Walk-ons prove to be crucial to UCLA gymnastic’s success

JaNay Honest steps between the white tape and centers herself, waiting for the signal to start her floor routine.

As the drum beat sounds, the sophomore turns towards her teammates cheering on the outskirts of the mat. She crosses her arms and discreetly raises three fingers on her left hand to form a “W” as she clenches her right fist to form an “O.”

The hand gesture, created by alumna Trishna Patel in 2003, symbolizes a deep and transcendent connection among Honest, six of her teammates and former UCLA gymnasts who came to the program as walk-on student-athletes.

NCAA restrictions limit Division I women’s gymnastics coaches by allowing them to award money to a maximum of 12 student-athletes annually. With only 61 programs in the country, fewer then 800 scholarships are available for the more than 19,000 young girls competing in the sport.

Coach Valorie Kondos Field, who was recently named Pac-12 Coach of the Century, supplements and bolsters her rosters by bringing on key walk-on contributors in addition to her highly decorated elite gymnasts.

Miss Val and her coaching staff have built the program behind icons such as two-time NCAA All-Around Champion Tasha Schwikert, Olympic bronze medalist Kristen Maloney, and 17-time All-American Samantha Peszek.

But Kondos Field has also signed walk-ons, including four-time All-American Ariana Berlin, Amy Thorne – who scored UCLA’s first perfect 10 in 1993 – and Susie Erickson, who led UCLA to its first NCAA team title in 1997, supplementing the stars of the program.

“They’ve saved our program year after year after year,” Kondos Field said. “If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t be ranked in the top 10 or be able to win championships and we’d be a lot more beat up.”

Prototypical elite gymnasts schedule four meets a year, spacing them out to avoid stress and injuries. But the more compact college season­ – 16 meets in quick succession over four months – and intense training strain their bodies and contribute to mental fatigue.

Walk-ons, like sophomore Sonya Meraz, step in for battered teammates on multiple events, giving them a rare reprieve.

Meraz, one of five walk-ons to compete during a mid-season meet against Arizona State, paced the Bruins and finished second in the all around with a 39.025.

The Santa Monica native has consistently shouldered a big load for the Bruins since stepping foot on campus in 2014.

As a freshman, she hit 31 of her 32 routines across 12 meets, including a pair of 9.8s on bars and beam to send UCLA to the 2015 NCAA semifinals.

This season, Meraz focused on elevating her gymnastics and stepped up for the team, leading by example.

One of only six Bruins to compete in all 10 meets, the soft-spoken walk-on has steadily improved since her freshman year, raising her averages on three events, including a .136 improvement on floor and a .358 in the all-around. With 30 routines under her belt thus far, she has earned her spot in the lineup with her work ethic.

During practice, which runs from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., Meraz, a biochemistry student who plans to attend medical school after college, focuses intently on each apparatus. With each routine, she asks her coaches for advice and things to improve on, soaking in the critique they give her.

Mattie Larson, who competed for Miss Val from 2012-2014, trained with Meraz at the All Olympia Gymnastics Center 20 minutes away from the UCLA campus and pushed the coach to evaluate and actively recruit the young gymnast.

“What we look for in a walk-on is someone who can do a 9.9 on at least one event,” Kondos Field said. “When you find someone like Sonya who has that capability on 4 events, that’s a gold mine and we recruited her hard from high school.”

With college programs targeting and initiating the recruiting process as early as eighth grade, Kondos Field has already filled her scholarships for the 2016-2019 freshman classes.

The coach then dedicates her time to establishing and fostering relationships with potential walk-ons and their families.

The bond that Kondos Field cultivates with Meraz and many of the UCLA walk-ons convinced them to turn down full scholarships from other collegiate programs for the opportunity to train under and learn from coach Val and her assistants.

One of the top recruiters in the sport, she highlights the unique combination of quality gymnastics and academics to convince families be a part of the most applied-to university in the US.

Freshman Stella Savvidou, who represented Cypress at the World Championships, hadn’t initially planned on participating in college gymnastics.

In Australia, juggling elite gymnastics and a college education was near impossible. The freshman, who competed for and graduated from Methodist Ladies College, would have had to choose between a sport she was passionate about or her dream of pursing a medical degree to become an orthopedic surgeon.

But after traveling to compete at the Lady Luck and Team OC classic, Savvidou, who earned a spot in the lineup on bars and beams for the Bruins after rehabbing a left elbow injury, realized she could achieve both with the American college system and decided to reach out to coaches, including Miss Val.

Although the freshman received offers from Yale, Arizona and Bowling Green State, the chance to attend a prestigious university and compete for one of the most elite programs in the country proved tempting. With her parents backing her, Savvidou chose to reject other offers and go to school nearly 8,000 miles away from home.

“It was hard but at the same time it wasn’t. This was the place I wanted to go regardless,” Savvidou said. “I was set on this and I would do whatever I could to come here.

For Honest, UCLA was also her dream and the place she believed she would get the best education, but the financial burden of a college tuition and lingering doubts from former coaches initially clouded her decision.

Coaches at the Central California Gymnastics Institute in Visalia, California, did not support her and ridiculed her decision by telling the then-high schooler that she wouldn’t be able to compete or contribute as a non-scholarship athlete.

The Visalia native, who turned down scholarships from Washington, UC Davis and various SEC programs, admitted that the criticism coupled with the nearly $35,000 in tuition fees and the stress in transitioning to college affected her mentally during her freshman year.

“I have hard moments where I think it would be a lot easier if I had taken a scholarship somewhere else and easier financially on my family,” Honest said. “Why would I make a decision like this, but then I realize I’m living my dreams.”

Although her coaches cheer her up with corny jokes and faux accents whenever she comes searching for support, they also push and coach her the same way they push the other athletes on the team.

“In some programs, walk-ons aren’t held to the same standard as a scholarship athlete,” Kondos Field said. “ But I don’t believe in that. I believe that we are all part of the same team and excellence is expected socially, academically and athletically.”

Freshman Nicki Shapiro, who trained alongside top individual gymnasts like her sister, five-time national team member and former Stanford gymnast, Samantha Shapiro and 2012 Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, has quickly bought into Miss Val’s teachings about the importance of teamwork.

Stepping up for UCLA on balance beam, Shapiro has posted big scores at crucial times for the Bruins, including a 9.90 against Oregon State and a 9.850 against Washington.

She also had a costly misstep in a tri-meet against then-No.10 Georgia and No. 16 Stanford that forced then-No. 7 UCLA to count a fall on their rotation.

But her teammates and coaches trusted her and put her back in the lineup when No. 1 Oklahoma rolled into Pauley Pavilion for the regular season finale.

After fellow walk-on Sonya Meraz took a spill on beam, Shapiro focused on hitting a solid routine to regroup the remaining gymnasts.

She hit a 9.8, punctuated with a stuck landing, for her team.

“It’s not about yourself anymore. It’s all about the team,” Shapiro said. “There’s a bigger cause and you persevere and want to get out there to compete not just for yourself but for your team.”