Gymnast will continue sport at Oregon State

Brooke Barclay of Coeur d’Alene will be falling head over heels for a college in Oregon next year.

In August, she’ll attend Oregon State University in Corvallis, after accepting a full-ride gymnastics scholarship last month. She plans to major in graphic design, interior design or sports psychology.

“We’re all real excited and proud of her for all her hard work,” said her mother, Beth.” It’s a huge accomplishment.”

The school recruited her after watching competitions, observing workouts and talking to her coaches for the last two years. Oregon State is one of seven schools that showed an interest in her this summer.

Barclay, 17, said the new level of competition will change her focus to contributing to the team rather than on her own events. But the best part of earning the scholarship means holding on to the sport for a few more years, she said.

“That’s been my goal since I knew what college was,” she said.

Barclay started with gymnastics before she was 3 years old. She began by walking down the beam with her mother holding her hand while she did her somersaults.

Beth remembers her daughter’s active nature on swing sets and monkey bars as a toddler.

“We’d go to the park, and she’d just stand at the swing holding onto the chains and kick completely over,” Beth said. “She’d do a flip holding onto the chains.”

Beth added it was scary to see Brooke so young and fearless on a gravel playground. Gymnastics seemed the best substitute, and as her skill improved she started training with better gymnasts.

Barclay has been competing with the Funtastics gymnastics club in Coeur d’Alene for six seasons. Her best event is the vault – she won the event at a national competition last year in Florida.

She trains four days during the week after classes at Coeur d’Alene High, and every Saturday. Each practice is more than four hours long.

Barclay calls herself a perfectionist and finds the hardest practices to be the ones where she walks away unsure of how to fix part of her routine or how to figure out a new skill. But she’s trying to ease up on herself.

“Learning to accept it when I mess up and move on and try to make the next one better – that’s been the goal for my attitude,” she said.

Her hardest maneuver is a double pike, a back flip twice in the air in a tucked position. The move took about four years to learn.

She’s working to improve her weakest event, the bars, before the club’s next meet in four weeks at the Pikes Peak Cup in Colorado Springs. She is also working toward her next trip to nationals in late May or early April, where she hopes to have flawless form on the floor.

Barclay expects to improve her skills with better coaching at the college level. Beth said after introducing her daughter to gymnastics, she’s glad to see her sticking with the sport through college.

“She took to it and seemed to have that natural inclination and natural ability,” Beth said. “She developed a love of the sport.”

Beth said her daughter has learned a lot by being involved in the sport, such as self-discipline and time management. Balancing school and the club sport has been a challenge, but she is keeping her grades up and focusing her practices on the next competition.

Barclay said she sticks with it because of the life skills she’s learned along the way.

“I like having a passion for something and wanting to do it,” she said. “I like making goals and working toward them.”