Excerpt from Flerce by Aly Raisman
Watching TV with my mom was our special time together, and I cherished it. Raising four young children didn't leave a lot of time for kicking
back, but whenever she wasn't too busy, we would sit down on the couch and pick out a tape to watch.
Our choice usually involved our favorite sport--you guessed it gymnastics. Gymnastics wasn't broadcast as often as the endless stream of
football and basketball games, but on the rare occasions gymnastics competitions were televised, we made sure to tape ther. I would watch
those tapes over and over until I knew all the routines by heart
My mom would eventually get tired of yet another screening of a US Championships or an invitational, but I couldn't get enough. When I wasn't
doing homework or at gymnastics practice, I was parked in front of the TV, watching one of those tapes.
One day I want to be just like them, I thought, enchanted by the figures flying across the screen. I had already decided that I would be a
gymnast when I grew up. Well, either that or a pop star, like Britney Spears, my favorite singer. That sounded good, too.
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