walker says that never happened.
One girl tore a tendon in her foot and had a doctor's note advising her to stay off it, yet the coaches yelled at her and forced her to work out. In another case, the same girl injured her ankles and feet at a meet, then the coaches yelled at her for not completing certain moves.
Baker-Walker says the school goes to great lengths to help gymnasts, physically and emotionally. She says she works with a psychologist and a nutritionist, and in one case she helped discover a girl's spinal problem. In that case, she says, a chiropractor worked on the girl at the school for free.
``We take pride in taking care of our athletes,'' Baker-Walker says.
One girl told coaches she had to finish her homework before she could practice, but the coaches yelled at her if she was still doing homework when practice began. As a result, she stopped doing homework before gym, then also stopped doing it at home, fearing that her parents would be angry. Her grades dropped, and the coaches told her parents they should do her homework for her.
``Coaches were obsessed with gymnastics, and they did not care at all about the school work of the gymnasts,'' the lawsuit says.
But Tolley, the gym's owner, says that is ridiculous. ``How can we keep them from doing their homework? We do have a homework room,'' Tolley says.
The mothers who sued say their daughters' personalities changed after a time at Gymstrada. They say their daughters became weepy or sullen, or stopped wanting to practice.
``It changed from being a happy, feel-good sport that boosted her self-esteem to a very negative experience,'' Davis says.
One mother says she expected Gymstrada coaches to be tough. The school has produced several top-notch gymnasts, notably Alexis Brion, 13, who ranks No. 2 in the country among junior international elites.
``I want the coaches to be firm. I don't want it to be a play time,'' says Regina Petrin, mother of Desire', 11. ``But we're talking about yelling, screaming, crying tears.''
All three mothers say their girls are at other schools now and are happier. ``This yelling and screaming does not go on at other gyms,'' Petrin says.
Gymstrada's owner, however, says he cannot understand why the parents did not come to him sooner. He says they were not bound by contracts and could have left at any time.
He noted that one student was driven virtually every day from Poquoson to Virginia Beach - a 50-minute trip - for the chance to learn at Gymstrada.
``If they had problems, why didn't they come to us and talk?'' Tolley asked.
The coaches say they blame pushy parents who never seemed happy with their children's progress. They say the school has a long history of turning out champions with proven methods.
``They're just pushy parents - push, push, push, push, push,'' Walker said.
The mothers say they sued because they did not expect to get satisfaction from the sport's national body.
``I don't like the fact that they're promoting themselves as a family center and all these things were going on,'' Moore says. ``I don't want these coaches to be around children anymore.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot
Gymstrada Gymnastic School in Virginia Beach has produced several
top-notch gymnasts.
Graphics
AMONG THE MOTHERS' ALLEGATIONS
That the girls were called demeaning names such as ``worthless''
and ``pathetic,'' that one was forced to stand on a barrel with her
hands over her head for an hour, and that one was forced to work out
even though she had a doctor's note recommending that she stay off
an injured foot.
WHAT GYMSTRADA SAYS
The girls were trained hard but were never abused, physically or
emotionally. The owner and coaches say the most serious allegations
of name-calling and physical punishments never happened. ``They're
just pushy parents,'' one coach said.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUITS GYMNASTICS ABUSE by CNB