New Niles West Gymnastics Facility Scores a 10

Niles West High School welcomed its favorite son, Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Bart Conner, as well as the man who could be called the father of Niles West gymnastics, former coach John Burkel, to its brand-new, state-of-the-art athletic training center Friday morning.

The pair, who first met when Conner was 10-years-old, officially dedicated the $3 million, 15,000-square-foot gymnastics gym that Burkel said is the finest high school facility in the United States.

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Burkel should know, having remained active in the gymnastics world after coaching at Niles West from 1963-1994. He now lives in South Carolina.

Conner, a 1976 Niles West graduate who directed his remarks to the student-athletes in the audience, told them that the new gym gives them the opportunity to work at their sports and make themselves better. His success was not due to being the most talented athlete, he said; it was due to seizing the opportunities that he was given.

That included being invited to visit the Niles West High School gymnastics team with his elementary school gym teacher, who had noticed his talent.

“I walked into that balcony (where the gymnastics team practiced) and saw all that wonderful equipment, and I knew I was home,” Conner said.

He recalled getting on the parallel bars and swinging up into a handstand. That impressed the high school athletes and set in motion a gymnastics career that left him the only male American gymnast to win gold medals in every national and international competition, culminating with a perfect score of 10 on the parallel bars to win gold at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Now 53, Conner showed the crowd that he can still do a handstand.

“I am truly fortunate to enjoy the life I have considering I only have one discernable skill: I can walk on my hands,” Conner said. “I have a skill set that basically has no marketable value.”

But he has used his gymnastic skills to build several gymnastics-based businesses and gives back through his work with Muscular Dystrophy Association and Special Olympics.

Conner and his wife, former Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, also have a 5-year-old son, Dylan. They run the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy in Norman, Okla.

Burkel also has a longtime association with Special Olympics, where he served as director of judges at the World Games from 1987 to 2003.

His advice to the students was simple, “Do the best you can. That’s all anybody can expect from you," Burkel said. "And that’s all you can expect from yourself.”

Burkel's lifelong love of gymnastics also started around age 10, when his father figured he was not going to follow in the basketball shoes of his 6-foot-8 older brother, but noticed that he was always climbing and swinging on things. So his father put up a metal bar between their garage and a tree, and Burkel climbed up and hung from his knees.

“The world looked so much better upside down,” he said.

Burkel was attracted to coaching gymnastics because of the emphasis and pressure it puts on individual athletes. “It’s the fear,” he said, and the process of overcoming it. Especially with students who might have had little or no exposure to gymnastics before high school.

Niles Township children who want to do gymnastics will have the opportunity to use the new gym as well, through agreements with local park districts and other organizations, said Kaine Osburn, Niles West’s principal. The gym will also be used by other athletes, including those on the cheerleading squads and the pompon and diving teams.

It also freed up space for the baseball and softball teams and a cardio exercise lab, Osburn said. The new gym will eliminate the need to spend hours setting up and dismantling equipment for meets. It will also make it possible for the school to host regional and sectional competitions as well.

The gym features an L-shaped pit filled with foam blocks on top of a trampoline and maximizes safety for vaulting, tumbling, rings, the high bar and parallel bars.

That will give the gymnasts more confidence to try difficult moves, said Niles West sophomore gymnast Valerie Fung.

“People will be able to see we really are a good team,” she said.

Designed by Legat Architects, the gym has been registered with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Schools certification. It features large windows on the north wall and indirect skylights that will fill the area with daylight while minimizing shadows. The artificial lighting also is indirect to minimize shadows.

“I’m really glad we have this gym,” said Niles West senior gymnast Jenny Marin. “Finally, we’ll be able to show off our full potential.”