Although written during the date provided, this article was republished during 2020 by Nicolas Gorman to put it on the website. The author is unknown.

After injuries ended senior Ellie Hund’s competitive gymnastics career, she leapt back into the sport as a professional coach.
Hund had done gymnastics since she was six years old but had to quit when she was 14 because of an injury. Although her injuries meant she couldn’t compete, there was nothing that could stop her from staying on those big blue mats.
She started as a coach when she was 16 at Tricks Gymnastics, located on Marconi Avenue, the same place that she got her start in the sport. Now two years later she is still loves it and is even choosing to stay in Sacramento for college to continue on her gymnastics path.
“I love kids, but I want to get more serious with gymnastics,” Hund said.
She coaches students of three to five years of age in fundamental gymnastics and coaches a competition level team of kids six and up with various abilities.
Her team learns routines on the floor, which are basically a big set of skills in a specific order to get each competitor a score. Her team did not place at the last competition, but she hopes they will place next time. She will be getting a new team on May 28 and will continue to coach this team until August.
“I love coaching young minds, they look up to me,” Hund said.
Hund starts work right after school until seven p.m. She works 15-20 hours a week, earning nine dollars per hour, to coach and is on call to take over classes when needed. She hopes that when she graduates she can start to work morning classes and get more hours because of her upcoming summer flexibility.
“Coaching takes up a lot of time, but it’s worth it to see the look on my team’s face when they get down a new routine,” said Hund.
Hund has learned some of the essential aspects to having a job and learning to work with others, but being a gymnastics coach has helped her in other areas too. Although her injury keeps her from competing on the mats, she joined the FEC Stingrays synchronized swim team.
Hund said, “Through my experiences of coaching, I’ve learned how to deal with a ton of different people and I’ve learned how to bring all their differences together to form one team.”