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75: Classic Episode – UCLA’s Miss Val

Miss Val ucla with a 10
UCLA’s six-time NCAA Championship winning coach, Valorie Kondos-Field.
Copyright Christy Linder 2014

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This Week's Interview

This week it’s a Classic Episode with UCLA’s ballet-dancer turned six-time NCAA Championships winning coach, Valorie Kondos-Field. Miss Val chats with Dvora Meyers, Blythe Lawrence, Jessica, and Uncle Tim about:

  • The power of an athlete identity as retirement looms
  • Collegiate gymnastics as one big life skills class
  • The problems with basing self-esteem on performance
  • Incentivizing artistry
  • Her most embarrassing moment as a dancer
  • Why so many of her athletes have the desire to go back to elite after college
  • The actual dollar amount and experiential cost of losing NCAA eligibility
  • What advice she gave Jordyn Wieber about going pro
  • We discover how Miss Val and her former roommate inspired Will & Grace
  • Why Canadians thrive in NCAA
  • Lastly, she tells the story of the amazing wedding gift she gave to a fan

Guest Links

The Bruin Gymnastics YouTube channel. 15 years of UCLA routines, including the fan favorite, “Floor Files”; individual playlists featuring each gymnasts’ routines for all four years.
Miss Val on Twitter.
UCLA Gymnastics website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

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