Awesome Dawesome Redux

She was born in Maryland, a state that lists jousting as its official sport. By age 6, she was performing at major gymnastics events. She earned her first national medal in the sport at age 14. At the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, she won the gold medal as part of the “Magnificent Seven” U.S. women’s gymnastic squad, using a riveting floor exercise to seal the deal and earn her nickname “Awesome Dawesome.” The three-time Olympian, a graduate of the University of Maryland, was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2008 and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame this year. Now 32, Dawes is an accomplished motivational speaker, gymnastics coach and has begun to delve into television broadcasting. New York Family Sports barely caught up with Dominique Dawes as she rode an Amtrak train from Maryland to New York City, where autumn had arrived just the day before.

You were probably around a lot of broadcasters as a young athlete. Did that kind of plant the seed for you to get into that aspect of journalism?
No, not at all. A number of my friends are actually in the television industry. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t from them that I came to it. I did some television work in the late 1990s and into 2000, so it was a way to get my hands into a different career other than totally focusing on motivational speaking or totally focusing on coaching. I enjoy the fact that it really wasn’t a path I wanted to go down in my early 20s. But now I’m in my early 30s and I make decisions obviously for myself and I have a better understanding of what it is like to be in that industry. I’m realizing that I’d like to broaden my range through multimedia, and television is one of them.

What do you find to be the hardest thing about motivational speaking?
The hardest thing about motivational speaking? Umm. I don’t find it challenging, really, at all. I guess the most difficult thing is making sure that I’m always practicing what I’m preaching. I know sometimes I get in a little bit of a rut or in my comfort zone and then I really think about the principles that really helped me to become successful as an athlete for 18 years and those are the same principles that I speak to business professionals about or young athletes about or middle-aged moms about, and I just try to make sure I am living by those same principles that I’m preaching about. It is always something I think anyone is going to have to work at, so I would have to say that is one aspect that would be considered a challenge. I love having the opportunity to empower people and to inspire people and to really plant a positive seed in their lives and help them to realize that they have something special in them and to encourage them to go out and pursue their passions. I actually love motivational speaking. Even those days where you don’t want to be around people, when I get out there and I’m interacting with people and I hear people’s stories, I realize that is why I’m doing the work that I’m doing.

Do you feel a special connection with child athletes since you went through that yourself? Do you ever see yourself out there—a little girl—and you say “hey, that was me”?
Yes, definitely. I feel a connection with athletes who are dealing with self-doubt, that are dealing with a number of mental blocks that are really all up in their head. Either fear factor, how to handle pressure—it’s always the athlete that’s got the drive but yet they don’t always have the confidence. Those are the athletes who I tend to gravitate more toward, and those are the athletes whose parents send them right to me. I do motivational coaching and private lessons, which I’ve done for about seven years in the sport of gymnastics. And the ones I’ve had come back to me over and over again were the ones that were dealing with mental toughness issues or motivational issues. My specialty has always been helping motivate the child or get to get the child a little bit more focused or driven and making sure they are getting the most out of each and every practice and not just focusing on the competition. Those are the athletes that I must say I see a little bit of me in.

Since your days in competition, do you think the role of the parents has changed drastically?
I don’t think parenting has really changed that much. Obviously, our society has changed a bit with the Internet and other things that young people are exposed to. I think parents should be involved, but at the same time as a parent you don’t want to add too much pressure, but you do want to add a little bit of pressure so that your child knows that there are certain expectations, not necessarily expectations to win, but expectations to work hard and have a positive attitude and respect authority. I think the athletes that tend to get the most out of their athletic experience are the ones that have that nice balance of their parents being involved but yet at the same time giving children freedom to learn how to become self-motivated on their own.

Do you have a strategy when you run into parents who are maybe a little too involved and seem to be pushing their kids into a sport? Do you encounter that frequently?
Well, through my private lessons and coaching days I would encounter that more than in the gymnastics clinics because there’s not very much interaction with the parents unless they’re involved in the Q&A sessions.

But I have come across parents that let’s say were “highly involved” and they were probably having unnecessary pressure and it pretty much made the child not have an interest in the sport or really burn out. The biggest thing that I tell parents is to make sure that this is something that their child wants to do, and their child is not kicking and screaming on the way to practice every day. That would be a problem. Some kids do need a little kick in the butt—some just don’t want to work and don’t want to challenge themselves and in the long run if they have parents that push them and it is done in a healthy manner, the child will be thankful in the long run. I always try to make sure that the parents aren’t pushing them because of their own lack of fulfillment from their athletic experience. There are a number of parents who I wonder if they want to put a leotard on instead of their kids. I say it in a joking way and I think they get what I am saying. They get the hint and they back away a little bit and they become a little more observant of how their over-involvement might be discouraging their child from even wanting to go to practice every day. I’ve seen success when parents kind of backed away a little bit, but then I’ve also seen kids burn out as well.

Do you think the Olympics have kind of lost their luster with kids in terms of watching them, given how crowded the sports landscape is now?
I don’t think so, no. I think there is a multitude of different sporting events to be a fan of…the Olympics has such a wide range of sports now. I’m going to be covering the 2010 Olympics for Yahoo! Sports and I’m being introduced to so many different winter sports that are more like X-Games, and I think that is exciting for some kids to see that because that might kind of suit their interest and/or talents. Then there are some kids who still have an interest in the very beautiful sports like figure skating or gymnastics or sports like ballroom dancing or ice dancing. I like the fact that kids are still fans of the Olympics because they have so many different sports that they get to see.

You got to travel the world as a gymnast. What was the most amazing thing that you saw abroad? You were in Barcelona and all over Europe—is there an image that sticks out in your mind that made you say ‘Wow, this is amazing’?
I think my coach Kelli Hill tried to do a good job of exposing me to different cultures, but at the same time on each of those trips I was there for a purpose and that was to win a medal for my country and so I really did not pay too much attention to the rest of the world because I was focused on getting my job done. I didn’t want to leave Paris saying “Oh, I saw all this great architecture and museums,” yet I had nothing to show for my competition. I must say, though, now that I’m in my 30s I’m trying to make it a point to really travel around and more importantly experience the world. But as a child, my main goal wasn’t to be a tourist, it was to be a champion.
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For more info:
www.dominiquedawes.com