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Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams | 
 enlarge | Author: Jennifer Sey
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.48
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Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 66805
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061351466
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.44092
EAN: 9780061351464
ASIN: 0061351466
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080904214033T
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The true story of the 1986 U.S. National Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was to compete in the Olympics, until anorexia, injuries, and coaching abuses nearly destroyed her Fanciful dreams of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. She was a natural at the sport, and her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age eleven, one of America's elite, competing at prestigious events worldwide alongside such future gymnastics' luminaries as Mary Lou Retton. But as she set her sights higher and higher—the senior national team, the World Championships, the 1988 Olympics—Sey began to change, putting her needs, her health, and her well-being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral. In Chalked Up Sey reveals the tarnish behind her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of success, it is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become eclipsed by the adults around her. As she recounts her experiences, Sey sheds light on the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything culture where underage and underweight girls are celebrated and on the need for balance in children's lives.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 An excellent memoir that should be read by anyone who watched the Olympics August 27, 2008
At the age of nineteen, Jennifer Sey was the number one gymnast in the United States. She had 3% body fat, had never had her period, and trained for eight hours a day. Her family had relocated to bring her closer to the best trainers, her coaches were relentless, and just one year before she had broken her leg. This is an amazing and powerful memoir about the desire to be the best, the sacrifices that go into it, but also the abuses and dangers of giving up everything in the pursuit of a young girl's sport.
Thought-provoking August 24, 2008
An incredible and honest account of a young woman's experience. As a lifelong fan of the sport, I never imagined gymnastics to be so incredibly brutal, both physically and mentally. Having read the book shortly before the Olympic games, I found myself glued to each qualification round, looking to spot the most minor wince, limp or disappointed expression wondering what each athlete endured to get to such an elite level. The book was thought-provoking -- the sport of watching gymnastics may never be the same for me again.
 Ambush Journalism Trumps Shocking Expose August 15, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Although I have never participated in gymnastics, I have always been interested in the sport and have read many books on the subject, including first-hand accounts such as Ms. Sey's. I have also watched countless "exposes" of elite women's gymnastics, most recently the HBO "Real Sports" segment featuring Ms. Sey, as well as a CNN special several years ago which documented the training of elite gymnasts at the Parkettes gym. Given the attention that gets paid to women's gymnastics (especially during an Olympic year such as this), the allegations in Ms. Sey's book should hardly be surprising; indeed, concerns about over-training, eating disorders, and tyrannical coaches were well-documented prior to the publication of "Chalked Up." Thus, I didn't find this book to break any new ground, nor was I shocked or horrified as to the revelations contained therein. What was shocking was the level of spite and personal animus directed to virtually everyone mentioned in its pages, and what is characterized as a "coming of age story" turns out to be a thinly-veiled guerilla attack. As such, Ms. Sey suffers from a significant lack of credibility which in turn undermines anything meaningful she might have to offer in the ongoing debate as to whether or not women's gymnastics is a nothing more than legalized child abuse.
As an initial matter, I was troubled by the disclosure that Ms. Sey did not make her book available to those about whom she had so much to say--particularly her parents--prior to publication, either to permit the opportunity for honest comment and input or, at the very least, to provide warning that difficult material was about to be disclosed to the general public. Disclosures of a suspected extra-marital affair by her father, as well as the allegations that her mother exerted pressure upon her to remain in the sport and, further, was aware of but neglected to address her daughter's eating disorders, are fairly damaging accusations which, I suspect, her parents might have wanted to discuss with her before she blasted them in a sensational tell-all. It seems apparent that Ms. Sey used this book as a way to retaliate against others for the difficulties she experienced while an elite gymnast (difficulties, I suspect, she would have experienced in some form or another even if she hadn't been a gymnast). While people can argue all day long as to whether Ms. Sey's parents should have been more pro-active and less focused upon their child's potential stardom, the fact remains that "Chalked Up" is ambush by journalism of people Ms. Sey claims to love--every parent should be so lucky. I am not in any way commenting upon the decisions made by Ms. Sey's parents - that is for the Sey family to handle, and I suggest that maybe Ms. Sey should have done so in family therapy rather than in print. The fact that she chose to address her childhood issues in this forum is indicative that she isn't really interested in her parents' perspective--or anyone else's, for that matter, and in this sense, she reminds me of the toddler who runs through the house with fingers in her ears shouting, "I can't hear you!"
Along those lines, I was disappointed that Ms. Sey took so little personal responsibility for her role in perpetuating the horrors of her gymnastic training. She seems to have made very little effort to convey directly to her parents her professed desire to quit the sport. If she had painted her parents as over-bearing, single-minded stage parents who refused to listen to their child, I might be inclined to believe that Ms. Sey was powerless to change their minds. But the Mr. and Mrs. Sey described in "Chalked Up" seemed, at worst, a little clueless, but ultimately thoughtful, loving and concerned about their children. Thus, I wonder why Ms. Sey didn't fight harder or scream louder to quit, and I suspect it is because she didn't want to in the first place. Instead, she is, twenty years later, still angry that some aspects of her gymnastic training were less than ideal, and she wants someone to blame. How convenient to point to the parents who uprooted their lives (and that of her brother) to make her athletic dreams a reality but whom she kept conveniently in the dark about just how rotten her life really was. I would have had much more respect for Ms. Sey if she had said, "gymnastics training was tough, and I hated it, but I really wanted to be a champion, and I was willing to go through whatever I had to in order to get there."
Ms. Sey's hostility even extends to her geographical surrounding, and I make the disclosure here that I am a resident of the Allentown area. Her depiction of the Lehigh Valley as a post-industrial, culturally devoid backwater populated exclusively by uneducated philistines is inaccurate and unfair. Allentown may not have been a good fit for this self-described "well-educated Philadelphia Jew," but the nature of much of her commentary about the region, the schools, and her living conditions while bunking with a Parkettes coach seems unnecessarily mean-spirited and personal in nature. It is clear that the only positive thing Ms. Sey has to say about her time while at Parkettes was that she won a national championship, a distinction without which I suspect she would have had a much more difficult time finding a publisher and selling copies of her book.
I will say, additionally, that all three of my daughters have taken classes at various times at the Parkettes gym. During the dozen or so years that I have sat in the balcony watching my children participate in recreational gymnastic classes--while the elite gymnasts worked out on the other side of the gym, in full view of everyone--not once have I witnessed the kind of abuse and mistreatment Ms. Sey describes. Ms. Sey may not be aware of this, but Parkettes has for many years reached out to those children who will never be elite athletes...aspiring Special Olympians, for example, or children like my daughter, Allison, who is autistic, but who nonetheless participated for five years in an after-school program for children with learning and other disabilities. During those five years, my daughter was encouraged, supported, and affirmed over and over again by caring, compassionate coaches, some of whom regularly coach Parkettes' elite gymnasts.
In the end, I found this book to just plain sad. It's sad that Ms. Sey still harbors so much resentment and bitterness twenty years after the fact; it's disturbing that she had to lash out at people in a book rather than dealing with her anger and frustration in a more effective, permanent, and private manner; and it's absurd that Ms. Sey has become the talking head du jour as to the present state of women's gymnastics, especially since she has not been in active training for over twenty years and likely has little relevant to say about what goes on in gyms today.
Finally, any parent who places their child in the hands of any person, organization, or institution, for any reason, bears the responsibility of assuring that said person, organization, or institution, treats their child properly. In the end, abusive, demeaning, coaches are only permitted to exist because there are parents who are willing to look the other way in order to satisfy some latent desire. To the extent that "Chalked Up" is supposed to be a warning to any parent with a daughter aspiring to gymnastic greatness, I would suggest said parent's time might be better spent visiting the gym, talking with other parents, watching how the coaches train, and asking themselves whether this is their dream, or their daughter's. No book is going to tell them that, and no book is going to undo whatever was done to Jennifer Sey. Unfortunately, however, "Chalked Up" will hurt a whole lot of people, and in the end, that was probably the point all along.
 Little girls should be doing something else August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
No "elite" program that involves little girls is a good thing, no matter what some of the critics here might say. Such programs take away these girls' childhoods and for what? The miniscule chance of getting to the Olympics. How can such a thing be good, no matter what it supposedly teaches these girls? These girls miss out on so much of normal growing up experiences. It is a wonder any of them emerge whole.
Sey's criticism of Parkette's is not anything new. I have heard and read about these incidents and how the place is run many times....and it is not different than any other gym. Perhaps some people are in denial??? What amazes me is that our society would never allow children to be treated this way by their parents, but it is okay for coaches to do so.
I have known about far too many anorexic/bulemic abused girls in this sport to think that Sey's account is anything but accurate.
This author writes universal truths about achieving, and losing, and feeling like a failure......whether in gymnastics or in life.
Excellent book August 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chalked Up provides a realistic view of elite gymnastics from the inside. Sey shows readers some of the harsh realities of elite gymnastics. Kudos to Sey for having the courage to write the book and share with us her struggles. Her story is emotional and easy to relate if you were a prior gymnast. Great read...addicting book for gymnasts and fans!
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