Roethlisberger ends at peace

The U.S. gymnast who gave the sport his all retires without a medal but with respect.

By JOHN ROMANO

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 19, 2000

SYDNEY, Australia -- John Roethlisberger gave up on a lifelong ambition Monday. A dream he chased across continents and decades. And once he got past the tears, he fell into a chair and talked about gratitude.

You see, somewhere along the line, Roethlisberger came to understand that the beauty was in the pursuit. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, the ruby slippers were always there for him. Sometimes the meaning just got obscured by the illusion that success is betrothed to winning.

Roethlisberger is a three-time Olympic gymnast who has never won a medal. That legacy was assured Monday when the U.S. men's team finished a disappointing fifth. This was the year the men supposedly could win their first team medal since 1984, but their opportunity slipped away in a succession of missteps and falls.

When it was over, coach Peter Kormann gathered the team for a brief talk near the horizontal bar. But Roethlisberger ended up addressing teammates who were 8 when he made his first Olympic team.

"I told them that they had my pride and respect. And that they may not realize it right now, but having the respect of your opponents and your peers is the most you can ever hope for," Roethlisberger said. "Respect can be harder to achieve than an Olympic medal.

"We wanted to win a medal. We wanted to win it for ourselves, but we wanted to win it more for our country. I hope America is proud of this team because they represent everything that is good about sports, about teams, about our country. I'm sorry we did not get it done, but I am not ashamed about what we did. I am not going to be depressed on the last day of my gymnastics career."

And so it was done. A man born into the sport -- his father, Fred, was on the '68 Olympic team and was training John when the son was 2 -- walked away from it with a mixture of wisecracks and platitudes.

"I don't have to go to the gym tomorrow. For the first time in my life, I'm not in training," Roethlisberger said. "I will never be in world-class shape again. I'll have to think about that when I walk to McDonald's tonight and order a Big Mac."

If there was a plot to Roethlisberger's career, it was the devotion he gave to the sport. No one -- no one! -- ever spent as much time in the gym. He was not the most gifted gymnast, but he was fanatical about training. It was the way young gymnasts on the national team were threatened -- fool around during a practice session and you'll do Roethlisberger's workout routine.

He did not win world championships or Olympic titles, but he was always on the outskirts of international competition. For the past dozen years, Roethlisberger has been among the best in America at his vocation. Who among us can claim that?

"John moved our program up five notches, in my mind," Kormann said. "He made guys believe that they could win, and that was the problem we had for a long time. We had guys who did not believe the U.S. could do it. John is the one who made them believe they could. That will be his legacy."

Kormann announced after the competition that he will retire as the U.S. coach Oct. 1 and began pushing Roethlisberger for the job. Roethlisberger politely made it clear he was not interested.

At age 30, he said, it is time to tackle other challenges. He lives in a suburb of Minneapolis and joked about buying the Vikings, soliciting donations from reporters surrounding him. Otherwise, Roethlisberger was vague about his plans.

Instead he talked about his final hours as a competitor. He finished seventh all-around in '96, but he was no longer a threat for those honors. He did not do all six events Monday and did not qualify for individual competition this week.

He said it was important for him to go out on a strong note, and that is precisely what he did, on the horizontal bar, his final apparatus. He nailed his landing and was given a 9.737 by the judges. If this had been individual competition, that score would have placed him fourth -- a hair away from the medal he would never win.

"It crept into my mind a few times, and I could literally feel the emotion coming up in my throat," Roethlisberger said of the finale. "At the end, I didn't want to leave the floor. I took a moment and looked around and realized a big chapter of my life just closed. My first gymnastics performance was at (the University of Minnesota's) Williams Arena when I was 3 years old with my dad and sister. We did the halftime show for the Gopher basketball game.

"This is quite a big circle I've come through. To fold up my grips and throw them in my bag the last time, take off the goofy uniform for the last time, is pretty emotional."

After he dismounted from the horizontal bar, Roethlisberger saluted the judges and turned toward the stands. He appeared to blow a kiss to a crowd that barely noticed. Or maybe he was just saying goodbye to a sport that always embraced him.

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