A Gymnastics Coach’s Fighting the Organization he Loves
By Rohith Murali
In late January of this year, Larry Nassar was charged with sexually assaulting several members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. Many of these girls were only the age of 19. It was later revealed that the U.S Gymnastics Organization knew about these charges for several years but chose to ignore them. The responsibility to exhume the organization’s reputation and integrity now fall on veteran’s members to have their voice heard and fight for their community. One such member is David Juszczyk.
David Juszczyk is a former U.S Gymnastics Coach who has coached numerous national champions at all levels including several Olympians. In addition to that
Juszczyk was the Vice President of the National Gymnastics Judges Association. And was the assistant coach for the Stanford University Men’s Gymnastics program.
Along with Juszczyk work on the gymnastics floor, he has worked too as the Vice President of Product Development for ‘Neoforma,’ an Internet healthcare marketplace based in San Jose, California.
However, even with all this under his belt, if you were to ask Juszczyk today how he would describe himself he would simply respond, “At this stage in my life I see myself as just a dad.”
Early life in Gymnastics
Juszczyk got into to Gymnastic at an early age. His dad was a diver, and when David was young, his dad would take him and his older brother diving when they were five or six years old.
At the age of twelve, Juszczyk and his brother had saved up enough money to buy a trampoline. Both events in his life were big pulls that ultimately lead him join gymnastic by the time he reached junior high. Unfortunately, as Juszczyk explains “jumping from five foot -seven to six-foot-two it was the end of any serious thought of being a gymnast”
“You just deal the cards you are dealt,” said Juszczyk “ It’s not that I don’t feel happy that I grew I was perfectly happy with it but for gymnastics it just the end of that road.
However, after a while gymnastic found its way back into his life. As Juszczyk explains “I ended up going in the military, and after coming back I went to college again, and when I came back my older brother, was coaching gymnastics. I started slowly coaching with him, and it just started from there.”
Life in Coaching
As a gymnastics coach Juszczyk has had an extremely accomplished career not only coaching former 1996 silver medalist Jair Lynch, but also Amy Chow. Chow competed in the 1996 games and was famously known for being a part of the ‘ magnificent seven’ which was the first U.S women’s team to win the gold in the Olympic for Gymnastics.
Juszczyk got to work with these athletes by getting the opportunity to coach at Stanford that allowed him to also him to graduate work fin the field of management science and engineering.
“To me, it was no brainer; I had the opportunity to coach one of the best programs in the country and go to graduate school at Stanford. It was a dream come true.”
It was at Stanford, Juszczyk met and started coaching Jair Lynch, who made it to the 92’ Olympics and won silver in 96’. At around the same time, Juszczyk was helping Amy Chow routine with the uneven bars, which famously won her the silver in 96.
“It had been a really nice run,” said Juszczyk. After his time exclusively coaching Juszczyk decided to move into business. However, even in the business sector, he was still involved in the gymnastics community by working at camps and helping gymnast who needed help on specific things.
Mark Williams, Head Coach at the University of Oklahoma, who and first met Juszczyk at one of these gymnastic camps up in Pingree Park, Colorado. He spoke about his time working with Juszczyk and what he was like.
“He is a very smart guy. Not only technically from a gymnastic stand point but also the experiences he has had in the business world. He has a gung-ho and passionate personality to gymnastics that’s enthusiastic and infectious too.”
Since 2004, Mark Williams has asked Juszczyk to come down to his gym before every the Olympic games to work with some of his athletes in the weeks leading up to their competitions.
Work off the Gym Floor
Sometimes the challenges of coaching were not always on the gym floor but rather in the personal prejudices that we all must face. In 1992 being seen as gay especially as an Olympic athlete was certainty something that wouldn’t be accepted in the same way that it might be today.
“When it came to my attention that some kids on the team were gay I had to kind of confront that for myself, I had to kind of figure my way through it, “ said Juszczyk. He admits truthfully “at first it wasn’t easy for me because I hadn’t been fully exposed to it.”
I needed to grow as a person to be the coach my athletes needed me to be,” said Juszczyk. He further remarks, “it’s sounds silly to even bring this up in 2018 but in 1992 it wasn’t silly.
Juszczyk time as coaching has made him reflect on the prejudices many of us have and how working through those prejudices allows us to break through the barriers that surround us.
Being a Voice to Change a Community You Love
For many, Larry Nassar and the gymnastics boards ability to cover up a scandal like this for so long was time any of us had seen the darker side of the gymnastics community. However, since 2012, David Juszczyk has been a vocal against the system in place. As Juszczyk explains,
“Larry Nasser was not the disease. He was the worst symptom of the underlying disease. The underlying disease was a culture where power was centralized by a very small group of people, who hold absolute power over everyone, they rule through intimidation and retribution.”
Juszczyk has publicly spoken out against Márta Károlyi where he argues she has virtually had all power over the women’s program and has been a part of a system that as allowed for a corrosive culture
A culture that Juszczyk explains “one of intimidating kids into behaving, that they can never ask a question, they can never speak up, and intimating parent into believing they cant talk there children’s own coaches let alone the national team coordinators.”
Juszczyk notes that if you had athletes that were empowered to speak up and parents that were truly watching for these things and able and willing to speak up. Someone like Larry Nassar would have been found way earlier.
Juszczyk continues to voice his opinion on the new board and the step they need to take in order to better the community. Currently, Juszczyk is in talks with the newly appointed CEO of the USA gymnastic organization and hopes to see a prominent change in the organization he loves.