KAROLYI, Béla

(b. 13 September 1942 in Cluj, Romania), gymnastics coach who over a thirty-year career has coached nine Olympic champions, fifteen European medalists, and six U.S. National champions.

Karolyi's parents, Nandor, a civil engineer, and Iren, an accountant and homemaker, also had a daughter Maria, Béla's older sister. Unlike his sister, who earned a civil engineering degree by the age of twenty-one, Karolyi was an indifferent student, often in trouble, whose only interests were in animals and sports. At the age of fourteen he was coached by a local hammer thrower who encouraged him to build strength through weight training. In his teens Karolyi set a Romanian national record in this event.

At seventeen Karolyi found a job at the local slaughterhouse, was coached in boxing, fought in local matches, and continued to train for track and field events. Hard work, training, and success in the boxing ring won him the opportunity to compete in both national boxing and track and field events. He won the Junior National Boxing Championship. Unfortunately, training for two sports on top of working to earn a living took its toll, and Karolyi became ill. He returned home to his family, took a chance on a late admission to college, and started college in 1959 at Cluj Technical College.

Arriving five weeks after the start of classes, Karolyi was helped to catch up by a fellow student, Marta Eross, whom he married on 28 November 1963. Karolyi was on the handball and rugby teams, but gymnastics was always a struggle for him. He was a large, muscular young man, weighing in at 286 pounds, and the agility needed to pass the practical exam in gymnastics seemed out of his reach. He would fall and crash into the equipment. Dogged determination kept him practicing day after day on his own, finally asking for help from an assistant coach. In exchange for spotting for the gymnastics team during practice, he was given enough help to be able to pass the exam. Karolyi finally became skilled enough to compete with the gymnastic team, but after he broke his arm his competitive days were over and his focus changed to coaching.

Karolyi graduated in 1963 with a degree in physical education, and afterwards was obliged to serve three months in the Romanian army. Arriving late in the evening, the recruit was given whatever military uniform was left. The big man lined up for the early morning review holding boots six sizes too small, and wearing pants held together with rope and a shirt with sleeves just below his elbows. Although his cap fitted properly, Karolyi thumbed his nose at the military by wearing it sideways.

Marta, who had graduated first in their class, and Karolyi, who graduated second, both took teaching jobs close to one another in a poor, rural coal mining region of Romania. The Romanian education ministry eventually asked the Karolyis to be part of the first gymnastics school in the town of Onesti. In 1972 the first competitive team from Onesti, made up of ten-year-olds, competed in the Friendship Cup in Bulgaria. Nadia Comaneci won the all-around gold and the Romanians won the silver, beating the older teens from East Germany and the Soviet Union. One of Karolyi's contributions to gymnastics was his realization that girls as young as seven could be trained to perform complex athletic routines. In 1976, as the Karolyi-coached team won the right to compete in the upcoming Olympics, the official Olympic roster included four gymnasts from the Dinamo team, the government-supported secret police club. Supported by a high-ranking official, Karolyi was able to plead his case and was named as coach of the Romanian national and Olympic teams.

Karolyi's elfin pigtailed girls from Romania made their entrance to the world arena at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Up against the powerful Soviet team and Eastern Bloc judges with political reasons for not wanting to upset the Soviet Union, the little girls flew through their routines. Nadia Comaneci made history, scoring six perfect tens and winning the overall gold medal. Karolyi's Romanian team changed the face of international gymnastics by showing that young girls could perform well at the highest level, and by taking an athletic approach to a sport that had always been seen as an aesthetic exercise. Romania welcomed the gymnasts and the Karolyis back with awards and celebrations all over the country. Karolyi himself was awarded the Romanian Labor Union Medal. However, everyone did not welcome Karolyi's success, and he began a long struggle with the bureaucracy and petty jealousies of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.

Marta is known for her self-control and well-ordered consistency. Béla is known for his enthusiasm, forceful personality, and aggressiveness. Nowhere were these characteristics more evident than at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the United States boycotted because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Believing that the Soviet judges had cheated to give their gymnast, Yelena Davydova, the gold over Comaneci, Karolyi argued with the appeals judge, knocked down the scoreboard twice, and created a forty-minute incident that stopped the competition. Worse yet, he criticized the Soviets to the ABC television reporter. Karolyi was called before the Romanian Central Committee for humiliating the Soviets and criticizing the games before the Western press. He was even threatened with prison. Shortly thereafter all funding to their gymnastics school was stopped, and the school almost closed. But the Romanian government realized it needed Karolyi. In 1981 the Karolyis, along with their friend and choreographer Geza Pozar, were given two weeks to prepare a team for an exhibition tour of the United States guaranteed to bring in $180,000 for the Romanian Gymnastics Federation. They were accompanied to the United States by the director of the Gymnastics Federation and several Romanian security officers.

At the conclusion of the tour the group was ready to return to Romania when the director of the Romanian federation, embarrassed by Karolyi's criticism of the Soviets' judging and probably wearing an electronic listening device, tried to trap the Karolyis and Pozar into admitting they were planning to defect (which they were not). Given the circumstances surrounding this accusation, if they returned to Romania they would go to prison. If they defected, the Karolyis risked losing their six-year-old daughter, and Pozar would be in danger of losing contact with his wife and children in Romania. Putting their faith in the International Immigration Law that allowed defecting individuals to keep their families together, the group remained in the United States. On the streets of New York, with just $300 among them, and unable to speak English, the three defectors faced a grim and frightening future. Over the next six months their introduction to the United States was difficult and frustrating.

Karolyi's reputation was well-known in the American gymnastics community, however, and eventually, after a short spell coaching at the University of Oklahoma, Karolyi was invited to Houston to develop a gymnastics center. Unfortunately, Karolyi's backers pulled out, but the Karolyis managed to find financing and founded Karolyi's Gymnastics in Houston in 1982. Pozar found a position with a gym in California, and a Texas congressman successfully pressured the Romanian government to reunite the families. The Karolyis' daughter Andrea joined them soon afterward. Béla Karolyi became an American citizen on 1 May 1990.

Diane Durham and Mary Lou Retton were the first of many elite U.S. gymnasts who started the climb to international competition under Karolyi's coaching. Many of the young athletes were shocked by the tough training Karolyi put them through, but he also inspired them to reach new levels of athleticism and skill. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Retton became the first gymnast from the United States to win the all-around champion's medal, as she had accumulated the most points from all four events (vault, beam, uneven bars, and floor exercise). Her success triggered a gymnastics craze that brought over a thousand gymnasts to Karolyi's gym, and to other gyms around the country. But unfortunately, as in Romania, resentment and jealousy were building within the U.S. gymnastic coaching ranks. Karolyi's own assertive and combative attitude did not help. Some criticized what they viewed as the harsh regime his gymnasts endured, while others attacked him as an attention-seeker who was always on the lookout for the next opportunity for publicity.

After the disappointing 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, with its professional athletes, politics, and money-driven concerns, the Karolyis became disillusioned with elite gymnastics coaching and withdrew from their position with the U.S. Olympic team. Their gymnastics center in Houston was thriving. Also, the gymnastics summer camp they had begun on their New Waverly, Texas, ranch in 1989 was succeeding beyond expectations. The camp, running from June 15 to August 15, began to draw more than 2,000 gymnasts each summer. Despite his disillusionment, Karolyi was persuaded in the late 1990s to return to training at a national level. He was appointed national coordinator for the U.S. women's team on 12 September 2001 and started training for the next Olympics.

In the 1970s and 1980s Karolyi's brand of "power gymnastics" based on strength training, conditioning, technique, and intensive practice became a benchmark for gymnastics coaches around the world. In the dedication of his autobiography, Feel No Fear, Karolyi credits his wife for having the mental strength and organizational skills to see them through difficulties both in Romania and the United States. It is important to note that both Karolyis coach the gymnasts, although the press pays the most attention to the quotable, charismatic, and flamboyant Béla.

The best, if not the most impartial, source of information on Karolyi is his autobiography written with Nancy Richardson, Feel No Fear: The Power, Passion and Politics of a Life in Gymnastics (1994). See also Nadia Comaneci and Graham Buxton Smither (photographer), Nadia: The Autobiography of Nadia Comaneci (1981); Mary Lou Retton and Béla Karolyi with John Powers, Mary Lou: Creating an Olympic Champion (1986); and Kerri Strug with John Lopez, Landing on My Feet: A Diary of Dreams (1997).

Rosemarie S. Cardoso