At the end of Monday’s home win over Washington, UCLA gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field took over the microphone and shared the engagement news of Lena Degteva’s with the crowd in Pauley Pavilion, giving the former Bruin gymnast a warm welcome hug.
Kondos Field was just back from a busy weekend recruiting new talent from the East Coast. She said she can remember vividly the first time she saw Degteva on a recruiting visit.
Two decades ago, Degteva stood on a balance beam at Gymnastics Mississauga in Ontario, Canada, focusing on her next move. Degteva had been practicing on that beam for two and a half hours, watched by her mother Svetlana Degteva, who was also her coach. Later in the day, Kondos Field came to the gym to recruit Degteva’s teammate, Stella Umeh, on a recruit visit. Little did Degteva know that her hard work on the beam had left a positive impression on Kondos Field.
“(Degteva) was having a horrible, horrible beam workout,” said Kondos Field. “She was so diligent that I was like, ‘I’m coming back for that kid’. I remember that vividly.”
At the time, Degteva was still not old enough to be eligible for college competition, but once Degteva came of age two years later, Kondos Field returned to recruit the Canadian. Degteva got to reunite with her club teammate, Umeh, at UCLA.
“Two years later, when it was my time to be recruited, she knew who I was and she definitely remembered me,” Degteva said. “So she came out to see somebody totally different. I was really lucky she got to meet me.”
In the 25 years Kondos Field has spent at UCLA, the gymnastics coach said her job of looking for new recruits has kept her schedule busy. Last weekend, she flew to the Columbus, Ohio to scout the talent in the city. Kondos Field said one of the focus for this year’s recruitment is to find gymnasts who can help improve the Bruins’ competitiveness on bars and dismount.
For Kondos Field, recruiting is not just a seasonal job.
“It’s year-long; 24-7,” Kondos Field said. “You have to have your cell phone on you all the time.”
Indeed, phone calls from new talent could come at any moment. The coaching team said it does not want to risk missing any phone calls. Emails are another way for talent to contact the UCLA coaches. Last year, current freshman LaNiesha-Jopré Irvin got the team’s attention through this mode of communication.
“I just emailed (Kondos Field) about everything I was interested in and that I really wanted to come to UCLA,” Irvin said. “She was just coming to the competitions to watch. And that’s how I got in here. I was really excited.”
Replying to an email or picking up a phone call is only one step in the process of recruiting, Kondos Field said. Seeing the gymnasts compete in person is the only way to find out whether or not they are team competitors.
“It’s important for me to see how they are with their teammates on the sideline,” Kondos Field said. “Are they encouraging? If they make a mistake, do they go up and sulk, or are they still there for their teammates?”
Kondos Field said that even when it comes to assessing a recruit’s skills rather than character, it’s still necessary to take the time to get a first-person perspective.
“You can’t just see it over on YouTube,” Kondos Field said. “You gotta be there.”