National Gymnastics Day 2015: How I've Shown (and Will Show) My Salute to the Sport

Today is National Gymnastics Day, and as a gymnastics enthusiast, I care about it very much, even if I've never been a gymnast. This year, a promotion USA Gymnastics is doing is "Show Your Salute," where gymnasts and gymnastics fans across the country show them their gymnastics salute by sharing it on social media.

As aforementioned, I've never been a gymnast, nor have I done any gymnastics on any apparatus, but the sport has been a large part of my life for the past four years. I could talk about all the sport has done for me, but I've already done that. I did that last year.In fact, I've done it twice. So I'm not going to do that this time. Instead, I'm going to talk about what I've done for the sport and what I plan to do (or how I've saluted and will salute the sport).

I may not be a gymnast and never have been, but that doesn't mean I can't pretend and put on a pretty leotard anyway.

I do admit that I have not done as much for the sport as it has done for me. I do admit that I will probably never do anything huge for the sport that will make people know and remember my name. But that's okay. It's not necessarily my intention for people to remember my name.

For the four years that I've closely followed gymnastics, the largest thing I've done for the sport is inform people about it and its athletes. I'm a journalist. That's what I do. I've written dozens of articles on the sport, including interviews, features, recaps, and previews. I've tweeted and posted live updates about what's going on at competitions and pre-competition podium training sessions.

Perhaps the second biggest thing I done for the sport is be a walking advertisement for it. I have over 20 gymnastics shirts, and when I wear them, I basically become a walking advertisement for the sport, which I have absolutely no problem with. In fact, that's exactly what I want -- not to be a walking advertisement -- but to help promote the sport. It's even on my LinkedIn and Levo profiles.

I don't know when I decided this, but I've made it one of my life goals to use my talents and job as a journalist to help promote the sport as much as possible. And I like to think I've already started.

For the past two springs, I was an intern for the gymnastics website Gymnastike, specifically the University of Illinois correspondent. Basically, my job was to cover the Illinois women's gymnastics team for the 2014 and 2015 seasons by writing recaps, previews, and features, filming meet routines, and doing video interviews and features.

The biggest video feature -- actually, the biggest assignment overall -- I've done during the internship was a video feature called Workout Wednesday, which is just a video feature on one of the practices. Fans get to see how they train in preparation for a meet and see what their practice facility is like. Both years I did the internship, my Workout Wednesday was the most viewed of anything else I did. Thousands of people watched it each year.

A screencap from my 2015 Workout Wednesday with the 2015 Illinois women's gymnastics team

In terms of athletics, llinois is not well known for its women's gymnastics program, and I really want to change that. I've witnessed how hard they work and how talented they are up close and in person for two consecutive seasons. I've seen what they're capable of and believe they should be more well known. Gym fans should always consider them to be a contender for Nationals.

Last season, when my Workout Wednesday got over 1,000 views in less than 24 hours, I was ecstatic, not only for myself and my work, but for the team too. That made me realize that gymnastics fans were watching them, witnessing the same things I witnessed. It meant that they were getting the exposure they deserve. It meant that I was helping promote them and the sport, exactly what I want to do.

(And just to clarify, when I take the Gymnastike internship as University of Illinois correspondent, I represent my school and the team, so it's not as unbiased as a typical journalism internship.)

Another time I believe I helped promote the sport was when I did an interview with Philippine National Team member Ava Verdeflor in 2014. I'm Filipino and a gymnastics fanatic, so finding out that there was an elite gymnast competing for the Philippines at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, I was so excited!

Based on the info I got from the interview with her, I wrote a feature on her. In the interview, she mentioned that she wants to help the sport grow in the Philippines because it's not very big there. And by helping share her words and her story, I believe I helped do that. It was then when I realized that I didn't only want to help the sport become more popular in the U.S., but the Philippines too.

It's only been four years, so there's still a long way to go. I'm still a college student, so I still have a lot to learn.

I'm in a sports PR class this semester, and much of what I've read about and learned is that sports have become as big as they are because of the media, because of people like Henry Chadwick. I don't need my name to be in a textbook talking about how gymnastics grew because of me. I just hope to be able to continue promoting the sport in any way I can. I hope that when I retire, I can truly say that I feel like I did as much as I could to help the sport grow.

Celebrate National Gymnastics Day with USA Gymnastics by sharing your salute with them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtags #NGD2015 and #ShowYourSalute and tagging USA Gymnastics.