Striking the balance
Niki Tom, who started her collegiate gymnastics career as a walk-on, has become an integral part of the UCLA gymnastics team in her senior year, particularly because of her skills on the balance beam.
By Mansi Sheth
Feb. 9, 2011 2:44 a.m.
Senior gymnast Niki Tom is one of only two Bruins to compete on balance beam at all five UCLA meets this year. Tom has an average beam score of 9.660.
Imagine running, leaping, turning and flipping across a surface that is less than half a foot wide. But don’t look down because the ground is four feet away.
The task is enough to make most people shake their heads in disbelief.
With such a small margin of error, balance beam competition is not about flashy moves or dazzling dance steps. It is low profile, requiring gymnasts to be precise and, above all, consistent.
Balanced. Low profile. Consistent. Senior Niki Tom reflects the very qualities necessary to successfully compete on beam, the apparatus that has established the former walk-on as a regular in the Bruins’ lineup.
Influenced by her parents’ emphasis on education, Tom has been balancing academics and athletics ever since she first started gymnastics at the age of 7. Valedictorian at her high school, Tom juggled Advanced Placement classes with level 10 gymnastics training in the hopes of attending her dream university: UCLA.
“I grew up as a Bruin,” said Tom, a Northridge native who regularly attended UCLA gymnastics meets since the age of 10. “People who were incorporated into my family went to UCLA, and I just loved every aspect of it. … I don’t know, I just bleed blue and gold.”
A brief lunch meeting with coach Valorie Kondos Field in her junior year of high school was all Tom needed to verbally commit to the Bruins. Although she was unable to give Tom a full scholarship, Kondos Field offered her a walk-on spot if she was academically accepted to UCLA.
“The money wasn’t the issue, and it was really refreshing to talk with them as a family because their daughter’s college career was more important to them than a scholarship,” Kondos Field said. “She could have gotten one at any number of places.”
Having followed Tom, a local gymnast, throughout much of her club career, Kondos Field was immediately attracted to the natural certainty in Tom’s personality.
“There was no drama, there were no highs and lows in the years that I had seen her in high school when I was recruiting her,” Kondos Field said. “I just feel that when people have that type of confidence, it can’t be faked.”
This infectious self-assurance has been Tom’s greatest contribution to the Bruins. Fellow senior Mizuki Sato believes that her “intuitive” ability to sense when others are struggling makes Tom a natural leader.
As early as her freshman year, she established herself as a crucial part of the team’s backbone, pushing other gymnasts to reach their potential. It was this force of personality that led Kondos Field to offer Tom a full scholarship for her junior and senior years.
“It was much more her character more than her gymnastics,” Kondos Field said. “You really can’t coach that type of consistent, deep-rooted character. … If I could have given her three scholarships a year, it would not have repaid her for what she has done for this team.”
Not that losing the label as a walk-on really made any difference to Tom.
“It was exciting because it is nice to have a reward for your hard work,” she said. “I mean it is definitely a perk to be on scholarship, but I would say that it almost made me work harder being a walk-on.”
As a walk-on competing with scholarship players to perform at meets, Tom needed all the self-assurance in her possession along with a persistent work ethic to avoid fading into the competition background.
“Her work ethic is just inspiring,” Sato said. “She never lets up. She doesn’t know anything else but hard work.”
Kondos Field did not overlook Tom’s perseverance, regularly penciling in her name on the lineup card. During her freshman year, Tom appeared in nine of 14 meets, making nine appearances on beam with only two falls.
Throughout her next two years as a Bruin, Tom competed 22 routines on balance beam, scoring 9.70 or more in 17 meets. Among the Bruins’ fluctuating success on the apparatus, Tom’s consistency as a performer distinguished her from the rest.
“She is a great competitor because even if there may be girls on our team that could go out and score a little higher than she would, she is a rock,” Kondos Field said. “You can always count on her.”
When she stands on that 4-inch-wide beam in Pauley Pavilion for the last time later this season, with legs straight and toes tensely pointed, Tom will have the satisfaction of knowing that the choice she made four years ago paid off.
“I got to do gymnastics, and I don’t have to do it,” Tom said. “I got to go to UCLA. I got to go to class and get a great education. It’s not about what I have to do, it’s about the opportunity.”
