Kelli Hill

Last updated

Kelli Hill (born 1960 in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American artistic gymnastics coach who coached Olympians Dominique Dawes, Elise Ray, and Courtney Kupets, and Olympic reserves Corrie Lothrop and Kayla DiCello. [1] She was the head coach of the 2000 and 2004 Olympic teams and of the 1994, 1996, 1999, and 2003 World Championship teams for Women's artistic gymnastics. [2] She is the owner of Hill's Gymnastics Training Center (Hill's Angels) in Gaithersburg, Maryland [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Hill was born in Silver Spring, Maryland and attended Montgomery Blair High School. [4] She did gymnastics as a child and a teen, however she has described herself as a "low level" gymnast who was "not good at it." [5]

She attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where she walked on to the gymnastics team. She intended to major in physical education, with the goal of coaching gymnastics. However, she dropped out months before graduation due to the requirement that she spend eight weeks as a student-teacher. [1]

Career

Coaching

In 1981, at age 21, she bought a gym in Wheaton, Maryland. She moved the gym to Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1991. Her mother ran the gym's office while she coached. [5] Because she had no formal training in coaching gymnastics, she learned how to coach by trial and error. [5]

She coached Dominique Dawes to three consecutive Olympic games: in Barcelona in 1992, in Atlanta in 1996, and in Sydney in 2000. In 2000, both Dominique Dawes and teammate Elise Ray competed and won a team bronze medal*. In 2004, Hill's gymnast Courtney Kupets scored highest in the Olympic trials, and traveled to Athens where she won bronze on uneven bars and contributed scores on bars and floor to the team's 2nd-place finish. Hill's gymnast Corrie Lothrop was an alternate on the 2008 Olympic team, but did not compete.

Originally, China won the bronze medal for the team all-around competition. But in 2010, the Chinese gymnasts were stripped of their medals following an investigation which revealed that the Chinese team had falsified documents to allow the underage Dong Fangxiao to compete. [6]

Kelli Hill was Dominique's only coach for the duration of her gymnastics career. At age 6, she joined Hill's Angels a year after it was founded. Recognizing her natural abilities immediately, Kelli encouraged her to come to the gym as often as possible. By age 10, Dominique was competing as an elite gymnast. [7] When the gym moved to its new location in 1991, Dominique moved into Kelli's home in order to be closer to the gym. Dominique later attended The University of Maryland and continued to see her old coach on a regular basis. Both have described their relationship as close, and Dominique consistently praises the way Hill trained her. I wouldn't be where I am without her support and guidance," Dawes said of Hill. "I didn't get here on my own. In my 18 years in the sport, she did a very good job protecting me from everything that was going on outside of gymnastics. She made me focus on the things I had control of and everything else was just put aside in a stack -- everything from how the judges felt about me to the temperature of the gym. She was very big on instilling that lesson" [7]

At the 1993 World Championships, Dominique was in first place in the all-around competition, but slipped on her final vault, bursting into tears. A famous moment in gymnastics, Kelli encouraged her to be proud of her performance, telling her: "It's okay, you gave it a good shot. When did you ever think you would be in that position? You have to be happy with yourself. Come on. Be happy. Stand up and wave." Dominique was given a standing ovation from the crowd for doing so. [8]

Achievements

Hill coached a National team member every year from 1989 to 2011, except for in 2006. She had at least one gymnast on every Olympic team, or as an alternate, from 1992 to 2008. She was named as the USA Gymnastics coach of the year in 1991, 1993, 2000 and 2003, and the U.S. Elite Coaches Association coach of the year in 1991, 1993, 1996, 2000 and 2003. [2] [9] She was inducted into the gymnastics hall of fame in 2005.

Personal life

Hill has two adult children, Ryan and Jason, and lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. [1]

Related Research Articles

Kerri Allyson Strug is a retired American gymnast from Tucson, Arizona. She was a member of the Magnificent Seven, the victorious all-around women's gymnastics team that represented the United States at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Strug performed the vault that clinched the gold for the U.S. team despite having injured her ankle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Zmeskal</span> American gymnast

Kimberly Lynn Zmeskal Burdette is an American retired artistic gymnast turned gymnastics coach and the 1991 World All-Around champion. A member of the silver medal-winning U.S. team from the 1991 World Championships, she was the first American woman to win the all-around title at the World Championships, as well as the first to win a world championship medal of any color in the all-around. A three-time United States national all-around champion (1990–92), Zmeskal was also the 1992 world champion on both balance beam and floor exercise, and was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. team at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, the first U.S. team medal won at a fully attended Olympic Games. She also posted the highest optional all-around score in the qualification round in Barcelona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Béla Károlyi</span> Romanian-American gymnastics coach

Béla Károlyi is a former gymnastics coach and an ethnic Hungarian Romanian-American. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralized training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia Comăneci, the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. Living under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Károlyi frequently clashed with Romanian officials. He and his wife defected to the United States in 1981.

Amy Yuen Yee Chow is an American former artistic gymnast who competed at the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. She is best known for being a member of the Magnificent Seven, which won the United States' first team gold medal in Olympic gymnastics. She is also the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominique Dawes</span> American artistic gymnast

Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired American artistic gymnast. Known in the gymnastics community as 'Awesome Dawesome', she was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championship silver and bronze medalist, and a member of the gold-medal-winning "Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She is also the Olympic bronze medalist on floor exercise from the Atlanta games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominique Moceanu</span> American artistic gymnast

Dominique Helena Moceanu is a retired American gymnast. She was a member of the gold medal-winning United States women's gymnastics team, the "Magnificent Seven", at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Jaycie Lynn Phelps is a retired American Olympic gymnast and member of the 1996 Olympic gold medal U.S. women's gymnastics team, the Magnificent Seven. She is known for her consistency and clean lines in her gymnastics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shannon Miller</span> American gymnast (born 1977)

Shannon Lee Miller is an American former artistic gymnast. She was the 1993 and 1994 world all-around champion, the 1992 Summer Olympics all-around silver medallist, the 1996 Olympic balance beam champion, the 1995 Pan American Games all-around champion, and a member of the gold medal-winning Magnificent Seven team at the 1996 Olympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohini Bhardwaj</span> American artistic gymnast

Mohini Bhardwaj is an American retired artistic gymnast who competed at the 1997 and 2001 World Championships and earned a silver medal with the American team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and is a member of the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. She is the first Indian-American gymnast, and the second Indian-American athlete in any sport, to medal at the Olympics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtney Kupets</span> American artistic gymnast (born 1986)

Courtney Anne Kupets Carter is an American former artistic gymnast. She is a two-time Olympic medalist from the 2004 Olympics, the 2002 world champion on the uneven bars, the 2003 U.S. national all-around champion, and the 2004 U.S. national all-around co-champion. She is also a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2003 World Championships.

The Magnificent Seven was the 1996 United States Olympic women's gymnastics team that won the first-ever gold medal for the United States in the women's team competition at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The seven members of the team were Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Dominique Dawes, Kerri Strug, Amy Chow, Jaycie Phelps, and team captain Amanda Borden. Miller, Chow, and Dawes also won an individual gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively in Atlanta. The team is perhaps best known for Strug sticking the landing of a vault to clinch the gold medal while injured.

Katherine Elaine "Katie" Heenan is an American former artistic gymnast. She was a seven time national gymnast and four time team NCAA champion with the Georgia Gym Dogs.

Mary Elise Ray is an American gymnast who represented the United States at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and the 1999 World Championships. She was the head gymnastics coach at the University of Washington from 2016 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie Dantzscher</span> American artistic gymnast

Jamie Annette Dantzscher is an American former artistic gymnast. She was a member of the bronze medal-winning American team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tasha Schwikert</span> American gymnast and broadcaster

Tasha Schwikert Moser is a retired American gymnast who is a 2000 Olympic bronze medalist, a World Gymnastics Championships team gold medalist, the 2001 and 2002 U.S. senior national all-around champion and the 2005 and 2008 NCAA all-around national champion.

Corrie Dong Quan Lothrop is an American artistic gymnast. She was an alternate for the United States' 2008 Olympic women's gymnastics team. She was adopted from China at age two. Corrie trained with Kelli Hill at her gym, Hill's Angels, which also produced Olympians Dominique Dawes, Elise Ray, and Courtney Kupets. She previously trained at her family gym, Yellow Jackets Gymnastics, in Middleton, Massachusetts. She was signed to the University of Utah for the 2010 season.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States women's national artistic gymnastics team</span> American gymnastics team

The United States women's national artistic gymnastics team represents the United States in FIG international competitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toni-Ann Williams</span> Jamaican American artistic gymnast

Toni-Ann Natasha Williams is a Jamaican American artistic gymnast that competed in college gymnastics for the Cal Bears women's gymnastics team. She has also been a member of the Jamaica national gymnastics team since 2010. She is the inaugural Jamaican gymnast to compete in the Olympics, in 2016.

The USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center at Karolyi Ranch or simply Karolyi Ranch in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, southeast of Huntsville, was a gymnastics camp facility which was the site of the main training center for the United States women's national gymnastics team, located 70 miles (110 km) north of Houston within the Sam Houston National Forest. From 2001 to 2018, it was the USA Gymnastics' national training facility for women's artistic, trampoline, and rhythmic gymnastics disciplines.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Thomson, Candus (20 July 2004). "For Hill, coaching is balancing act". The Baltimore Sun.
  2. 1 2 USA Gymnastics. "World Championships Coaching Staff Finalized". Archived from the original on 2019-12-13. Retrieved 2013-04-07.
  3. ↑ "About Us". Hill's Angels. Archived from the original on 2016-12-07. Retrieved 2013-04-07.
  4. ↑ Vaughn, Peggy (October 25, 2000). "Back from Sydney with memories, but no gold". The Gazette. Archived from the original on August 31, 2018. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 Hill, Kelli. "Get to Know Coach Kelli Hill". Gymnastike.
  6. ↑ "China 'accept' decision to strip them of Olympic bronze". BBC Sport.
  7. 1 2 "Catching up with Dominique Dawes". ESPN. Archived from the original on 2008-02-29.
  8. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : Dominique Dawes (USA) - 1993 Worlds AA VT. YouTube .
  9. ↑ "Biography: Hill, Kelli". U.S. Gymnastics Hall of Fame. 21 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.