Natasha Kelley did everything right. The freshman from Katy, Texas, started gymnastics as an energetic 3-year-old at Elite Gymnastics in Baton Rouge, La. Soon, she was one of the best in Louisiana gymnastics, winning five state championships before she even hit her teen years.
When Natasha’s talent outgrew her gym and coaches at age 13, her parents chose Houston, Texas, and Stars Gymnastics as the place that could further their daughter’s meteoric rise in the sport.
“We knew she had certain talents, and if she just got the right coaching, we could see her reach her full potential,” Troy Kelley, Natasha’s dad, said. “We had a good idea she’d make a good elite gymnast.”
Her parents were right. At Stars, Natasha qualified to compete at the elite level and made her first U.S. National Team. In 2005, she won the U.S. National Championships junior division, a title often known to launch the international and Olympic careers of gymnasts, who must be 15 or younger, who win it. Carly Patterson won it in 2002, two years before she went on to win the 2004 Olympic all-around title. Nastia Liukin won it in 2004, four years before she won the 2008 Olympic all-around title. Natasha’s future looked bright.
But there was more to her story. Natasha had competed at nationals that year, just six weeks after breaking her hand. She trained on her good hand, doing beam and floor tumbling with one arm, leading up to Nationals in the summer of 2005.
After she won, Natasha said expectations increased, and her coaches began pushing her harder, and the injuries kept coming. She found herself in the gym from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day with the attention of her two coaches often placed exclusively on her. When she was finished with practice, she did home schooling.
“In the gym, it became so much,” she said. “My body was beaten up. I would try telling [my coaches] ‘look, it’s too much.’ They were like ‘No, you have to do more.’ My life became so wrapped up in it.”
But Natasha was never one to complain.
“She never complains about anything,” Peggy Kelley, Natasha’s mother, said. “Even if she was injured and no matter what type of a day she was having, we never knew what was going on or what she was thinking.”
So Natasha pushed forward as talk circulated in the online gymnastics community that Natasha’s coaches at Stars, Dan and Ashley Baker, pushed their gymnasts too hard. But Natasha made the U.S. World Team in 2006 after a second place finish at the U.S. Championships, and traveled to Aarhus, Denmark, where she and the team won a silver medal and Natasha qualified for floor finals. The Olympics were less than 20 months away.
At the 2007 U.S. Championships, Natasha slipped to 10th in the all-around. When championships rolled around the next year, just two months before the Olympic Games, Natasha wasn’t there at all. She had left Stars and quit elite gymnastics for good, choosing to end any shot at the 2008 Olympic team.
“You almost feel like you’re throwing everything away that you’ve worked for, especially with the Olympics around the corner,” Natasha said. “At the same time, it was my decision. It was what I wanted to do. I guess I had already accomplished more than I thought I would ever accomplish, and none of that can be taken away from me.”
Natasha has little to say about the end of her elite career and her time at Stars in late 2007, other than Dan Baker “has a yelling problem” and she “needed a change.” Her parents say they always let gymnastics be Natasha’s choice, and when she finally came to them about her training, they offered to take her to another elite gym to pursue the Olympics. But that wasn’t what Natasha wanted.
“It was bad timing as far as the Olympics go,” Troy Kelley said. “It just wasn’t meant to be, and Natasha accepted that.”
Natasha left Stars for another Houston gym, Cypress, where she trained in preparation for college gymnastics. There, she had teammates her own age and the constant pressure of elite gymnastics was finally gone. And the college offers began rolling in by the dozens.
More than 30 schools were interested in the former world and national team member who would enter college in the fall of 2008.
“Everyone recruited her because she was one of the best in country,” OU head coach K.J. Kindler said. “She was obviously on the top of our list.”
However, growing up in Baton Rouge and with most of her family in the area, Louisiana State University had always seemed like a logical place for Natasha to attend. But Natasha gave OU and Kindler a chance at recruiting her when she visited Norman.
“There was something about [OU] that I just liked so much,” she said. “I think I just fit in with everyone a lot better. I really liked the coaches and the atmosphere, just everything.”
After the recruiting trip, Natasha and her parents were convinced OU was the right place.
“We’re Sooners 100 percent,” Troy Kelley said. “We fell in love with Oklahoma and the people there, and we love everything about it. We’re Sooners 100 percent through and through.”
OU felt right for Natasha, but she still had to get used to being in a classroom after 10 years of home schooling and adjust to the more relaxed, team-oriented atmosphere of college gymnastics. Kindler encouraged Natasha to enroll in summer classes to help her make the adjustment to school, which she did.
The gymnastics part came naturally, as it always had. But just when it looked like Natasha was about to return to competitive gymnastics, she tore her Achilles tendon on a tumbling pass before OU’s regular season was set to begin last fall. She was forced to redshirt her freshman year due to the injury.
“It was heart wrenching to watch her have to come back [from injury],” Kindler said. “She’s not a rehab person, not patient. She wants to come back and wants to do it now.”
Although she can only contribute by cheering from the sidelines as OU’s team aims for a Super Six berth at the NCAA Championships, starting with the Regional Championships on Saturday, Natasha and Kindler eagerly await the star recruit’s college debut.
It’s far from the Olympics, and despite everything she’s been through, it’s all Natasha Kelley really wants these days.
“It gets kind of discouraging to go to all of these meets now and be on the sidelines,” she said. “I just wish I was out there so bad.”
