it was electrifying floor routine that turned ucla gymnast star caitlyn ohashi into a viral sensation i couldn't stop watching your energy is contagious but behind that smile is a legacy of pain it was more like you don't look like a gymnast you look like you swallowed a pig you had coaches tell you that it's just disgusting she was the victim of fat shaming i couldn't accept myself caitlyn scored better than simone biles but while biles went on to win four olympic gold medals why isn't she going to the olympics again there was a time where
i was on top of the world i was unbeatable until i wasn't oh that was horrible i am now known as the coach of caitlyn ohashi i was in the fight for my life i had so much hate in me and i was trying to rebel and take it out on my new coaches here because i'm one of the most decorated coaches i'm relentless mean basically and i said to her you get it i am hired to win one day caitlyn looked me in the eye and said i hate myself winners make adjustments and losers
make excuses i was told that it was embarrassing how big i become i was compared to a bird that couldn't fly these are all things that when i was skinny i was told so what would they think of me when i had become big i couldn't accept myself gymnastics was my worth it was my life i hated myself it's a lot of pressure just because you can never escape it so you go into the gym and you hear all about how big you look and then you go on social media and you hear from people
that are following you so you don't really ever escape it and then even when you look in the mirror because you've heard it so much you start believing it it was more like don't eat you look like an elephant you look like you swallowed a pig you had coaches tell you that um yeah i did the athletic director calls me in her office and says we're going to make a change with our head coach and we would like for you to be the new head coach i don't know the first thing about gymnastics i'm like
can i get any more she goes no just go figure it out how am i supposed to lead one of the premier programs in the country i did what i thought was the very very smart thing to do in my mind a coach was tough talking relentless snarky at times no gray area black and white mean basically so i learned to say things like winners make adjustments and losers make excuses when i came out here it was really hard because i had so much hate still left in me and i was trying to like rebel
and take it out on my new coaches here and i will never forget a team meeting we had halfway through her freshman season and caitlyn very clearly and unapologetically said i just don't want to be great again i felt like i got sucker punched my first thought was then why the heck am i going to honor your scholarship one day caitlyn looked me in the eye and said miss val i just want you to know everything you tell me to do i do the exact opposite the year before we had finished second by half of
a tenth the year i took over we came in dead last i realized at that time i was not cut out for this job [Music] i'm walking through ackerman union on my way to resign and i come across coach wooden's book on leadership his book opened up magically to his definition of success and it said success is peace of mind in knowing you've done your best coach wooden was hailed as the greatest coach that ever lived i am a coach i am hired to win and i read his definition again and again and again and
when i read it the word you got bigger and bolder success is peace of mind and knowing you have done your best and i had the biggest aha moment of my life i had been trying to be somebody else [Music] and at that moment i realized whenever you try to be somebody else you will always be a second rate them the worst part about it is it prevents you from being a first-rate you i scrapped everything that i had done i scrapped all those stupid coaching quips and i just became me when caitlyn came to
ucla she was broken in body mind and spirit she had grown up in a stereotypical very high level athletic world and she was damaged she was like when was the last time you have been happy in the sport i was like i honestly don't remember it was probably when i was 11 years old before i ever turned elite caitlyn didn't hate gymnastics caitlyn hated everything associated with being great caitlyn didn't want to be a winner because winning at all cost had cost her her joy so i embarked on the painfully slow process of building trust
and proving to her that first and foremost i cared about her as a whole human being this is what togetherness bond the fibers of the trampoline this is brewing family right and what happens with bruin family we trust each other right it's about trust it's about enthusiasm it's about passion for everything we do it's about the fact that we're all very unique but we all bring different stages to this fiber right part of my strategy was to only talk to caitlin about gymnastics in the gym outside of the gym we talked about everything else school
boys families friends one thing that i've carried through in all of my coaching and teaching to help people feel good about what they are and who they are and feel great about the fact that they're not a stereotype and whoa that is so cool that you're so unique unique is so much more fun than status quo i start with i'm going to help you become the best person that you can be and i'm going to help you become a champion in life big big big set area it took me finding miss val and ucla and
having a different goal and path to follow to finally find joy and love within the sport again we finally had to go through and build this trust between each other because that's the first time i've ever felt a connection with a coach that strong my mom wasn't exactly happy when i quit early gymnastics and wanted to go to college because i asked her why she had like a change in her heart and she said i see how happy my daughter is and that's all it took to to feel like a person again leaving the sport
feeling untouched by it at the end of the day i think this should have been my path i haven't been able to feel this type of happiness in a long time [Music] it's my joy my voice myself and my love for the sport it's not the outcome it's not me standing on a podium with medals it's me being able to walk out with a smile on my face and truly being like happy with myself that's first i don't remember the faces of my biological mom and father i can see their figures but i don't even
remember what they look like they were the only people who believed in me because of my vitiligo a skin condition that caused patches of my skin to turn white and in my village because of this they thought that i was the devil's child
