Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Chalked Up Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching Overzealous Parents Eating Disorders and Elus Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams. This yet-to-be-released book should sell a kerzillion copies. In the Olympic year. It’s written by Jennifer Sey , ex-Parkette gymnast. Recall the name? At her first major international meet, the 1985 World Championships, Jennifer Sey fell off the uneven bars and broke her femur (one of the bones in the leg). At the time, she was not being spotted by her coach because the official rules prevented coaches from being on the podium during routines. As a result of this injury, the rules were changed to allow spotting (though not at Olympic competition). Whatever Happened to Jennifer Sey. I’m suspicious. Suspicious because it’s easy to dog pile on Parkettes after the brutal CNN documentary about the club called Achieving The Perfect 10. On the other hand, it’s getting some praise: “Chalked Up pulls no punches…Sey’s writing is brilliant…offering perceptive psychoanalysis of everyone in her isolated world…Chalked Up is proof that she still has alot of guts.” — International Gymnast “She has eloquently and fairly exposed a dark side to our sport that parents have long needed to be made aware of.” — Dominique Moceanu, Olympic Gold Medal Winning Gymnast Harper Collins. I’ll buy a copy when it comes out in 3 months. And suspend judgment until then. When bad things happen to good athletes. Dan Patch, perhaps the most famous racehorse ever to have run without a jockey, had a lot going for him. He was fast, he was durable, and he was amiable. While standing around in the paddock, he'd let small children run under his belly. And that's not all. According to the horse's biographer, Charles Leerhsen, after races that he'd won, which meant nearly all of them, Dan Patch "turned to the grandstand and bowed deeply, seeming to acknowledge the applause." Sounds like a horse out of Disney by Dreamworks, but Dan Patch was the real thing, and for much of the time between 1900, when he first pulled a sulky across a finish line, and 1914, when he made his last public appearance in a parade, harness racing was a popular sport, and the game's greatest star was among the nation's most admired athletes. But "Crazy Good" is more than the story of a superb competitor. Like Laura Hillenbrand writing about Seabiscuit, Leerhsen recognizes that much of the charm of the story is in the two-legged characters aiding and abetting the horse in his adventures, shady and otherwise. Regarding one of the foremost among them, Myron McHenry, often the driver of the sulky before which Dan Patch paced, Leerhsen writes that he "never stopped drinking, and so even when things were good they were awful." Leerhsen demonstrates once again that a book written about an accomplished horse can be an excellent read, especially when the author seems to be having a great time telling the horse's stories. The subtitles of some books are so thorough that they might seem to make reading the books unnecessary. In the case of "Chalked Up," once you've noticed that the subtitle is "Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams," what else do you need to know? The details, perhaps. The author, Jennifer Sey, was a national champion whose mother was apparently so invested in her career that when Jennifer said she wanted to quit the sport, Mom threatened to disown her. That would be the overzealous parent. In one of the book's most powerful passages, Sey writes about herself as she tries, fighting the complaints of her tired and damaged body, to finish a workout in 1987: "Agitation and fright is my perpetual state of existence." Less than a year earlier, she'd won the national championship. Sey first tells the reader about the pressures of "growing up in a world where underage and underweight girls were looked upon as cultural icons; as a fierce competitor in a culture where second place means losing; as a onetime winner who wasn't going to win anymore." Then she illustrates the generalities with specific stories about her own eating disorders, a doctor less concerned with the health of his teenage patient than with getting her back on the balance beam, and coaches who demean and slap their preteen athletes. People who read "Chalked Up" may be less inclined to see the female gymnasts on display in Beijing as pixies than as undernourished victims, which is perhaps what has led some members of the gymnastics community to adopt the bizarre defense of questioning Sey's right to tell the story of her own childhood. And speaking of subtitles . Hey, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, how do you feel about "football dementia, depression, and death"? That catchy phrase sums up the concerns of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who's been studying the brains of men who've had those brains scrambled playing pro football. "Play Hard, Die Young" collects the evidence Omalu has found that in many cases, multiple concussions suffered by players have seriously compromised their post-football lives. Perhaps as discouraging as that conclusion were the initial responses to Omalu's work by physicians associated with the NFL, who characterized his findings as "preposterous," "fallacious," and "purely speculative." The families of Mike Webster, Terry Long, John Mackey, Andre Waters, and various other former players who have died young or suffered irreversible brain damage would disagree. Ironically, given the abuse that's been heaped energetically and unfairly upon his research, Omalu is a football fan. Toward the end of a chapter titled "What Should We Do?" he writes, "Let us all come together and solve this national problem, for what would life be in America without football? Football is the soul of America." Writing in The Washington Post , Leonard Shapiro suggested that "Play Hard, Die Young" is "must reading for every player, coach, trainer, and team doctor in the league." Given how close-minded some of the above have been regarding the acknowledgment of the problem Omalu has been exploring, it might be more productive to suggest that the parents of children eager to play Pop Warner football should check out the book. Bill Littlefield hosts National Public Radio's "Only a Game." His most recent book is also titled "Only a Game." TIVOLI Library. New PDF release: Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, By Jennifer Sey. the real tale of the 1986 U.S. nationwide Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was once to compete within the Olympics, until eventually anorexia, accidents, and training abuses approximately destroyed her. Fanciful desires of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to turn into a gymnast on the age of six. She used to be a common on the recreation, and her early luck propelled her relations to sacrifice every little thing to assist her develop into, by means of age 11, one in every of America​s elite, competing at prestigious occasions all over the world along such destiny gymnastics​ luminaries as Mary Lou Retton. yet as she set her attractions better and higher—the senior nationwide staff, the area Championships, the 1988 Olympics—Sey started to switch, placing her wishes, her healthiness, and her future health apart within the identify of profitable. And the adults in her lifestyles refused to note her downward spiral. In Chalked Up Sey finds the tarnish in the back of her gold medals. a robust portrait of depth and force, consuming issues and level mom and dad, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of luck, it's the tale of a tender lady whose goals may develop into eclipsed through the adults round her. As she recounts her studies, Sey sheds gentle at the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything tradition the place underage and underweight ladies are celebrated and at the desire for stability in children​s lives. Read or Download Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams PDF. Best individual sports books. Even if you’re new to the sport yet don’t are looking to put it on the market it or a great golfer who’s having a nasty around, this booklet is helping you resolve your golfing difficulties correct at the course—before your subsequent shot. The ebook indicates you the “Five Faces of definitely the right Club,” an idea that is helping you hit the ball out of any lie, from anyplace at the direction, no matter if you don’t have a world-class swing. A transparent, functional advisor to swimming freestyle larger than you ever proposal attainable. not just to swim good adequate to breeze via a triathlon swim leg comfortably and self belief; yet to arrive a Nirvana the place the swim is your favourite half. in case you are no longer aiming to do a triathlon, yet may easily prefer to swim comfortably, potency and self assurance, TSME will flip you right into a attractive freestyler with the liberty to swim in any physique of water. This new version of John Forester's guide for transportation coverage makers and bicycling advocates has been thoroughly rewritten to mirror alterations of the decade. It contains new chapters on ecu bikeway engineering, urban making plans, integration with mass transit and long-distance providers, "traffic calming," and the artwork of encouraging private-sector aid for bicycle commuting.