Nicole James ventures to produce gold at JAG

Will Houma produce the next Nadia Comenici or Dominique Dawes or Mary Lou Retton or Shannon Miller?

Don’t bet against it.

The source, center and summit may be the James Academy of Gymnastics on Venture Boulevard in Houma, courtesy of a Thibodeaux native named Nicole James, a former Centenary College star, national beam champion and AAU balance beam bronze medalist.

Quite an impressive resume James has assembled in a sport that tests to the ultimate: strength, flexibility, balance, rhythm, choreography and agility. An art form that harmonizes body movement and mesmerizes audiences worldwide. Extraordinary skill. Absolute rhythm.

The best artisans, best workers, best professionals take pride in their work. James loves the job. Her face beams talking about her calling in life. You sense she has an interior knowing she is destined to produce a champion or two or three or four.

SportsNet: It has been said you take the most skilled gymnast and place him or her in football. You take the biggest, baddest meanest most skilled football player and place him in gymnastics. After one hour of playing football, the gymnast will be bruised. After one hour of gymnastics, the football player will be dead. What say you?

Nicole James: (Laughter) Probably so. We get so many ex-football, basketball and baseball players who are dads, who come in here and everyone wants to jump on the rings and do an iron cross and they think they can and most of them can’t even pull themselves up. So, pound for pound, gymnasts are the strongest athletes in the world. That’s a fact.

SN: One of the fastest growing participatory sports as of late?

NJ: I’d like it to be. Most little girls when they’re little want to know how to tumble, want to do cartwheels and be cheerleaders.

SN: It’s certainly a way to build muscle mass without lifting weights.

NJ: Well yeah. Mostly muscle and the strength you get from gymnastics is not like any other sport. Your core strength is where most of the gymnasts shine. The stomach muscles and upper body strength.

SN: Tell me about yourself. What age did you start?

NJ: I started when I was five.

SN: And where did it go from there?

NJ: I competed up until my junior year in college. Then, I started coaching. I got my first job when I was 15 years old. So, I coached through high school and college and even when I got into my professional career I always coached.

SN: How would you describe your coaching philosophy?

NJ: I’ve changed over the years. I guess I thought you could get the kids to do things by yelling at them, and I guess giving them conditioning for punish work, and I’ve found that you can get them to do a lot more if you don’t use those factors.

SN: So there are several different coaching styles that can produce champions?

NJ: Different. Each child is different. I’ve got some kids that I can push and they respond to it, and, then, I have some kids that can’t be pushed. They have to be stroked.

SN: Reflect on your days at Centenary and Grambling?

NJ: I got a full scholarship to Centenary College. My freshman year, I was All-American on balance beam – second all-around in the nation and first on balance beam. And, my second year, the freshman came in. My body was getting old. I was getting tired. So, that’s when I transferred my second year to Grambling and I did cheerleading. That’s what old gymnasts do (laughs).

SN: Describe the emotions, the visceral feelings of attaining the rank of All-American?

NJ: One of my proudest moments. I didn’t realize what being All-American meant until I got to college. I was All-American on vault, All-American on beam. I didn’t realize until I got to college what that meant to be an All-American because I heard about it from some of my friends that came before me. They aspired to be All-American. I didn’t really know what that meant but in retrospect, yeah, I guess I was hoping for that too.

SN: Talk about the programs here at James Academy and the age ranges?

NJ: Our pre-school programs start from the age of three. In our regular school-age program, that start at the age of five, the lessons are geared toward getting their strength and flexibility up so that they can maybe one day compete on our team. And, I go around on a weekly basis to kind of scope new kids that can come into our program, our kids that have gotten strong enough or flexible enough to move into the team program and we try to recruit kids once a year to go into our team program because our competition season is annual.

SN: You’re in your fourth year here. How is the growth?

NJ: We’ve gone through some growing pains here and we’ve made some mistakes at the beginning, lost some good coaches, lost some good kids. We are in our fourth year competing but we are really coming into our homegrown kids coming up in the program, the kids who started with us from day one who are now on our competition team. That’s so exciting to watch them grow. Nobody else has tainted them or taught them anything different from our philosophy.

SN: Your vision for the program Nicole?

NJ: The sky is the limit. We recently hired a Russian coach named Viktor Firfov who is incredible.

SN: Quite a group of photographs here. Quite a Wall of Fame. You’ve met all the legends.

NJ: Oh yeah, I’ve stalked them all (laughter.) I hang around the elevator waiting for them to come out.

SN: That’s you with Nadia. Tell me about that experience?

NJ: We were staying at the same hotel as them. It was a National Congress, that is like our trade show every year and it was in Indianapolis. It was raining outside so I was going to run next door to get something to eat. I had a baseball cap and sweats and I was walking through the lobby with my head down and I was looking down. I kind of glanced at this woman’s leg and said, ‘She has some nice legs.’ I looked up and said, ‘That’s Nadia!’ I ran up to her and said I just want to hug you and she looked at me like I was crazy.

SN: You must have been on cloud nine?

NJ: I was! I was! And, I ran back to my room and I didn’t have my camera and all I had was my camera phone but it did not come out that good. I said, ‘I have to have a picture of you can you wait here?’ She said, ‘No I can’t wait but I am going to be at the meet tonight.’ I said, ‘I’m going to have my camera.’ As soon as I walked in I saw her and her husband, Bart Connor, and he remembered me. He said ” Oh my God, it’s the crazy girl, but she was very, very nice, very kind and her legs are phenomenal to this day. She must be in her mid-40s but her legs look 18 though. She’s aging well.

Nicole James of James Academy of Gymnastics says the sport is unlike any other for even the youngest athletes. “Your core strength is where most of the gymnastics shine,’ she said. * Photo courtesy of JAG