University of North Carolina Athletics
Turner's Take: The Right Thing To Do
January 21, 2017 | Women's Gymnastics, Featured Writers, Turner Walston
By Turner Walston
Four thousand and seventy-one people turned out Friday night to see Carolina Gymnastics play host to the University of Florida in dual meet action. The Gators were impressive. Ranked third nationally and winners of three of the last four NCAA team championships, Florida took the meet by a score of 197.325 to 194.300.
The young Tar Heels –with ten freshmen vying to score– used Friday's home opener as an opportunity to improve, a measuring stick against the nation's best. "We are young, and we need to compete with a little more confidence," head coach Derek Galvin said, "but this was a better performance than what we had last weekend."
Carolina junior Morgan Lane finished second in the all-around competition with a score of 39.250. She finished third on balance beam and floor exercise. Kaitlynn Hedelund notched a third-place finish on the uneven bars, and freshman Khazia Hislop set a personal best and earned a second-place finish on floor with a 9.925.
Lane said the most important objective was to have fun, and results will follow. "We put so many hours in during preseason," she said, "and this is what it's all for. It's pointless to come into the season and not enjoy it, because then, why are we doing this? That's really my number one goal. And then to do what we do in training, and it's really cool to see how we're improving so much as a team."
"What we put in in the gym is what's going to happen when we compete," Hislop echoed.
Carolina finished second in the dual meet with Florida, but the atmosphere in Carmichael Arena Friday night, and the meaning of the meet, went well beyond gymnastics. In partnership with Nike, Friday's meet was part of the #BETRUE campaign, celebrating contributions of the LGBTQ community. Friday's meet was dedicated to former Tar Heel head coach Kendra Ourso.
"There are so many incredibly talented and creative people, and so many people who deserved to be valued and appreciated," Galvin said. "It was important to Amy (Smith associate head coach) and I, both of us, because of situations in our own personal lives with family members and with people that we love, to stand up and say we think everybody should be treated respectfully. We think everybody should be appreciated, and we just wanted to do something."
The 4,071 in attendance set a new UNC gymnastics record. The two teams wore rainbow-themed #BETRUE t-shirts, and the Tar Heels tossed commemorative shirts to the crowd, many of whom were wearing rainbow 'NC' buttons. "It was awesome," Lane said of the night. "There's not a better word to encapsulate it all, but the amount of people that turned out was incredible. The #BETRUE campaign is really cool, just showing that we can love people, no matter if they're different from us or the same. We love everyone. So it was really cool that this many people came out, and there as also much energy. It was so much fun."
"I loved it," said Hislop. "The fact that we were able to pull off something like this is just amazing, and having such a big crowd out here, considering what we were working for today, it was good to see everybody come out, and for a good reason."
Thirteen years ago, Carolina gymnastics was one of the first programs to hold a cancer awareness meet, according to Galvin. He said he'd like to see other programs pick up the #BETRUE baton as well. "I hope that this is going to kind of open the door for some other people to say, 'Yeah, we want to do something like that.' If that happens, then it's icing on the cake. It's the right thing to do."
Players Mentioned
