Hard Work and Happiness at the 2014 Secret Classic

Waking up at 6 AM, working from 10 AM to 8:30 PM and not getting home until around midnight sounds like all work and no play, especially when work seems to take priority over food, but it's not. At least for me it wasn't.

This past Saturday, August 2, I was given the opportunity to work at the Secret U.S. Classic with Gymnastike. It was one of the best experiences of my life so far.

I got to the Sears Centre Arena around 9:30 AM, got my media credentials and then went into the media room. The seniors were still training, so we waited in the media workroom. There, I met the Gymnastike people I worked with, Becca and Jason, as well as Leslie King, the USA Gymnastics Vice President of Communications, all of whom were very nice and helpful to work with.

Around 10 AM, Becca, Jason and I left the media room and headed to press row to wait for the juniors to start warming up. I sat in my seat and admired the view of the arena. It was a fantastic view. I had a great view of every apparatus, and I was so close to the gymnasts and coaches. It was then when I realized how sparkly the rhinestones on leotards actually are. (A lot of my favorite leos were full of them.) They shine so brightly!

My view of the arena from press row.

When the juniors began warming up for their session, I started working and helped post some live updates after some technical difficulties. I had never attended a junior session of the Classic before, so this was the first time I was seeing most of these girls compete.

It was great to see all of these young gymnasts compete at such a high level, and they're all so cute and talented! One of my favorite moments of the junior session was when Chow's Alexis Vasquez was competing on bars and her teammate Victoria Nguyen was cheering her on. It was so cute to hear Victoria's little voice be so loud in support of her teammate.

Alexis Vasquez warms up on the uneven bars before competing on the apparatus.

Once the actual competition began around noon, my job was to focus on the recap. So I took a lot of notes on everyone's routines with the help of Becca and Jason's live updates. Once the junior session was over, I tried to type up the junior session recap as best as I could. After that, we finally got to eat!

Then it was time for the seniors. The live updates during warm-ups continued. I focused on beam for the updates, which continued throughout the entire warm-up session and competition.

At some point during the warm-up session, probably around 5:40, I took a break from doing live updates to meet with my mom, twin sister and niece. My niece, Sofie, is a little gymnast, so she was super excited about going to the meet. After changing her mind several times, Sofie decided that she wanted to do the fitness zone, so she changed into her unitard and participated.

After finding out where McKayla Maroney was signing autographs and buying a t-shirt, I returned to press row and got back to work. The competition was going to start soon, so I got ready to do live updates for all of the beam routines.

A close-up of the t-shirt.

The senior/junior session began, and I did live updates for every beam routine as best as I could. I'm awful at counting twists, so I apologize to anyone who read my live updates and wanted to know how many twists gymnasts did in their twisting dismounts. Anyway, my job was to watch every beam routine, so I missed a lot of great routines, but that's okay, because I still had a great day.

Maddie Desch performs on the balance beam.

After the competition ended, Becca, Jason and I left to go to the media room to get ready for interviews. I've never done interviews modeled after the mixed zone ones done at the Olympics, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Also, I've never interviewed any famous people, so I was kind of nervous.

In the end though, I didn't get to do any interviews because I didn't think the audio from the videos would be any good since my camera's microphone (or lack of microphone) was not good for the situation. Multiple interviews occurred at once all next to each other, and my camera would have recorded too much background noise and audio.

Even though I didn't get to do any interviews, I got to watch Becca and Jason do them, which I learned a lot from. I also got to stand about one foot away from Simone Biles, Kyla Ross, Maggie Nichols and Norah Flatley, so that's a plus. It was hard for me to not freak out and obsess over being so close to them, especially Kyla.

After the interviews, I met up with my mom, sister and niece. I asked my niece if she wanted to go find some gymnasts and get their autographs, so that's what we did. Security was kicking people out of the building, so we had to head towards the exit. The first gymnast we spotted was GAGE's Maddie Desch, one of my favorite seniors currently competing. She was still inside the arena. So then I helped my little niece get her autograph and took their picture. To be honest, I don't know why I didn't get a picture with Maddie too because I love Maddie.

When we went outside, I found Rachel Gowey right away outside of the doorway on the stairs. Then I took my niece towards the sidewalk and the athletes' entrance to find more of them. The rest of the gymnasts Sofie and I met are Alexa Brinkler and Molly Frack from Parkette's, MG Elite's Jazmyn Foberg, Buckeye's Nia Dennis and Nica Hults and Grace Quinn of Texas Dreams. Sofie took pictures with all of them and got their autographs. Even though I wanted all of their autographs, it made me happy that I could help my niece get them and take pictures for her. It was nice to finally share my love of gymnastics with someone.

Me and Nica.

I did get a picture with Nica and my niece though! After not getting a picture with Maddie, I decided that I should not pass the opportunity to get one with Nica, another one of my favorites. Nica was very nice and funny. She asked my niece what her name was, and told her that her little sister is also named Sofia. (They even spell their names the same way!) Then I told Nica that my niece is Filipino too, and Nica said something about how 'us Asians got to stick together.'

Before finding Nia, Nica and Grace, Sofie and my sister saw a guy who was signing autographs, but I didn't know who he was. When I checked social media on Sunday, I discovered that they guy I didn't recognize was Alec Yoder, men's National Team Member and USA Gymnastics's representative for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. I immediately felt dumb for not knowing that, but since I don't follow men's gym much, it was understandable.

After finding Grace, there were no more gymnasts left outside that we hadn't met. So Sofie decided she wanted to wait by the athletes' entrance like everyone else. But after a few minutes, we left because no one was coming out and my mom wanted to leave.

Overall, this was one of the best days of my life. So many good things happened on Saturday. I got to watch over 50 of USA's top gymnasts compete for free. I got to cover my first non-NCAA gymnastics meet. I felt like a real journalist and got credentials. I was about one foot away from one of my very favorite gymnasts in the whole wide world. I helped my niece get several autographs and pictures with gymnasts. I got a picture with one of my favorite gymnasts. And perhaps most of all, I learned that I would not mind doing this for a living.