Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

New Mexico’s Top Gymnasts Train in Tiny Eagle Nest

By Carol Mell, 5-23-07

	Moreno Valley gymnasts fly so fast my camera can't catch them. Molly Weber, shown here, has competed twice at the national level. She trains at over 8,000 feet in Eagle Nest, New Mexico, population 200ish.

At the base of Touch-Me-Not Mountain sits the tiny town of Eagle Nest. Best known for hunting and fishing, I traveled there to watch some of New Mexico’s top gymnasts. Residents here have to work harder to breath at more than 8,300 feet but the altitude doesn’t bother three members of the Moreno Valley Gymnastics team, Molly Weber, 17, Maddie Bannon, 15, and Kiowa Montoya, 11. Gravity doesn’t seem to hold them back either as they crisscross the floor flying through amazing stunts.

Just watching them takes my breath away.

To warm up Weber, a senior at Taos High School, climbs onto the trampoline, takes a few jumps to reach dizzying heights and practices a double back tuck.

“That’s just to get me going,” she said.

Weber was preparing for the upcoming USA Gymnastics Regional Championships in Texas. A few weeks later she placed tenth overall in the seven-state regional competition in Texas. She is an alternate for the national competition in which she has participated twice.

Weber caught the gymnastics bug while watching American women take Olympic gold in 1996. Her Mom thought it was too expensive and her Dad thought she would quit. Ten years later she is ready to compete at the college level.

“It’s so much hard work in the gym,” Weber said, “but I love to compete. That’s the icing on the cake, the chance to show off.”

She favors the floor exercise and the balance beam because of the dance elements. She’s thinking of trying out dance when she enters college next fall, joining one of the best teams in the country.

Bannon, who joined her mother and coach Martha Bannon for mind-bending stretches, has been the state all-around champion for two years. At the highest levels, routines are so difficult that there is no guarantee that the girls will pull them off. Maddie had an uncharacteristic fall in her strongest event, the uneven bars, that left her in 20th place in the regional all-around competition. Still, her mother said she gained valuable experience and will be much stronger for it going into next year.

Being the daughter of the coach has advantages, Maddie Bannon said. Wherever they go she gets to play on the equipment and visit the coaches’ hospitality room.

“When I accomplish something I get a good feeling,” she said. “It’s not like there is a limit.”

Well, not for her anyway.

Montoya, from Taos Pueblo, first took a class with her father when she was four. She said she enjoys learning “new stuff” as she donned weights on her arms, legs and middle to climb to the top of the rope hanging from the gym ceiling. She was the state all-around champ last year at skill level 6. This year, at level 7, she won the balance beam competition. She is too young for the regional event.

All three trained like their lives depended on it, doing calisthenics that would make a Marine proud. They train all year.

Gymnastics, Coach Bannon said, requires speed, agility, strength, flexibility and balance. She starts with children as young as three. Some of the younger ones practiced their flips right along with the champs.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Bannon said. “I can’t look at a kid and see they’ll be great. You have to be willing to do it when you don’t feel like it. More than talent, it has to do with the heart and desire.”

Bannon admits that defying gravity is for kids.

“Gymnastics is great even if they take it once a week. It’s not a lifetime sport but it leads to body consciousness and many go on to excel in track, cheerleading, dance and diving.”

The little Moreno Valley team has had a big impact in New Mexico where the sport is still in its infancy. Only twelve in the state competed at Weber’s level and only nine at Bannon’s.

Coach Bannon must have learned a thing or two about tenacity herself when she was a young gymnast because to build the program in such a remote community has been tough.

“When I came here from Houston in 2000 they said, ‘Gymnastics, huh?’” Bannon recalled. She started in Taos, coached in Santa Fe and got some equipment through a small grant for Angel Fire where she lives, 12 miles from Eagle Nest. When the Principal from the Eagle Nest Elementary School called to ask if she wanted to lease the old gym she moved all her programs there. Her students followed. She has 14 team gymnasts and another 55 in her classes. They come from Cimarron, Red River, Taos, Eagle Nest and Angel Fire. Weber and Montoya make the 50-mile round trip from Taos four times a week.

Bannon said she enjoys living in the mountains, even if the endless driving to meets sometimes gets to her.

“It’s still better than commuting in Houston,” she said.

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