11. greatest athletic performance I ever saw

Although in my nearly four decades as a newspaper I covered the performances of a lot of college and professional athletes whose athleticism was nothing short of mind-boggling, the most awe-inspiring athletic performance I ever saw was by none of those. Nor was it the pure athleticism that made it so memorable. It was everything that surrounded the performance ... the overcoming of adversity, the dealing with pain ... at crunch time ... with everything riding on it and a championship absolutely at stake. But though it happened roughly four decades ago, I will never forget it. I'm sure if this memory were about a famous professional athlete, an NBA, NFL or major league baseball star who is a household name, it might interest more people, but that is not the case. I covered plenty of those over the years, but all of their achievements paled in comparison to the true grit I saw from a 90-pound high school girl in a Washington State gymnastics championship back sometime around 1983.

First, some circumstances: this girl, Brenda Bajema, was a gymnast competing for Sehome High School in Bellingham, WA. Sehome had won about 10 straight state titles on its way to a national gymnastics record of 13 straight.

I know what you're thinking: Gymnastics is based on judges' scoring, on subjectivity, so a team that is so successful already has judges assuming they're better than everyone else, so that streak is suspect, right?

I understand that thinking. I wondered that myself, until I asked a state judge and she answered honestly on the condition that I never repeat her answer in a story, even as an unattributed quote. Well, I am going to take that to mean never repeat it in a newspaper story, so I think I'm off the hook to repeat it to you now. I asked this judge if Sehome gymnasts got the benefit of the doubt and received better scores because they were from Sehome. The judge told me the opposite was true, that judges expected more from Sehome competitors and judged them far too harshly, giving them scores that this judge believed were often egregiously lower than what was deserved.

OK, back to Brenda Bajema. She was a twin, and arguably less celebrated as a gymnast than her twin sister, Laurie, who by 1983 had already earned a scholarship to compete in college at Washington State University.

the state meet that year was held at a Seattle area high school and the word was that if the Sehome streak of state titles was going to come to an end, it would be this year, as there were three or four Seattle teams with stellar challengers. As the team competition went on, that possibility began to look more like a probability as Sehome entered the final team rotation in second place. To make matters worse, in the final, decisive rotation the team in first place was on floor exercise, the event least likely to produce a low score, while Sehome was having to finish on balance beam, the event most likely to give a team fits.

In the previous rotation, Sehome had been on uneven bars, on which Brenda was Sehome's best performer, but on this day she had had probably the worst uneven bars routine of the entire season, with two falls. Brenda never fell on bars. So with Sehome slipping back into second place after that rotation, Brenda was blaming herself for putting Sehome's historic championship streak at risk. After that rotation, Brenda had gone into the auxiliary (practice/warmup) gym for quite a while with her coach, Nola Ayres, who told me that Brenda had spent nearly the entire 40 minutes crying her eyes out. I asked Nola if she was worried that Brenda would be unable to perform well enough in the final rotation on balance beam to give Sehome a chance. Nola wasn't worried at all, telling me that Brenda's mental toughness as a competitor was unassailable. But there was one complicating factor. Brenda had been dealing with significant foot pain, possibly tendonitis, that might make landing one of her aerials on that hard wooden four-inch-wide beam without a costly wobble extremely difficult if not impossible. And at this point, trailing going into the final rotation on beam while the team they were chasing was finishing on floor exercise, Sehome .couldn't afford even a wobble. I asked Nola which position in the beam lineup would she have Brenda go? Fourth or fifth, perhaps? Nola said, "Oh, no, she'll go first. She is tough as nails, and she will absolutely nail it. And when the others see that, they will nail it, too. Nola, a remarkable coach who has been inducted into at least one hall of fame, and probably more, certainly knew a lot more about it than I did, but I had my doubts. After 40 minutes of crying, with a bad foot, after bombing on her best event, with the streak on the line? On top of that, Brenda's balance beam routine was filled with high-risk moves, including a ridiculously difficult twisting aerial right off the bat. Miss that or wobble in wincing pain and the championship streak was toast.

OK, have I set this up all right? Getting a grasp on what all was at stake here? I was just a reporter covering the meet for the Bellingham Herald, and I was so nervous I could barely stand still. And all I was doing was watching. With some notes-scribbling involved.

When the Sehome team paraded to the balance beam section of the gymnasium, I watched Brenda for telltale signs of nerves, but she looked steely enough. She began her routine with a tricky mount I hadn't seen before and went immediately into that dizzying aerial and as she was twisting in midair I was thinking about her having to land that gimpy foot on that wooden beam. Could she possibly nail the landing with everything working against her and everybody depending on her?

OK, since I titled this the greatest athletic performance I've ever seen, you already know the answer. Of course she nailed it. With nary a wince or a wobble. And breezed through the rest of her routine beautifully, just like Nola Ayres said she would. I do think her teammates emitted a collective, audible sigh of relief and awe the moment she landed on the mat following her dismount. They knew they had just witnessed greatness. About that same time, I began to breathe again myself. Inspired by Brenda's gritty beam routine, her teammates followed with one solid routine after another and Sehome came from behind to capture its 11th consecutive state championship.

When U.S. Olympian Kerri Strug made her famous vault landing in the 1996 Olympics despite having injured her ankle on her previous vault, helping the U.S. women win gold, for a few days she became one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet. Not to diminish what Strug did, but to be honest I felt like I'd seen that show once already.