“ Youth gymnastics phenom becomes TV personality in a major market.”
It’ s a variation on the Great American Dream. Sports + media = celebrity.
Except, the dream can too often be a Great American Nightmare. And for Whitney Harding to wake up from that nightmare before it consumed her life is a testament to her inner strength and her determination to succeed.
When you see Harding on WHAS11, you see an easy, conversational, story-telling tone to her reports, a sharp sense of humor and a knowledge of sports as impressive as anyone in her field.
LIFE IN TEXAS
And why not? She grew up in Texas, where sports – and talking about sports – is the first language. An athlete herself, she could swing a bat and throw a football with natural ability. Her professional bona fides are strong, too: a master’ s degree from Northwestern University, which turns out journalists like Kentucky turns out NBA lottery picks; then a stint as sports director for a TV station in Midland, Texas, where her beats included“ Friday Night Lights” high school football, and she covered the Texas Tech Red Raiders, Rangers, Astros, Spurs, Cowboys and Texans.
And, since 2014, she’ s been on WHAS11, where she’ s a sports reporter / anchor covering ACC and SEC basketball, football and baseball.
But Harding’ s sports journey began well before that.
In The Woodlands, a suburban community north of Houston, she was a promising eightyear-old gymnast trained at by Hall of Fame( and controversial) coach Béla Károlyi, who had previously sent Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Kim Zmeskal, Kerri Strug and others on to Olympics gold and international fame. Zmeskal and Strug had been older gym mates of the young Harding.
So what’ s not to like? It sounds like Donna Reed and the Cleavers meet Happy Days. Except, the days weren’ t always so happy.
“ I HAD TO COACH MYSELF FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR FOR THE JUNIOR OLYMPIC NATIONALS. IT SHOWED ME THE POWER AND STRENGTH T H A T WERE WITHIN ME.”
– Whitney Harding
LIFE OF A GYMNAST
Her athletic promise forced the eight-yearold Harding to give up some of her loves – like dance, and all those other sports she’ d played around the neighborhood – and focus intensely on Olympic-level gymnastics training.
“ Of everything, I loved dance, especially ballet. But I picked gymnastics, I think, because I felt it was what I was expected to pick,” Harding said.“ Looking back, I think,‘ Man, at eight years old, I was asked to make some really hard decisions.’”
She began going to gymnastics practice two or three times a week at 6 a. m., before school, for two hours. Then she’ d go back for three more hours in the evening.
By the age of 11, in 1996, she was nationally ranked in the vault at the Junior Olympic level.
Then came a series of happenstances that throw a whole shade on America’ s youth-athletic obsession: injuries, which happen to a lot of young athletes, and puberty, which happens to everyone.
“ I had tons of injuries,” Harding said.“ I’ m still injured. When I was eight, I had a partially torn meniscus, and wore a brace for a little while. When I got older, it was my back. A lot of my activities were very back-intensive. I later learned there was a history of back problems in my family.”
She was in pain. Tests showed nothing conclusive. She was advised to take some time off,“ but I had a Russian coach( Alexander Alexandrov) at the time. They don’ t understand taking time off. You tough it out! You suffer in silence. You don’ t complain, you just work harder.”
It turned out, her family later learned, she had two stress fractures. Plus“ a whole mess of stuff wrong with my back.”
Harding said the physician who read the tests came out and began talking to her mother.“ He thought she was the patient. He said the pictures showed the back of somebody my mother’ s age.”
LIFE INTRUDES
Also, at this time, Harding went through“ the worst thing that could ever happen to a gymnast.” Puberty!“ I had a growth spurt. I gained weight. I started doing all the things that happen to little
22 EXTOL SPORTS / JULY 2017