10-year-old nails landing among the nation's elite
Emily Brown has wowed coaches and opponents by beating much older competition.
By ALEX SCHELLDORF
Published August 27, 2003
SPRING HILL - Emily Brown is a raging bull.
That's how the gold-winning gymnast from Spring Hill described herself.
"I have to get mad at the vault," said Brown, 10.
She said her coaches teach her to be "strong like a bull" and to focus her anger on the competition to perform better.
Brown got her start in gymnastics at an early age. Her mother, Tracey, was invited by a friend to try a free gymnastics class.
Beth Strazzullo, owner of Top Contenders Gymnastics Academy in Hudson, where Brown trains, said Brown and her mother "came for the free class and never left."
It was apparent Brown was gifted from the start. Strazzullo said she excelled and won competitions even in toddler classes.
But Brown was not allowed to join a team until she was 5.
"She wanted (to be on the team) so bad she cried for it," Tracey said.
When she was allowed to join the team, Brown skyrocketed to the top.
She joined the squad in July 1998. By September she was competing, and in December she won the first of two AAU Level 2 state championships.
Strazzullo has trained Brown from the start and has witnessed each of her accomplishments. Brown sees Strazzullo as a second mom and Top Contenders as a second home. When Tracey had to work or was not available to take care of her, Strazzullo took over parenting duties.
"It's hard to look at her as anything but my own child," Strazzullo said.
Tracey said she realized her daughter had special skills when Brown was around Level 4.
As a Level 4 in 1999 Brown won the state championship and a silver medal at the Junior Olympics. In 2000 she won another state championship.
She continued her rise in 2001 and '02, racking up two more state championships.
And 2003 may have been her best year. Brown, a Level 7, competed in the 2003 AAU Junior Olympics as a Level 9. She won the national gold medal in the balance beam in a level dominated by gymnasts as much as 7 and 8 years older.
Perhaps the largest accomplishment for Brown at the Junior Olympics in Detroit was her final standing. In the overall competition she placed fourth with a score of 33.40.
"When she won 4th, I cried like a baby," Tracey said.
Of Brown's gold medal and fourth overall standing Strazzullo said, "I was floored."
But it's the people and the camaraderie that keeps Brown coming back to Top Contenders. She looks up to her teammates.
"I want to be just like them," Brown said.
Teammate Bianca Nemes, 18, said Brown does gymnastics for her own reasons and that no one else is pushing her to do something she does not want to do.
"She's dedicated," Nemes said. "She sees it as fun. She wants to do it."
Strazzullo says she has high hopes for Brown. "She's on her way to the Olympics."
