Feature/General
UGA Gymnasts: All in the Family
By Megan Harrison
March/April 2006

Raising four children is a tough challenge for any parent. But when all four are athletes - two of them gymnasts - life becomes a little more hectic.

For the Kupets, life was rarely slow paced or simple with their two boys and two girls involved in a wide variety of sports. Although parents, Mark and Patti, started all of their children off in gymnastics, eventually they would try many different sports.

"We started them all in gymnastics because it's a good sport for anything," Patti commented. "Then they all learned how to swim, but only Mark, my oldest son, took to that."

Over the years each child tried many different sports: Mark, 22, ran track and eventually went to Penn State to pole vault; Ashley, 21, took baton lessons and participated in dance; Courtney, 18, was a diver for a while, among other sports including dance as well; Christopher, 16, the youngest, fell into basketball since he would practice while his sisters were in gymnastics practice.


But pushing the kids to only be in one sport or to be the top athlete in any of their sports was not something that the Kupets believed in.

"They just wanted to make sure that we were happy," Courtney said. "Sometimes you see parents that overdo it - they are more involved than the kid is. So I think that they really understood that you have to let the kid do it their way, reach as high as they want to reach."

With all of their children so heavily involved in the sports world, Patti and Mark quickly grasped valuable lessons about how to deal with the intense world of competition. "I had to learn not to say anything and not to give any advice," Patti said. Adding that if she or her husband said too much the girls might get mad at them.

The family also learned the importance of listening to coaches and trainers when it came to the safety of their kids. "Physical therapy was hard because we had to do it ourselves up to three times a week," Patti said.

Patti or Mark would have to take time off work to fit physical therapy into the busy Kupets' schedule and, at first, it was not something that was taken seriously. "Ashley got hurt again because I had not taken her to physical therapy so I felt like it was my fault," Patti said. After that incident, the Kupets realized how important injury prevention was and made time for the kids to get physical therapy, chiropractic care, acupuncture, massages, or anything that would help to avoid injury.

Only when Ashley and Courtney decided to solely pursue gymnastics did the true impact of an athletic lifestyle hit the family. At one point, the Kupets lived an hour away from Hill's Gymnastics, the gym where the girls trained in Maryland, and would drive there every day just for practice. The cost of gym time was another family burden, causing Patti to have to get a job teaching 2 year olds at the gymnastics center just to cover the fees for her girls. Only one consequence from the many sporting endeavors over the years created an issue with the family.

"We never had a family vacation," Patti said. "The girls had gymnastics meets in the summer, and by the time that was done football was starting up. I am still waiting on a family vacation." However, those issues are not something that the family regrets. "I am so thankful that I had it. I enjoyed being around it," Patti said. One thing that she wishes is that she had sought out the advice of some parents who had been through the gymnastics world before and knew what to do.

Megan Harrison is a sophomore at UGA majoring in Sports Studies with a concentration in communication and minoring in English. She works for university's student newspaper, The Red & Black, as a sports writer covering gymnastics and swimming.