on the national level for 12 years. My specialties were the rings and high bar. I really liked to excel in those
two events, but was very mediocre in the horse and parallel bars. I earned a national title at the Junior
Olympics in the Rings and was the youngest gymnast to perform an Iron Cross on the rings. From the time
I was around 8 years old, my gymnastics coach, Nard Cazzel always referred to me as "Muscles", so it was
only a matter of time before the bodybuilding bug got me. I lettered in high school in baseball, basketball
(at 5' 1"!!), track and wrestling. I was a cheerleader in college- to meet girls!! At the University of Oklahoma,
I was co-captain of the Sooner Powerlifting team, with Darren Carlock, and competed @165 pounds. Darren
kept trying to get me to enter a bodybuilding contest, but I really did not even know what that meant exactly.
That seems so long ago...
I was
born in Amarillo, Texas and have lived here most of my life, except
while attending college. I attended
local schools and
graduated in 1979 from Tascosa High School. I have always been
a very competitive
person. I have needed to compete at something
since I was in gymnastics at the age of 4 and first started
baseball at the age of 6. My parents always encouraged me to
do my best, whether it was academics or
athletics, so I have
always pushed myself to the limit in any endeavor I have pursued.
I really had challenges
dealing with my muscularity through the years. Other kids
would say I was always showing off. I remember all
the
static I got from my team mates after our basketball picture came
out in the annual. There I was, just
standing relaxed with
my hands behind my waist, in the front row-shortest guy on the team-
and they all said
I was flexing. It may have looked that
way, but I was relaxed. They were all just soft. Anyway,
that is another
way bodybuilding found me. I had the usual
weight set from Sears with the concrete weights in junior high and
only knew to do curls and up-right rows..I was really pumped at 121
pounds!!
