Balancing Act At Garfield -- Bulldog Gymnasts Win Despite Hand-Me- Down Equipment

For most of the past decade, gymnastics at Garfield has been about making the most of a little bit.

Garfield High School's upper gymnasium houses the team's favorite relics. A set of balance beams. A vault. And a pair of uneven bars, at the moment not wide apart enough for one of Garfield's best gymnasts to perform her full routine.

"I keep hitting the (lower) bar with my butt," said senior Tracy Elenzano. "I'd like to perform my optional, but I can't because the bars are too close together. So I just do my compulsory routine."

What Elenzano needs are a pair of "extender bars," which the school actually has in possession, but does not have the means to install.

For now, like many before her, Elenzano will have to do without. Old tights. Old mats. Old bars. These are just the beginning of Garfield's problems.

But no piece of equipment prevented the Bulldogs from becoming the first Metro League team to go to the state meet in 1989, Elenzano's freshman year.

The Bulldogs have gone back to state every year since. On their first attempt, they placed sixth as a team. Two years ago they finished third in state, last year fifth.

Garfield, which competes against Hale today in a dual match, is an anomaly in the Metro League, where gymnastics is a dying sport. Garfield, Roosevelt, West Seattle, Ballard and Hale are the only schools that still have teams. Ingraham was the most recent school to drop its girls gymnastics program. Boys gymnastics has been extinct, statewide, for many years.

"Our gymnastics program is healthy," Garfield Athletic Director Linda Rolfson said. "We have enough participants. The hardest thing is finding a qualified coach. Usually a teacher isn't qualified to coach gymnastics."

In that respect, the most important piece of equipment in Garfield's gym is Angie Sabo, the team's third coach in three years. Symbolically, Sabo is responsible for this year's team, more than any vault or bar.

She succeeded Steve Von Ebers, who succeeded Kelly Donyes. Sabo was last a competitive gymnast about six years ago, as a freshman at University of Kansas.

She managed clubs in Seattle and coached at Mercer Island High School before taking the Garfield job.

"It was all kind of word-of-mouth," Sabo, 25, said. "As long as they need a coach, I'd like to stay."

Sabo's arms are the busiest at practice. Because most of her 16 gymnasts are novices, Sabo spends most of her time spotting and helping awkward bodies find their way around a bar.

"Good job! It wasn't pretty but you did it," Sabo will say to encourage her beginners.

Sabo compared her situation with that of her friend, Kirk Knestis, the gymnastics coach at Bellevue's Interlake High. Knestis has three assistants and about 50 gymnasts.

"I'd like to have an assistant," Sabo said. "I guess it's not in the budget."

Sabo has a modest $200 to work with this season, not much considering any significant piece of equipment costs more than that. For now, the team makes do with hand-me-down mats from the wrestling team.

While Sabo's gymnasts practice their floor-routines, Garfield's wrestling team runs thunderous laps overhead on the next floor of the gym.

"You might not be able to hear this very well," Sabo told one of her gymnasts as she played the music that accompanied the girl's routine.

Garfield's gymnasts range in experience from cartwheel-caliber to Elenzano, one of the team's three strong all-around gymnasts. It is common to find teams in the league whose gymnasts are mostly beginners.

"People were making up routines as they went along," sophomore Shelly Nakaya said of her team's first meet against Ballard and West Seattle.

Elenzano, Nakaya and freshman Summer Clemons are expected to be Garfield's state qualifiers. Elenzano has gone three times. Her best finish was an eighth on the uneven bars.

Nakaya went last year but did not place. All three started training at the Washington Gymnastics Academy in Seattle when they were nine or 10 years old. It's not coincidence that they all came to Garfield.

"The reason I came here was because of the gymnastics program," Elenzano said.