Campus Life Gives Hamm A Sense Of Normalcy – Ohio State Buckeyes
6/27/2005 12:00:00 AM | General, Men's Gymnastics
June 27, 2005
By Jeff Rapp
Buckeye Sports Bulletin
“I’m suffering,” Paul Hamm told me when asked about his hectic schedule, but one look at his ideal gymnast physique, the contented smile on his face and the wink of his eye said differently.
Hamm, to be sure, was kidding because if there is one theme to his life right now other than walking planet Earth as the reigning Olympic all-around champion, it’s that he’s a student again — specifically a student at huge and sometimes humbling Ohio State.
And that’s the way he likes it.
“I’m really enjoying it,” he said. “I’m having a great time, and it’s a change from last year when I was just doing gymnastics. I feel more like a normal person again. I kind of enjoy that.”
Hamm’s experiences last August were anything but normal. Competing in the Summer Olympics in Athens for Team USA along with his twin brother, Morgan, and ex-Buckeye Blaine Wilson, Paul’s medal hopes appeared dashed when he tumbled so out of control off the vault he practically landed in the laps of the judges. Rallying from 12th place after four events, he still managed to claim the all-around title in dramatic fashion, sticking his landing after a picturesque high bar routine.
The drama continued in the days following as officials admitted erroneously docking South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-Young one-tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars. The difference would have been enough for Yang to earn the gold and several people called for Hamm to give it back.
However, the Court of Arbitration for Sports dismissed the appeal, allowing Hamm to become the first American ever to win Olympic all-around gold.
Perhaps in part to prove it wasn’t a fluke but more likely because he’s just not ready to give up the sport he cherishes so dearly, the 22-year-old Hamm is now setting his sights on Beijing in 2008, as is Morgan. If they make it, they’ll become the very rare athletes to participate in three Olympiads (they also competed in 2000).
Their commitment includes daily workouts at OSU’s Steelwood facility with their Olympic coach, Miles Avery, and his Ohio State assistant, Doug Stibel. Olympic alternate and former Buckeye Raj Bhavsar also is a frequent guest. Wilson now lives in Los Angeles but comes in to train with the group when he can.
In addition to the grind at Steelwood, Paul and Morgan have been full-time OSU students since the beginning of winter quarter in January.
“When they said they wanted to train here, we talked about an education and it became immediately apparent to me that they were serious about being students,” Avery said. “They want to graduate and they want to graduate with honors.”
After a Memorial Day workout on a deserted campus, Paul said he was finishing a spring quarter that featured 19 credit hours. A finance major, he wants to keep up the pace to graduate well before the next Olympics.
Morgan, who is chasing a degree in exercise science, took 20 hours in the spring. Older sister Betsy is a graduate of Iowa State, where she was on the gymnastics team.
“Education has always been an important part of my life, and my family is into education as well,” Paul said. “I just enjoy learning, becoming smarter and more knowledgeable.”
Steady, Quiet Approach
Paul Hamm is a diminutive 5-6 and 137 pounds, but it’s amazing how powerfully he performs — and how easily he can stay in the shadows.
When he goes to practice, he passes nameless buildings below West Campus to isolated Steelwood, which was once a warehouse. While traipsing around Main Campus some people recognize him. Most don’t.
His story — which, of course, is shared with Morgan — also has humble beginnings but is as All-American as his never-say-die attitude and apple-pie demeanor.
The twins remember always wanting to flip around and having an immediate affinity for gymnastics, even performing makeshift routines on the family farm in Waukesha, Wis. Their love of the sport was cultivated by their father, Sandy, once a nationally ranked diver in high school.
“My dad did do a lot of things to help us along the way,” Paul said. “He’d help us find things to practice on.
“My uncle was a gymnast and he had a pommel horse when he was younger. This thing had been sitting in my grandparents’ back yard rotting for decades, but my dad refinished it for us.”
Sandy added foam padding and used leather upholstery from a car. He also turned an old stairway railing into parallel bars, hung some rings in the attic and even set up a trampoline in the barn.
By 13, the Hamms clearly were something special and had set their sights on making the Sydney Olympics in 2000. They did, becoming the youngest male gymnasts in the entire field.
Paul kept pushing the limits, breaking his buddy Wilson’s five-year reign at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships and winning the all-around in the 2003 world championships, becoming the first American to do so. Then, of course, came the gold-medal performance that highlighted the Olympics, which was met with immediate fanfare.
Paul was whisked away from Athens directly to New York City to appear on CBS’s “The Late Show with David Letterman” then on to CNN, NBC’s “The Today Show,” and a lengthy West Coast media tour.
“I went out to L.A. for a little while and did Ellen DeGeneres, Jay Leno, like `Good Day Live,’ a VH-1 show — I forget. It was a lot,” he said.
Paul even became a heartthrob, joining Morgan on People Magazine’s “50 Hottest Bachelors” list.
Much of that has subsided but the sports world showed its appreciation of Hamm in April as he was named the winner of the annual Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete. He outpointed the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart, fellow champion gymnast Carly Patterson, wrestler Cael Sanderson and swimmer Michael Phelps, the previous winner.
Paul put the award above the fireplace in the nearby Upper Arlington apartment he shares with Morgan.
The only other gymnast to win the Sullivan, which dates back to 1930 and is named after Amateur Athletic Union founder James E. Sullivan, is Kurt Thomas in 1979. No Buckeye, not even Jesse Owens, has won the award.
The luminous and somewhat infamous gold medal is tucked away in a drawer until Hamm finds a more secure spot for it.
As Hamm changes classes, Ohio State is blessed with a gold medalist, Sullivan Award winner and heralded hunk trolling campus, yet there is no parade in sight, no visible aura around him — only a few hellos and occasional autograph requests from well-wishers.
And that’s the way he likes it.
“Deep down,” Hamm said, “I feel like I’m the same old person that I was growing up my whole life, so it’s weird sometimes to me to see other people reacting to me in certain ways because I don’t see myself that way. Over time I’m getting used to it little by little.”
“Personally, I think it’s a good thing,” said Morgan, who often is described as the more outgoing of the two. “I like it because people are coming up to us and congratulating us on what we did and how we represented the country. They’re not coming up to us and saying bad things, so it feels good to be recognized and to be appreciated.”
Paul, though, admits he likes to fly below the radar and enjoys the sanctuary of Steelwood.
As for cashing in on his fleeting fame, he has done only a handful of endorsements, the biggest one, he said, for a dairy company back in his home state of Wisconsin.
Sure, wearing a milk mustache on a billboard is fun, but it doesn’t seem like enough exposure for a likable athlete of Hamm’s achievement. He may not be as marketable as Bruce Jenner or Mary Lou Retton, but he at least deserves a phone commercial like Phelps or maybe even having his mug splashed on a Happy Meal box, doesn’t he? Or did Fifth Avenue get gun-shy when Hamm’s gold was tainted?
“If McDonald’s wanted to endorse me, I would do it,” he said. “They just haven’t contacted me or my agent. Carly Patterson is an Olympic gold medalist with no controversy and I don’t think that she’s getting huge endorsements.
“I’m not sure what it is, but it seems with the Olympics a lot of the endorsements are beforehand or just initially afterward. After that usually people … well, they kind of forget about you.
“I understand my place in the world,” he added. “I’m not a football player or a basketball player. I’m an Olympic athlete and I do it, really, for the love of the sport.”
A Place To Call Home
The Hamms’ reasons for attending Ohio State and continuing their training there are sensible. The coaching staff is first-rate. The facility is top-grade. If you need a qualified trainer to look at a sprain, he or she is down the hall. One of the country’s most renowned sports medicine centers is across the street. The collegiate programs and the people with which they share the gym are as good as it gets.
Still, Paul Hamm never expected to feel so inexorably linked to Ohio State. Sometimes he even finds himself switching places in his mind with the OSU gymnasts.
“I always have wished I could have been part of a college team,” said Hamm, who came up through the sport at the club level and took a few classes at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “It would be kind of nice to see what that other aspect of it would be like.”
Paul and Morgan live modestly but they can’t compete for OSU since they receive funding from USA Gymnastics for rent and living expenses.
Instead they come to the gym as ultimate role models for the Buckeyes, which means they make an invaluable contribution to the program.
“Every now and then our guys have to work out at the same time as Paul, Morgan and Raj, Blaine and those guys,” said Avery, who has served eight years as coach of the OSU men. “Believe me, they are in awe of these guys and how they work.
“They help us just by them being here. You have the Olympic champion, you have two-time Olympians in Morgan and Paul Hamm in your gym. It doesn’t hurt recruiting.”
Avery just missed out on his second national title as OSU coach this season as Ohio State was nipped by .225 of a point by Oklahoma. With the Hamms, it would have been a cakewalk.
“Oh, I’ve thought about it,” Avery said. “I could have guaranteed Andy Geiger a national championship.”
Avery, though, knows there is a big payoff coming, and he’s enjoyed watching the Hamms excel in school as well as making strides toward the `08 Olympics.
After gymnastics Morgan has designs on being a physical therapist. Paul already is talking about pursuing a graduate degree, maybe at Ohio State, where his comfort grows daily.
“I definitely feel like this is my home now, this is my school,” he said. “It feels great.
“I love Ohio State a lot.”
