Kat Ding just wanted to get away.

She wanted to get as far away from Reno, Nev., as possible and knew gymnastics was her way out. It was her ticket to college, and her ticket to being able to grow up.

“I wanted to experience something better and to make myself a different person than what everyone expected me to be,” said Ding, a sophomore. “And staying in Reno is not growing up at all. Going out and meeting new people and going to a school where there are 30,000 people that you don’t know is awesome. You start over fresh, and I needed that.”

Kat Ding gas become key to the Gym Dogs' success this season. Photo by DANIEL SHIREY

And that desire for a fresh start is how the Georgia gymnastics team gained one of its most promising young stars and someone who will be vital to its future success.

By the time she was 10 years old, she knew where she wanted to go: Georgia. In 1998, the Gym Dogs had just won their fourth national title, and from what Ding recalled hearing, “They dominated Nationals, and I wanted to go there.”

So she made a pact with club teammate Annie Szatkowski that the pair would attend Georgia together. During the summer of 2006 she took a big step toward fulfilling her childhood promise when Georgia came calling at the Junior 10 Nationals.

“She was OK on a couple of events but there was something about that way she competed,” said Georgia head coach Jay Clark. “The looks on her face, the expressions and determination was there and you certainly saw there was a lot of talent and ability there that seemed relatively untapped.”
Ding, however, knew that college coaches had their doubts about her.

“I wanted to really prove myself,” she said. “A lot of college coaches would ask Jay, ‘Why are you recruiting her? She’s from Reno, she’s not that good,’ and Jay would say, ‘She has potential.’ I really wanted to prove to all those other coaches that I did have potential and I was better than they thought.”
But Clark never had a doubt about her talent.

“Sometimes you look for those ‘diamonds in the rough’ and that’s not a slight on her because she’s just as good as anybody,” Clark said. “But you look for those kids that have untapped potential and sometimes they pan out and sometimes they don’t, and Kat really has.”

Clark and Georgia offered her a scholarship during her junior year of high school, and she was faced with a difficult decision. Szatkowski had committed to Iowa and Ding wasn’t sure whether she should follow her friend.

“I really wanted her to come with me but I didn’t try to persuade her in any way because everybody is different and everybody has to make their own decision,” Szatkowski said from Iowa during a telephone interview. “I was really happy for her when she went to Georgia. She went to the right place for her and I went to the right place for me.”

As a freshman, Ding initially struggled accepting criticism. But she has found a new mind set in her sophomore campaign.

“I couldn’t handle anything,” Ding said. “[Former head coach] Suzanne [Yoculan] would just knock me down and I would just start bawling and this year Jay will want me to change something and I’m like ‘OK, that’s fine.’ I’ve been able to grow up and become a more understanding person.”

Ding earned a first-team All-American honor on the uneven bars as a freshman in addition to competing on the vault.

This season, she has added the balance beam to her repertoire and may soon compete in the all-around.
But until Friday’s meet at Utah when she scored a 9.875, Ding had struggled on the balance beam.
It was not her favorite event, and she considered asking out of the lineup in fall practice. But Clark assured Ding of his confidence in her, and that helped find it in herself.

“It made me turn around completely. Maybe I’m not the best, but I’m good enough to be in it and good enough is all that matters. You don’t have to be the rock star, you just have to keep the band going.”

She was stellar last week in Salt Lake City against Utah though, scoring a 9.9 on bars and 9.875 on both the vault and beam and feels she has turned a corner. Her team sees it too.

“You can see her getting more and more comfortable, particularly on the balance beam,” Clark said. “It’s been fun to watch. She’s a competitor. There’s a tenacious, sort of nasty side to Kat that is one of the things that drew us to her so much — that fighter’s spirit and it has been really pleasant to see her mature.”
Szatkowski ­— who had watched Ding since she and Ding were 8 years old — always knew one day Ding would become a star for the Gym Dogs.

“I’ve never doubted her,” Szatkowski said. “She’s always been extremely talented and I knew one day she would be a huge contributor for Georgia. It’s just a matter of getting used to college and to learn how to work your hardest to make the lineups.”