Monday, March 19, 2001

Ken Sakamoto / Star-Bulletin
Legendary coach Bela Karolyi gives instructions to Elyse
Wong of the Kokokahi Gymnastics Team in Kaneohe
during one of his clinics yesterday. Karolyi was the
same in person as he is on TV.

Karolyi gives
Hawaii his fire
—and hugs

The international gymnastics
legend visits Oahu, mustache,
warm smile and all

---

By Kalani Simpson
Star-Bulletin This is Bela. This is the legendary Romanian Bear who still holds gymnastics in his arms the way he once cradled little Kerri Strug. He is here, in the Aloha Gymnastics World gym, strutting in and beaming and mugging, just like on TV, just like at the Olympics. It is really him. The mustache. The smile. The twinkle.

The fire.

Here he is, speaking, one of the greatest coaches in the history of modern sport, and the pixies on the floor in front of him don't know him from a puka in the wall. He coached Nadia and Mary Lou and the Magnificent Seven. He defected to the United States back when you had to defect, and worked his way to U.S. national coach, and reached even greater heights in his new country. But Strug and his last triumph were in 1996, and even if these little girls on the floor were born then, they surely don't remember. They don't know this man, and they don't understand his accent.

Flipping Over Legend Bela Karolyi

The coach is here for a series of clinics with island athletes

KEN SAKAMOTO / STAR-BULLETIN
Bela Karolyi, former Olympics gymnastic team coach, is in Hawaii
conducting clinics, including this one at the Kokokahi Gymnastics
Team gym yesterday in Kaneohe. Here, he praises and encourages
Ana Kahele, 13, from Maui Gym.

But then the speech is over. Every little gymnastics team gets to take a team picture with the great Mr. Karolyi, and a funny thing happens. He grins and says a little thing to each one of them. A little poke, a little laugh, a little sugar. He tickles and hugs and messes their hair. They smile, and everyone smiles, and Bela smiles biggest. And the girls fall in love, right then, every one of them. It is magical, the way they take to each other. Bela has the whole room in his arms. He still holds gymnastics in his arms.

That's his great secret, and you see it coming out right here, in Aloha Gymnastics on a Sunday afternoon. Bela is fire and hugs. And that's why little girls love him. That's why they do things for him they never thought they could do.

He is able to do it because the hugs are real. The fire is real. Kids can spot a phony, he said. But instantaneously, on a hot day in Honolulu, you see how the kids believe in Bela.

His voice goes guttural with passion when he talks about it. Sparks shoot from his eyes. His arms flail and pump with excitement. The fire consumes him, and then it consumes the girls, and then they are changed by it forever. This is his mission. This is why he thinks that gymnastics is the most beautiful sport in the world.

"Ess the confidence!

"Ess the toughness!

"Ess the courage!

"Ess the ability to take on challenges. To learn to enjoy challenges, not run away like a scared little rabbit."

He never cheated the kids, he said. He believed they could do everything he asked them to do. "If they feel like you real," he said. "If they know the stars and the sun are there for them, if they know if they follow you, they can get these things."

Bela is in fever pitch now, smiling, his hands forming fists and pumping with passion, he just believes it so much.

This is what the girls see.

This, coming from a man who hugs them, who loves them.

Now, the youth meet is about to start, and Bela is giving the girls a pep talk. This is after the pictures and after the hugs, and he urges the girls in close, huddling around him. He smiles and barks with passion and tells the girls that they can do it! They hang on every word.

They still don't know quite who he is. But they will give the best performance of their lives.