Letters to a Young Gymnast

by Nadia Comaneci

  Bart started to call me every week. Our friendship began to blossom, but things happened very slowly. Perhaps that’s because we both knew that if we were to have a relationship, it would be serious. During that year, we basically fell in love with each other over the phone. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but we knew we were getting closer and closer. We did a short gymnastics exhibition called “The Mystery and Magic of Nadia” in Reno, Nevada. We performed routines to music together and grew closer as a result of that tour. Our relationship wasn’t based on the physical because we weren’t together that much but instead was founded on friendship and trust. But tragedy interrupted our courtship.

  In Montreal, I used to go fishing every Sunday with Alexandru’s family—his wife and his son from a previous relationship. I love fishing because it’s so peaceful and reminds me of my childhood in Romania. In Canada, we’d play some music, have a little barbecue, and spend the entire day by the river. Alexandru was a real adventurer, and he’d also go snorkeling and scuba diving while we fished. On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend in 1991, we all went fishing by the lake but chose to return that night instead of camping. Alexandru and his son decided to go back to the river again the next day. His son planned to fish, and Alexandru wanted to do some more diving by the walls of a big dam.

  Later, Alexandru’s son would recall of that day that one minute he could see his father and the next he was gone; no bubbles from the oxygen tank showed on the surface of the river. Alexandru usually went to the surface every ten minutes or so to let family know he was okay. After forty-five minutes, his son was panicked. Finally, he saw a man floating on the top of the water and called to his father, assuming he was still scuba diving. Alexandru didn’t respond, so his son swam out to him, only to discover he was dead. There was a lot of turbulent water near the dam, and Alexandru had hit his head against a concrete pillar and drowned.

  Alexandru’s son called his wife and me; he was completely broken up. It’s all a blur in my mind now. We screamed and yelled off the balcony of our home, we saw reporters talking about the accident on the news, we couldn’t believe it had happened. It was such a terrible tragedy. I called Bart, but he was hosting the Jerry Lewis Telethon in Chicago and was unavailable. I felt as if I was being ripped apart by sorrow and could hardly bear to hear the sobbing of Alexandru’s son and wife. Alexandru had been our leader, partner, best friend, and father figure. He just couldn’t be gone.

  Death is such a strange thing. It leaves you with a hole in your heart that you’re certain will never be filled, and it won’t. But is also makes you reach out to life because our time on this planet is so short and the clock moves too quickly. I tried to call Bart again and again. Finally, just after he finished doing twenty-one hours straight on television for the telethon, he answered the phone. I was sobbing when I told him Alexandru had died. “What am I going to do?” I asked. Alexandru and I had been working together on creating business opportunities, but without him, that was over, and I couldn’t be a burden on his wife and son. It wasn’t fair to live on their income. Bart told me to get on a plane for Oklahoma. We’d figure things out together.

  Following Alexandru’s funeral, I packed up my boxes and got a ticket to Oklahoma. Alexandru’s wife and I said our tearful good-byes, and I thanked her for being such a good friend to me. To this day, we are still in touch. She remarried a few years after Alexandru’s death and now has two small children. I think that’s what Alexandru would have wanted for her. He was so full of laughter and love and would want to know that his wife is happy. He was the kind of person who would also understand that anyone who loved him will never forget him.

  When I moved to Oklahoma, Paul Ziert, Bart’s former gymnastics coach, personal manager, and good friend, gave me a room in his home. Bart, who had a place in Los Angeles, was also occasionally living at Paul’s home, and our rooms were next to each other. But I was mourning Alexandru’s death and leaving my new family in Montreal, so I was in no place to begin a serious relationship. At the time, our proximity to each other didn’t matter, and new love wasn’t important. What was important was that both Bart and Paul welcomed me into their lives with open arms. Paul became my manager, too, and soon was one of my dearest friends.

  Bart and Paul developed opportunities together, such as gymnastics tours, and found companies that wanted spokespeople. At first, there was no work for me, but I tagged along and was included in most of Bart’s work. It was like learning a new language or a floor routine to music I had never heard before. I had no clue exactly what “appearances” were back then, but I learned from watching other celebrities, from the television, and from reading magazines. I studied how people walked, talked, and dressed, and I tried to emulate them. I worked on becoming a strong public speaker. I practiced my diction, eye contact, and gestures and always watched the way Bart, who is very professional, worked. Once in a while, Paul set up personal appearances and promotional events for me with companies such as Danskin, the Step Company, and Jockey. Paul and Bart supported me and gave me a place to live. I was learning a lot and improving my English.

  Bart and I didn’t restart our tentative relationship for months. We lived in the same house and traveled together, but I started to think we were just going to continue as friends. You can’t begin a relationship unless it’s mutual. We were visiting Los Angeles, walking along the beach by his house, when he finally kissed me. I remember marveling that it all was really happening and that I was to be given a chance at that kind of happiness. We had dinner at a romantic bistro on the beach. Things were so perfect that I thought I might wake from a dream at any moment.

  You asked what first attracted me to Bart. I can’t say any one thing . . . it was more that nothing didn’t attract me to him. I thought he was gorgeous, of course, but more than that, I liked the person he was, the way he treated other people, how he never panicked. Bart always has solutions for problems and wants to help people. He was probably the easiest person for me to trust after I left Romania. I don’t know why, he just was. When he came to Montreal the first time, I could tell by his voice what kind of person he was; I could read it. Bart never once told me what to do with my life. About any situation, he’d say, “This is how I’d do it, but it’s a free country, so do it your way.”

  You want to know all of the details about Bart and me, and I understand that. When I see celebrities of any sort in romantic relationships, I want to know the details, too. It’s natural to be curious, but it’s also natural for me to want to keep some things to myself. Suffice it to say that over the following four years, our relationship grew into a very loving one. We respect each other’s differences and quirks and always allow each other the freedom to travel, take different jobs, and do what’s necessary to maintain our individuality.

  I won’t leave you with nothing, though. Our engagement took place after we’d been together for four years. I knew that we were headed in that direction, so I never worried, but I have to admit it was awfully nice to be asked by Bart to spend the rest of my life with him. Let me say that it is almost impossible to trick me or pull one over on me. I’m pretty clever, and not much escapes my eyes. I must say, though, that Bart really did an amazing job of fooling me. I never saw the proposal coming.

  I had gone to Japan to do some promotional work. Bart and I were scheduled to be in Germany for the World Gymnastics Championships but decided we’d take a brief weekend vacation together in Amsterdam before going to the championships. Both of our schedules had been hectic, and we needed some downtime together. Bart’s mother went, too, because she was going to the championships as well. After the Worlds, Bart and I planned to go to Romania together—it was going to be his first trip to my country, and he would meet my parents and brother. It would also be my first trip back, five full years after my defection.

  I’ll admit that it made me very nervous to even think about returning to Romania. Not because I was afraid for my life and freedom because those days were over.
I was afraid because I thought the Romanian people would consider me a traitor. In the past, everyone who left had been labeled a traitor by the government. True, Romania had a new government now, but I worried about how the people would feel when they saw me again. Would they think that I had betrayed them? Such were my concerns when I was in Amsterdam because I knew that time was short, the championships would be over soon, and then I’d have to face the past. Friend, I’d been told you can never run away from the past, but until that moment, I don’t think I’d ever believed that saying completely. Regardless, at the time, Bart’s and my future was definitely not in the forefront of my mind.

  But Bart had it all planned out. He’d contacted a jeweler in Texas and designed a gorgeous ring that he brought to Amsterdam. It was sized perfectly because while I was in Japan, he’d taken one of my rings and given it to the jeweler. We stayed in a lovely hotel and had reservations at a great restaurant for dinner. Bart was dressed early, which was not like him at all, and was waiting for me to finish blow-drying my hair. “Are you alright?” I recall asking him. Dinner wasn’t until 7:00 P.M., and it was only 5:30. Bart told me he was fine. But he really wasn’t because he’d arranged for our friend, Paul Ziert, to send champagne to the room, and it hadn’t yet arrived. He thought something had gone wrong. As it turned out, everyone—including Bart’s mother, Paul, and our agents at International Management Group—knew about Bart’s plans. With that many people in the know, I can’t believe someone didn’t spill the beans!

  I got dressed for dinner, and just before we headed out to make our reservation, there was a knock on the door. A waiter brought in a chilled bottle of champagne. I was confused. We didn’t do things like that. After the waiter uncorked the bottle and left, Bart proposed. I was in total shock. People in Romania don’t get engaged; they just get married. I’d never seen a diamond engagement ring up close because in my homeland, women just wore a simple band. The engagement ring Bart held out to me was breathtaking. I think I said, “Oh no, oh my God.” And then, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

  Bart and I floated through dinner that night. He was still so flustered that he gave the waiter something close to a 50 percent tip. All I know is that the entire evening felt like a dream. It seemed my Prince Charming had finally kissed me and I’d awakened after a long sleep. I had lived under so much control in my own country and struggled a great deal when I defected, but all of a sudden, everything I’d been through in my entire life was culminating in total happiness. I felt as if I was in a corny movie with a happy ending, and it was hard to believe that it was my happy ending. Bart, of course, had a lot to do with it, but I also realized that I had controlled my destiny, too. I was the one who’d made it possible for me to be in that hotel in Amsterdam on that night to receive Bart’s proposal. We create our own fairy tales.

  Do you grasp, my friend, how far I’d come at that moment? A little girl born in the poor village of Onesti, Romania, to a mechanic and a homemaker went from a kid climbing trees to the number one gymnast in the world. I survived and thrived during my younger years under Ceausescu’s regime, suffered through Romania’s shortage of food and fuel, and tried to carve out a decent life for myself and my family in a country run by leaders who lacked any and all conscience toward their people. I risked my life to defect, running into the unknown and darkness and the real possibility of going to jail or getting a bullet in my back. I left my family behind and believed I’d never see them again. I lost my new family in Montreal when Alexandru drowned. After that, I took a risk and moved to Oklahoma, not knowing what lay ahead. And then I found another family in Bart and Paul, a career, and more than I ever could have dreamed of... the love of my life. My grandmother had told me that I was born lucky. I think she was right.

  ■ A Breath of Fresh Air

  I have ten rules for living. They are the product of my past and present and my hopes for the future:1. Master the basics

  2. Focus on the details

  3. Expect to struggle—it is not easy to succeed

  4. Acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them

  5. Define success in your own terms

  6. Enjoy the process because preparation is everything

  7. Do more than what is asked of you

  8. Be original—make your own impact

  9. Be willing to sacrifice—it makes success even sweeter

  10. Maintain your love and passion for what you do

  My return to Romania five years after my defection was private and intensely personal, and I didn’t think anyone other than my family would be interested. Perhaps those who believed I’d betrayed them would give me sideways glances and dirty looks, or perhaps they’d even say something derogatory, but I hoped that most of my fellow Romanians would have moved on because they had much bigger priorities and more important concerns. Ceausescu and the Securitate were gone, and no one would surreptitiously follow me or bug my hotel room. No one, I anticipated, would demand to know my plans, schedule, or conversations. I had faded into the dusty history books, and Romanians wouldn’t care much anymore about Nadia Comaneci.

  I was so wrong. When Bart and I got off our plane in Bucharest, thousands of Romanians waving signs and tossing bouquets of flowers were at the airport; even the new prime minister was there. It was really something. Incredible is too simple a word to describe the moment I stepped out of the plane. I have never in my life felt so lucky or loved by so many people. I remembered the fears I had in 1976 when I was greeted by screaming crowds after the Montreal Olympics. I hadn’t understood, then, what I’d meant to the people of Romania. How could any child conceive of that? But as an adult and a woman who’d finally returned to the country she loved, I grasped the personal significance as well as the import to the people. I had been a symbol of someone bright and young and talented and Romanian—a symbol of what Romanians believed they and their country could be if only they were given the chance.

  ABC had asked to send a camera crew to accompany Bart and me because they wanted to document my first return home. I’d agreed with reservations, since I wasn’t certain exactly what would greet us in Romania or that I wanted it on film! Now I am so glad that I have the memory saved forever on a videotape because the entire trip was such a whirlwind that I might have forgotten some of the magic of the moment. ABC caught everything. And after spending my young life being followed without ever quite seeing the secret police, it was a nice change to know that the network’s cameras were in plain sight.

  On our first night in Romania, Bart and I stayed in Bucharest and visited my mother and brother. Bart had met my mother before (she comes to visit us every year for at least a month). She definitely approved, as did my brother and sister-in-law, because it’s impossible not to love Bart. We had a great night as a family. Once, I had believed I would never see my mother and brother again, let alone spend time in Romania with them and my fiancé. It was all a bit surreal.

  Early the next morning, we formed a little caravan of four cars and began our drive to Onesti to see my father. Bart had never met him before and wanted to personally ask him for my hand in marriage. It took forever to get to Onesti. Every small town along the way—and there are tons of them—was filled with crowds waving flowers and hundreds of little girls singing Nadia songs. People were so proud to have me back home that they turned out in full force to make me feel welcome. The sentiment about my defection was simple: “Good for you,” they all said. “We wish we would have had the guts or opportunity to leave, too.”

  In each small town, we stopped so that the mayor could make a speech and give me a pretty bouquet of flowers. Then we went to his office because it would have been impolite not to share a glass of champagne. Bart was overwhelmed at the crowds and speeches and all of the kissing. In Romania, people always double-kiss each other’s cheeks. It’s a bit different from the American custom of shaking hands or giving a manly slap on the back. At any rate, the four-hour trip took nine hours. Everyone wanted a minute with me, a
nd I was so happy to give each of them what I could.

  When we finally arrived in Onesti, I showed Bart around the village, and then we went to my father’s apartment. My dad was nervous. The television cameras and strangers were overwhelming. He didn’t know very many words in English, so when Bart asked him for my hand in marriage (in front of the rolling cameras), he said, “Thank you.” He’d gotten his words confused. I joke to this day that at least he didn’t know the English words for “Thank God.”

  Onesti held a huge celebration, and thousands of people packed into the gymnasium where I had trained with Bela and Marta Karolyi. Everyone made a speech, even my grade school teacher and the priest who had baptized me. I felt an enormous wave of gratitude for all of the people who had cared about me back then and still did five years after my defection. It seemed they had all developed a newfound respect for me after I defected, though I think to this day that many Romanians still have misconceptions about exactly what I left behind. They assume I sacrificed wealth, an enormous home, expensive cars, jewelry, and luxurious comfort. It makes me uncomfortable to correct those misconceptions about me, even today, because I still find the entire situation humiliating. I have fierce pride, and sometimes it can get in the way.

  Bart and I were invited to visit the president and prime minister of Romania after our time in Onesti. We were received in their version of the White House, which is a gorgeous mansion. The president asked us if we’d considered having our wedding in Romania. I remember being really taken aback at the suggestion. Bart and I hadn’t even talked about the wedding because we’d only recently gotten engaged and were just enjoying the moment. I said something about the fact that we lived Norman, Oklahoma, but Bart immediately said, “There’s no better place in the world—we have to be married here. It would be a complete shock to Romanians if you weren’t.” And that was that.