Latest / Beyond the Paw - Clemson Athletics / Ep. 46 - Meet the Athlete who created Planet of Gymnastics
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Pod.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Today we have a very special guest. We have Hannah Olaverros,
- 0:09Speaker 1: also known as Planet of Gymnastics on Instagram. Hannah began
- 0:13Speaker 1: her career in gymnastics as a highly recruited gymnast who
- 0:16Speaker 1: scored a nine nine on beam in her collegiate debut
- 0:18Speaker 1: and was named Big ten Freshman of the Week. She
- 0:21Speaker 1: teared her achilles ten days later and later underwent four
- 0:26Speaker 1: hit surgeries or is going to undergo before today on Monday.
- 0:32Speaker 1: Then she which forced her to medically retire. She pivoted
- 0:35Speaker 1: into social media. She launched the Ohio State Athletics TikTok
- 0:39Speaker 1: and running OSU's football digital channels. That experience and her
- 0:44Speaker 1: love for the sport led to her start of Planet
- 0:46Speaker 1: of Gymnastics, the Instagram account which now has over three
- 0:49Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand followers. Today we'll talk about her journey,
- 0:53Speaker 1: her internships, how she built her brand, her partnership with
- 0:56Speaker 1: us Glove, and her vision for the future. Yay, Hannah, Welcome,
- 1:01Speaker 1: Hi everyone.
- 1:02Speaker 2: Busy usy busy girl, very busy. Yeah ma get that way.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Okay, So I don't even know where to start start.
- 1:09Speaker 1: I guess start with your gymnastics journey. You started at
- 1:12Speaker 1: Ohio State. Talk about like your recruiting process, which school
- 1:16Speaker 1: you wanted to choose and why.
- 1:18Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:19Speaker 3: So when I was recruiting, I feel so old. But
- 1:21Speaker 3: the NIL rules were different. Yeah, so there wasn't really
- 1:25Speaker 3: an age limit on when you could get recruited. I
- 1:28Speaker 3: went to my first JO Nationals, which was like the
- 1:31Speaker 3: Level ten Nationals when I was thirteen or fourteen, and
- 1:35Speaker 3: then got recruited from there. Placed while at Nationals, got
- 1:38Speaker 3: my first full ride scholarship at fourteen, wow, and then
- 1:41Speaker 3: had a few school offers. But Ohio State was in
- 1:45Speaker 3: the Big ten. It was close enough to home in
- 1:46Speaker 3: Chicago without being at home, so committed there at fifteen.
- 1:51Speaker 1: And it's insane, but you know where you're going at
- 1:54Speaker 1: fourteen years old.
- 1:55Speaker 3: I don't think you do. But anyways, went to Ohio State.
- 2:01Speaker 3: Was really young for my grades. I started school when
- 2:03Speaker 3: I was seventeen and everything was going great. It was
- 2:07Speaker 3: during COVID freshman year, but I had a great freshman debut.
- 2:13Speaker 3: We competed an arrival at Michigan and scored a nine
- 2:16Speaker 3: to nine in the last event when Big ten freshmen
- 2:18Speaker 3: of the week. As she said, ten days later, tore
- 2:20Speaker 3: my achilles. I had never been hurt before, so I
- 2:24Speaker 3: literally didn't know what to do.
- 2:25Speaker 2: With my life. I felt so bad for the coaches.
- 2:28Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my gosh, you're paying for me and
- 2:29Speaker 3: I just oh, here tearing my achilles. And at that point,
- 2:33Speaker 3: I was a sports psychology major. I wanted to do
- 2:36Speaker 3: something in sports psych That's what I decided at fifteen.
- 2:40Speaker 3: But I was like, well, I need to help out
- 2:42Speaker 3: with the team somehow because I don't want to just
- 2:44Speaker 3: sit here watching everyone. So I asked my coach if
- 2:47Speaker 3: I could run the Ohio State Ohio State Gymnastics Instagram.
- 2:52Speaker 1: And you were there like, sid, yeah, kind of okay.
- 2:55Speaker 3: So I helped post on stories and then post on
- 2:59Speaker 3: in feed while I was rehabbing. And then sophomore year,
- 3:03Speaker 3: I was able to come back to gym, had a
- 3:05Speaker 3: great season, but I was still posting on Instagram, and
- 3:09Speaker 3: I ended up changing my major to communication technology so
- 3:12Speaker 3: that I could just figure out more of what digital
- 3:15Speaker 3: media meant. After sophomore season, got an internship with Ohio
- 3:19Speaker 3: State Athletics and my summer it was supposed to be
- 3:22Speaker 3: a summer internship and my project was to launch a
- 3:25Speaker 3: High State Athletics TikTok.
- 3:26Speaker 2: We didn't have one yet.
- 3:27Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, that's a cool project. Yeah.
- 3:29Speaker 3: It was really fun too because I was working in
- 3:31Speaker 3: athletics so I could work with all thirty six of
- 3:33Speaker 3: our sports at Ohio State.
- 3:35Speaker 2: It went really well.
- 3:36Speaker 3: We got from zero to one hundred K in a
- 3:38Speaker 3: few months and I was like, oh, I like it here,
- 3:41Speaker 3: that's awesome. So then they kept me on. Yes, they
- 3:44Speaker 3: kept me on till the end of graduation. So going
- 3:48Speaker 3: into junior year, I was now working at high state
- 3:50Speaker 3: football games while training my junior year pre season, so
- 3:54Speaker 3: I'd come into the.
- 3:54Speaker 1: Gym on Saturday. We were still training this entire time.
- 3:56Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, yeah I was.
- 3:59Speaker 3: I was still on the team doing everything while also
- 4:02Speaker 3: running on High State Women's Gymnastics Instagram.
- 4:04Speaker 2: I was now with Ohio Stay Athletics.
- 4:06Speaker 3: As a digital media intern and my role on football
- 4:10Speaker 3: game days was posting live on a High Stay Athletics
- 4:12Speaker 3: for football, and then I did a little bit of
- 4:14Speaker 3: TikTok as well. But we had practice during game days,
- 4:19Speaker 3: so I would come in by myself at like seven
- 4:21Speaker 3: am so I could start practice earlier and then finish
- 4:25Speaker 3: practice earlier and then I'd go walk to the stadium to.
- 4:28Speaker 2: Work a whole football game day from there. Yeah, but
- 4:32Speaker 2: I loved it.
- 4:33Speaker 3: I had never thought that this was a path that
- 4:35Speaker 3: I could go down.
- 4:37Speaker 1: That's crazy, kind of like thinking that at fourteen you
- 4:40Speaker 1: need to know what you want to do with your
- 4:42Speaker 1: yea too, and like eventually finding out what.
- 4:44Speaker 3: You love right especially and it all coming from tearing
- 4:47Speaker 3: my gillies. So it really does because I well, first
- 4:54Speaker 3: of all, finishing what I was but while I was
- 4:58Speaker 3: then working for High Athletics, I finished it that year
- 5:02Speaker 3: still posted on Instagram, how did junior season?
- 5:05Speaker 1: How did that go?
- 5:06Speaker 3: Junior season was good, but I started struggling a ton
- 5:09Speaker 3: mentally and it was just getting to be a lot
- 5:13Speaker 3: for me, and I had decided by the end of season,
- 5:15Speaker 3: I was like, I just need to medically retire just
- 5:18Speaker 3: for my own mental health.
- 5:19Speaker 1: Which was it like your body or was it like
- 5:22Speaker 1: just mentally?
- 5:22Speaker 3: It was my body and my mind and at the time,
- 5:25Speaker 3: like my hips were hurting, but I didn't know why
- 5:28Speaker 3: we had been. I had like gotten them checked out
- 5:32Speaker 3: in high school and then throughout college.
- 5:35Speaker 2: It was just really like.
- 5:36Speaker 3: Showing in my hamstring, so we didn't know that it
- 5:38Speaker 3: was my hips gotcha.
- 5:40Speaker 2: So I just kept on going.
- 5:41Speaker 3: I didn't know anything was wrong, but it definitely played
- 5:43Speaker 3: into my decision. But we found out in my exit meeting,
- 5:48Speaker 3: because you have to do like your physical to exit.
- 5:51Speaker 3: Found out that I had a ton wrong with my hips.
- 5:54Speaker 3: I had two torn labrams and also hip displasion both
- 5:58Speaker 3: so it's a year recovery on both with hips, and
- 6:00Speaker 3: then you need your screws out and they basically just
- 6:02Speaker 3: do hip for construction and break your hips and everything.
- 6:06Speaker 2: At the same time, or.
- 6:08Speaker 3: They could only do one at a time because you're
- 6:10Speaker 3: like you're out, like you can't move. They break your
- 6:13Speaker 3: hips and they broke it four times, rotated it, and
- 6:16Speaker 3: then put four four inch screws in, and then they
- 6:21Speaker 3: took them out a year later. And then I had
- 6:23Speaker 3: my left hip and then I get my screws out
- 6:26Speaker 3: on Monday.
- 6:27Speaker 1: Oh my god.
- 6:28Speaker 2: But while I was.
- 6:30Speaker 3: Doing while I was finding all of this out, I
- 6:32Speaker 3: had medically retired and clearly I didn't think my resume
- 6:36Speaker 3: was good enough because I also worked with NBC Sports
- 6:39Speaker 3: at this point too, So I was interning with Ohiostate
- 6:41Speaker 3: Athletics and NBC Sports, But it wasn't.
- 6:46Speaker 1: The process of that, yeah, and how you got that? Yeah,
- 6:50Speaker 1: But I first want to talk about, like, also, you're
- 6:52Speaker 1: dealing with an achilles injury and all of these hip injuries,
- 6:55Speaker 1: Like how did you get through that?
- 6:58Speaker 3: I truly think that being able to just have an
- 7:01Speaker 3: outlet in something else besides the sport saved me and
- 7:06Speaker 3: was just helped me in so many ways because it
- 7:09Speaker 3: was something that I was passionate about that had nothing
- 7:11Speaker 3: to do with my own performance. Clearly, coming back from
- 7:15Speaker 3: all this injuries, your performance is going to decline and
- 7:18Speaker 3: this is just not how I had planned college to go.
- 7:22Speaker 3: So being able to go into an office and go
- 7:24Speaker 3: into these game days just having all my focus on
- 7:28Speaker 3: something else really just helped me in the long run.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking like how you, like, how did
- 7:36Speaker 1: you expect your college years to go? And I'm sure
- 7:40Speaker 1: this is not the way No, like everyone expects, Oh,
- 7:43Speaker 1: I'm going to go to college, I'm going to compete
- 7:45Speaker 1: at the highest level, and I'm going to have the
- 7:46Speaker 1: best seasons ever, right, and then that's not always the
- 7:50Speaker 1: way it goes.
- 7:51Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that it was a very big shock
- 7:54Speaker 3: to me, especially freshman year. Just having such a big debut.
- 7:58Speaker 3: I literally went from like the top of the world
- 8:00Speaker 3: to just crashing down in ten days. And I guess
- 8:05Speaker 3: I never really got the chance to visualize what my
- 8:10Speaker 3: college career could have been, just because everything happened so quickly.
- 8:16Speaker 3: But once I started realizing that I was more than
- 8:19Speaker 3: an athlete, and that sport shaped me, but it's not
- 8:24Speaker 3: my identity. Once I got over that, I was like, Okay,
- 8:27Speaker 3: I'm fine, Like it doesn't really matter at the end
- 8:29Speaker 3: of the day, Like I'm just grateful to be here
- 8:32Speaker 3: and to have this experience and whatever happens happens.
- 8:35Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 8:35Speaker 2: I think that's what's so powerful about college sports though,
- 8:37Speaker 2: if you can look at it as a vehicle, right,
- 8:39Speaker 2: an opportunity. You got your education paid for and all
- 8:41Speaker 2: access to all these things. Yeah, it still hurts, right,
- 8:44Speaker 2: and your sport is done, and it takes a long
- 8:46Speaker 2: time for that grieving process, But using it as a
- 8:50Speaker 2: vehicle to opportunity and not letting it use you, that's
- 8:54Speaker 2: the good stuff. Yes, you can take something on the
- 8:57Speaker 2: journey with you and you're.
- 8:58Speaker 4: Allowed to like figure out what you wanted to do
- 9:00Speaker 4: in life. Whereas, like, like you said, you came in
- 9:02Speaker 4: at fourteen, you thought you wanted to do something else,
- 9:04Speaker 4: Like so many people just like don't really know what
- 9:06Speaker 4: they're doing.
- 9:07Speaker 1: But like you found that outlet and you found that,
- 9:10Speaker 1: you know.
- 9:10Speaker 2: Through your school. So that's also really cool. Yeah, that
- 9:12Speaker 2: you had that.
- 9:13Speaker 3: I like to say that, like everything ended up happening
- 9:17Speaker 3: for a reason.
- 9:17Speaker 2: But I took the absolute hardest way to get to
- 9:20Speaker 2: get to where I am now. But you really made
- 9:23Speaker 2: sure you were doing what she wanted to do. Exactly
- 9:25Speaker 2: what did senior year look like then? Because you medically
- 9:28Speaker 2: retired after your junior year?
- 9:29Speaker 3: Yes, so senior year I created a Planet of Gymnastics
- 9:34Speaker 3: in the parking lot after a doctor's appointment.
- 9:37Speaker 1: Just to clarify for people. Planet of Gymnastics is where
- 9:40Speaker 1: we go to for all of our gymnastics news information,
- 9:44Speaker 1: Like we call like the Gymnastics World online the Gymternet too,
- 9:48Speaker 1: and it's like, oh yeah, it's like this really weird
- 9:51Speaker 1: like foreign place where people like, oh, look at the
- 9:54Speaker 1: leotards from this team, or oh, like she got a
- 9:56Speaker 1: nine to nine, she de served like a nine to seven.
- 9:58Speaker 1: Like like people like go go back and forth fight
- 10:01Speaker 1: in the comments, like it's talk about leotards.
- 10:05Speaker 3: Like it's the gym community is tough. It's like scary.
- 10:09Speaker 2: They're very tight knit.
- 10:10Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how they know each other or
- 10:12Speaker 1: if they or what, but like after anything gymnastics wise happened,
- 10:17Speaker 1: they're like bickering back and forth, like whether it's on Twitter,
- 10:20Speaker 1: whether it's on Planet of Gymnastics Hannah's page, Like I
- 10:23Speaker 1: remember she posted a leotard of ours once and it
- 10:28Speaker 1: was a pretty leotard. There was some like you know,
- 10:32Speaker 1: controversy over it just because it was like all mesh
- 10:35Speaker 1: in it like was see through, but like we were
- 10:37Speaker 1: wearing things under the leo, so it wasn't really see through.
- 10:40Speaker 1: So there was a lot of like controversy over that.
- 10:42Speaker 1: And I would just look at the comments, like there'd
- 10:44Speaker 1: be like two hundred comments of people not even Clemson affiliated,
- 10:47Speaker 1: fighting back and forth.
- 10:48Speaker 2: Over the leotar retard.
- 10:50Speaker 1: Yeah, just just on the leotard, not over performance, not
- 10:54Speaker 1: over anything else. The leotards.
- 10:56Speaker 3: Gymnastics isn't hard enough ready, but people want to dissect
- 10:59Speaker 3: what you're wearing that you didn't have a say.
- 11:01Speaker 1: Over, right, Like you we have no control over what
- 11:05Speaker 1: we're wearing, like whether you like it or not we
- 11:07Speaker 1: have to wear it so and we're already so like,
- 11:10Speaker 1: I don't know gymnastics wearing a letard, you're already so
- 11:13Speaker 1: like exposed kind of. So it's just people talking about
- 11:16Speaker 1: your body and stuff like that. It's just a lot. Yeah,
- 11:20Speaker 1: but Hannah facilitates.
- 11:23Speaker 2: Facilitate the negative comment.
- 11:24Speaker 1: No, she doesn't facilitate any of any of the comments too.
- 11:27Speaker 1: She just puts it out there. But it's a scary
- 11:31Speaker 1: place and you've made a big name for yourself through
- 11:34Speaker 1: the Planet of Gymastics. Just wanted to hear that for
- 11:37Speaker 1: people who don't know, because it's super niche I feel
- 11:40Speaker 1: like there's no like, you know, in football, there's like
- 11:43Speaker 1: House of Highlights and like ESPN and all of these
- 11:48Speaker 1: different other Instagram Instagram accounts that follow football that's not
- 11:52Speaker 1: directly like NCAA football, you know the account, So there
- 11:55Speaker 1: are places where people can talk about these other sports
- 11:58Speaker 1: and like, I'm sure they have it for volleyball too,
- 12:00Speaker 1: And Planet of Gymnastics kind of reminds me of another
- 12:03Speaker 1: Instagram account like that.
- 12:04Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm flattered.
- 12:05Speaker 4: So you did it in the parking lot of your
- 12:08Speaker 4: doctor's appointment. Yes, So how did that like all come
- 12:10Speaker 4: to your mind, Like what was the thing where you're like,
- 12:13Speaker 4: I want to make this account.
- 12:14Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned House of Highlights.
- 12:16Speaker 3: That was what my boyfriend was working at at the time.
- 12:18Speaker 3: He's also in social media and he had a few
- 12:21Speaker 3: Instagram pages of his own, and I already liked social media. Oh.
- 12:25Speaker 3: I already liked social media, but I had never thought like, oh,
- 12:28Speaker 3: I can just make my own page.
- 12:30Speaker 2: So he was kind of.
- 12:31Speaker 3: Pushing me to do it, and I was like, no,
- 12:32Speaker 3: like I don't really want to. I at this point
- 12:34Speaker 3: hate gymnastics. I want nothing to do with it. But
- 12:38Speaker 3: I did want to grow my resume, and I was like, well,
- 12:40Speaker 3: the only sport I would know how to post would
- 12:42Speaker 3: be gymnastics. So I don't know what came over me.
- 12:45Speaker 3: After the doctor's appointment, I was like, fine, I'll do it.
- 12:48Speaker 3: It was actually called gim World.
- 12:49Speaker 1: One oh one, Oh gosh. He was like, please change
- 12:53Speaker 1: that gym world one.
- 12:55Speaker 3: It doesn't off the time, No, no, it doesn't. I'm
- 12:58Speaker 3: glad that he came up with a better name for that.
- 13:02Speaker 3: But yeah, as Eva was saying, the gym trenet can
- 13:05Speaker 3: be a very good place but also very negative and
- 13:09Speaker 3: seeing the effects that the sport had had on me,
- 13:11Speaker 3: I really wanted to change that one. There was already
- 13:14Speaker 3: not a platform that gave news and highlighted at a
- 13:19Speaker 3: level comparable to the NFL or ESPN or something like that.
- 13:24Speaker 3: But I also wanted to make sure that I was
- 13:25Speaker 3: just highlighting athletes that usually wouldn't be seen, especially in gymnastics.
- 13:29Speaker 3: It's growing, but small and coverage isn't At the time
- 13:34Speaker 3: wasn't as great as it has been in the past
- 13:36Speaker 3: two years. So I wanted to highlight people not just
- 13:39Speaker 3: at the top of their college career, but also girls
- 13:43Speaker 3: that are just getting their KIP and Level four, or
- 13:47Speaker 3: people that may not make it to college but they
- 13:50Speaker 3: just did something really great in Level eight. But then
- 13:52Speaker 3: also all the college athletes that from Clemson who had
- 13:56Speaker 3: their inaugural season to Oklahoma. I just wanted to highlight
- 14:00Speaker 3: a ton of different people in showcase what they were doing.
- 14:04Speaker 3: But I was embarrassed. I didn't want people to know
- 14:06Speaker 3: it was me. So I promised myself. I was like, Okay,
- 14:09Speaker 3: if one day I hit one hundred thousand followers, I
- 14:11Speaker 3: will let people know that it was me posting.
- 14:14Speaker 1: Wait, no one knew it was you.
- 14:15Speaker 2: No, I didn't want to tell anyone, Okay, yeah, why
- 14:18Speaker 2: I was too scared? Yeah, why were you scared? The
- 14:22Speaker 2: whole like.
- 14:24Speaker 3: There there wasn't a page like this, and I didn't
- 14:27Speaker 3: want it to come off as like I was gymnastics obsessed,
- 14:31Speaker 3: but in like a why I don't know, I didn't
- 14:36Speaker 3: like gymnastics now, I didn't like it, and also like
- 14:39Speaker 3: I didn't want people to get the wrong impression of it.
- 14:42Speaker 3: I don't know what that impression could have been, but
- 14:44Speaker 3: starting anything new is scary, and I didn't want people
- 14:48Speaker 3: to judge me. I was scared of what the response
- 14:52Speaker 3: would be. So being able to not tell anyone was
- 14:55Speaker 3: great until I hit one hundred thousand fowers in two and.
- 14:57Speaker 2: A half months, and then I was like, oh man,
- 15:01Speaker 2: But the reaction was great.
- 15:03Speaker 3: When people realized that it was a gymnast behind the page,
- 15:07Speaker 3: they really connected to that and they're like, Okay, this
- 15:10Speaker 3: is by a gymnast for other gymnasts, and they really
- 15:13Speaker 3: liked that. And I tried to keep the captions and
- 15:15Speaker 3: comments very personable, and I think that I've grown a
- 15:18Speaker 3: really fun, big community because of that, and I'm able
- 15:23Speaker 3: to get good engagement in good comments, some bad with
- 15:25Speaker 3: Leo's but people flocked to my Instagram to be able
- 15:30Speaker 3: to talk about gymnastics now. And it's not something that
- 15:33Speaker 3: I would have imagined, but I grew it to two
- 15:37Speaker 3: fifty k in less than a year, three hundred k
- 15:40Speaker 3: by two years. It was just in Forbes this summer
- 15:44Speaker 3: and wait, can you tell.
- 15:47Speaker 1: Me about that?
- 15:48Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 15:49Speaker 1: I was just in for Yeah, we like Forbes thirty
- 15:51Speaker 1: under thirty. Like what are we talking about?
- 15:53Speaker 3: No, So a Forbes sports journalist DMed me and she
- 15:59Speaker 3: was just like, Hey, I I write for Forbes, I guess,
- 16:03Speaker 3: and I would really like to do an article on
- 16:05Speaker 3: you about Planet Gymnastics. And I was like, is this real?
- 16:09Speaker 3: And I looked through he stuff and she looked real.
- 16:11Speaker 1: So did you have to travel somewhere?
- 16:13Speaker 2: Did you know?
- 16:15Speaker 3: We did a online We did a zoom interview this
- 16:18Speaker 3: past summer and then she wrote everything released it. We
- 16:22Speaker 3: talked about my life like we're doing right now, how
- 16:26Speaker 3: I grew up in this sport, and then just she
- 16:28Speaker 3: kind of highlighted everything that Planet Dynastics had grown to
- 16:32Speaker 3: be over the past two years.
- 16:34Speaker 2: So yeah, it was really cool. You should check it out.
- 16:38Speaker 2: That's awesome. How are you everywhere. Yeah, Like you have
- 16:41Speaker 2: so much diverse content on your page. Yeah, and I
- 16:44Speaker 2: may not. You can't be in a million places at once,
- 16:47Speaker 2: but you are moving all over.
- 16:49Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 16:49Speaker 2: How do you stay up to date and in tune
- 16:51Speaker 2: and keep up with relevant content?
- 16:53Speaker 1: Because you had stuff from the Olympics too, Yeah, did
- 16:55Speaker 1: you go there?
- 16:56Speaker 2: No?
- 16:57Speaker 3: I would love to go to la though. That would
- 16:59Speaker 3: be that's my next, like big, big goal. But in
- 17:03Speaker 3: terms of staying relevant, my screen time is off the charts.
- 17:05Speaker 3: You don't want to see it. But I worked in
- 17:09Speaker 3: the NFL last year, and I think that being able
- 17:12Speaker 3: to all your free time, all my free time. I
- 17:17Speaker 3: worked in the NFL last year, worked at the Cleveland
- 17:19Speaker 3: Browns and social media for a season.
- 17:21Speaker 1: He worked with Jameis Winston.
- 17:23Speaker 3: I did work with Jameis Winston. He asked my name
- 17:25Speaker 3: at practice so that he can say hi to me.
- 17:27Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, this is nice.
- 17:28Speaker 2: This is my nice. Yeah, it's all downhill from here.
- 17:33Speaker 3: But being able to work at such high caliber and
- 17:36Speaker 3: seeing how social media has ran and then how I
- 17:39Speaker 3: can improve gymnastics was very helpful and something that helped
- 17:42Speaker 3: me fall back in love with the sport is seeing
- 17:45Speaker 3: it from a lens that I love social media and
- 17:48Speaker 3: being able to bring gymnastics fans content and different views
- 17:52Speaker 3: behind the scenes of something that they've never seen just
- 17:55Speaker 3: because no one has thought in that way yet. Is
- 17:58Speaker 3: how I like to think that I keep my content diverse.
- 18:01Speaker 3: And if you go on like at least my for
- 18:04Speaker 3: you page now was just filled with all of these
- 18:06Speaker 3: girls in different gyms. So like, my biggest dream is
- 18:08Speaker 3: to be posted on planete Mass, which is so cool.
- 18:12Speaker 3: But then like I asked the permission to post that,
- 18:14Speaker 3: and then I can post that, and like that's how
- 18:16Speaker 3: I keep the community very tight knit. Is like showing
- 18:19Speaker 3: all angles instead of just highlights of a sport.
- 18:22Speaker 2: That's so cool. What's the lesson that you learned from
- 18:24Speaker 2: your time with the Browns? So then what's on your
- 18:27Speaker 2: page now.
- 18:29Speaker 3: I learned It's called like helmet off content, So everything
- 18:32Speaker 3: that you do outside of practice or games. So I'd
- 18:37Speaker 3: be in the locker room with the guys after practice,
- 18:38Speaker 3: before practice, and you're just trying to show off their personality.
- 18:42Speaker 3: And that's kind of how I came up with this
- 18:43Speaker 3: college takeover that I launched this preseason. Is I wanted
- 18:47Speaker 3: to showcase not only the athlete's personality, which you don't
- 18:51Speaker 3: get to see very often, but different parts of the
- 18:53Speaker 3: sport that hasn't been shown. That's why I was in
- 18:57Speaker 3: the media room yesterday and I was up in the
- 19:00Speaker 3: dio board controls. It was in the rafters yesterday too.
- 19:03Speaker 3: You were, yes, it was scary, so high. I was terrified.
- 19:07Speaker 2: I'm not going back. I was like one of the interns.
- 19:09Speaker 2: I was like, please just send me this. I can't
- 19:11Speaker 2: be up here anymore.
- 19:12Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
- 19:13Speaker 3: But like when I was with Florida, which I was
- 19:16Speaker 3: this past two days ago, I was just talking to
- 19:20Speaker 3: their sports analysis person and so we're just going through
- 19:23Speaker 3: different parts of the sport that you wouldn't have seen.
- 19:25Speaker 2: But the NFL has already been able to produce.
- 19:29Speaker 1: So I feel like that content is so fun to
- 19:31Speaker 1: watch too, Like I see that on my TikTok all
- 19:34Speaker 1: the time, or the yeah, what's your favorite Thanksgiving food
- 19:36Speaker 1: or something like that. Like it's stuff that's like so
- 19:39Speaker 1: stupid and like could seem minuscule, but it kind of
- 19:42Speaker 1: shows me like, oh, like I kind of like the
- 19:43Speaker 1: personality of this player, like I'm maybe going to tune
- 19:47Speaker 1: in to this game or something like that, you're able
- 19:49Speaker 1: to get more like eyeballs relatable.
- 19:51Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, and that's what I think. It's fun to
- 19:55Speaker 3: be able to pick my brain that way, especially not
- 19:57Speaker 3: being in school anymore, graduating last year. Example, I have
- 20:00Speaker 3: a post that I'll be doing for Clemson later that
- 20:03Speaker 3: at the showcase, instead of just filming them warming up
- 20:06Speaker 3: on ball, I noticed that they have these cards that
- 20:08Speaker 3: they flash to the people that are setting the table
- 20:11Speaker 3: and setting the springboard and everything like that, and people
- 20:14Speaker 3: wouldn't normally see that, and it's something that's so zoomed
- 20:17Speaker 3: in in gymnastics, Like it's such a minuscule detail that
- 20:20Speaker 3: it would have never been shown. So instead of just
- 20:23Speaker 3: recording their vault warm ups like anyone else would and
- 20:26Speaker 3: like I know that content will already be out there,
- 20:28Speaker 3: I'm really trying to like, look at okay, what can
- 20:31Speaker 3: I do instead?
- 20:33Speaker 1: Like how are we communicating with the team?
- 20:35Speaker 3: Yeah, so I miked up. I think it was Sophie
- 20:38Speaker 3: where Hannah was, I don't remember who.
- 20:40Speaker 1: I think it was Sierra who was splashing the cards.
- 20:42Speaker 2: No, Sierra was flashing the cards.
- 20:44Speaker 3: And then I don't remember who was down there, but
- 20:46Speaker 3: I miked her up and she's holding all of the
- 20:48Speaker 3: settings and like that's something that like all gymnasts would
- 20:50Speaker 3: already know, but no one else would be able to see,
- 20:52Speaker 3: and just making the sport accessible to a ton of
- 20:56Speaker 3: non gymnastics fans.
- 20:57Speaker 1: To clarify for the non gymnastics fans who listen on vault,
- 21:03Speaker 1: we have different settings. So the table raises from I think,
- 21:06Speaker 1: I think it will range in call it from like
- 21:08Speaker 1: one twenty to one thirty, So you go one twenty
- 21:10Speaker 1: one twenty five, one thirty, and based on your height,
- 21:13Speaker 1: based on how you block, like you have a different setting,
- 21:16Speaker 1: So I go on one thirty and then like one
- 21:19Speaker 1: of my other teammates go on one twenty five. And
- 21:20Speaker 1: then that's the same with the board that we punch
- 21:23Speaker 1: off of too, like it you have to like line
- 21:26Speaker 1: it up to the specific numbers, like next to the
- 21:29Speaker 1: vault runway and that that's the same with the hand
- 21:31Speaker 1: matt too, And you can change the hand mat from
- 21:33Speaker 1: long ways vertical or like horizontal, and.
- 21:37Speaker 2: They're all like measured out.
- 21:39Speaker 3: So like my vault setting was five thirty six foot,
- 21:42Speaker 3: so the back of the springboard used to be five
- 21:44Speaker 3: feet three inches away from the table, And I want
- 21:47Speaker 3: my hand, Matt at six feet away from the table, right,
- 21:50Speaker 3: And that's something that gymnasts understand, but no one else
- 21:53Speaker 3: would have even thought to know about that.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's based on like your stride of your
- 21:57Speaker 1: run too, like how quick you run, if you take
- 21:59Speaker 1: like smaller steps in your run, like it. It's all
- 22:02Speaker 1: based on that, and then you start a specific number,
- 22:05Speaker 1: like I start at like seventy three and a half
- 22:07Speaker 1: feet away from the vault table, so I can take
- 22:10Speaker 1: ten steps, but that maybe twelve steps for some other
- 22:13Speaker 1: person who runs differently than me or something like that.
- 22:16Speaker 1: It's very, very very technical. Yeah, I didn't think I
- 22:19Speaker 1: would ever be able, like I would ever have to
- 22:22Speaker 1: like explain that, because it's like it's something I don't
- 22:24Speaker 1: really think about it because it's so natural.
- 22:26Speaker 2: But no one else would know. Yeah, no, that's why
- 22:28Speaker 2: that's why you're gonna get a video too.
- 22:30Speaker 4: Like not a lot of sports have that like specific
- 22:32Speaker 4: even like football. Obviously it's like huge and like there's
- 22:36Speaker 4: all these like accounts for it, but like I don't
- 22:38Speaker 4: really feel like any of that's going on, you know,
- 22:40Speaker 4: like the you know, the small things that you don't
- 22:43Speaker 4: really see. I feel like that's like so unique even
- 22:45Speaker 4: for like gymnastics, and.
- 22:46Speaker 1: If you sets and if you set the table or
- 22:49Speaker 1: the mat wrong or you start at a different place,
- 22:51Speaker 1: your whole vault is messed up, which can be like
- 22:54Speaker 1: essentially catastrophic.
- 22:56Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, literally dangerous, yes.
- 22:58Speaker 1: Very dangerous. Yeah, And so it's an important that we
- 23:00Speaker 1: have those people who like put up the numbers or
- 23:03Speaker 1: put up the mats or like read out whose whose
- 23:06Speaker 1: vault table is going where? Because you can die. I
- 23:10Speaker 1: don't want that sounds like morbid. I'm you could not.
- 23:13Speaker 2: Get very dangerous quickly.
- 23:14Speaker 1: You can get very very seriously injured. So yesterday we
- 23:18Speaker 1: had cr flashing up these numbers. It's like an eight
- 23:22Speaker 1: for like an eight intr mat that we land on
- 23:24Speaker 1: or was it like a P. It is a C.
- 23:28Speaker 1: It was a C for comp that's like what we
- 23:30Speaker 1: compete on, like we're ready to warm up our comp
- 23:32Speaker 1: vault that we're ready to go. The eight is for
- 23:34Speaker 1: when we're warming up, like are like layouts.
- 23:38Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just in the video and you'll
- 23:39Speaker 2: be like, oh.
- 23:40Speaker 1: So that you guys do. Yeah, you guys set that
- 23:43Speaker 1: up or like the team the team does, like and
- 23:46Speaker 1: we managers. Yeah, and it's something we have to practice
- 23:49Speaker 1: too every day. Excuse me. We practice that in the
- 23:52Speaker 1: gym as well. So it's like seamless because we're being
- 23:54Speaker 1: timed fifteen minutes, so it has to run very smoothly,
- 23:59Speaker 1: so seven eight girls can all go and get enough
- 24:02Speaker 1: turns to be able to warm up their comvault in
- 24:05Speaker 1: the fifteen minutes.
- 24:07Speaker 2: So I would have never known that detail.
- 24:10Speaker 1: And luckily takes three seconds. But we have to do
- 24:14Speaker 1: that for the other events too. And then don't get
- 24:16Speaker 1: me started on bar settings because people go on different
- 24:19Speaker 1: bar settings too, and then people want the bar sprayed,
- 24:22Speaker 1: people want it like chalk taken off of it. And
- 24:24Speaker 1: then some girls are taller, so they have to have
- 24:26Speaker 1: it higher at the bar higher and then the low
- 24:29Speaker 1: bar lower, like it's it's a lot, a lot that
- 24:32Speaker 1: happens in between each turn, and then sometimes it can
- 24:36Speaker 1: get in your head if the bars are too loose
- 24:38Speaker 1: or too tight, like it's a lot, like I'm getting hot.
- 24:43Speaker 3: This is always like to be on the social media side,
- 24:45Speaker 3: like I already had so much anxiety, Like gymnastics just
- 24:48Speaker 3: elevated my Yeah, old times.
- 24:52Speaker 2: There are children of all ages in South Carolina who
- 24:55Speaker 2: are in need of a forever home. Many are teens,
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- 25:16Speaker 2: Learn more about public adoption in South Carolina at DSS
- 25:19Speaker 2: dot SC dot gov. Now back to the show, But.
- 25:24Speaker 1: How is that experience for you last night? Experiencing Clemson
- 25:27Speaker 1: for the first time. I know it wasn't an actual
- 25:29Speaker 1: meet and like, you'll have to come back for an
- 25:31Speaker 1: actual meeting because it gets sold out. We have sold
- 25:35Speaker 1: out crowds literally and we had a good amount of
- 25:37Speaker 1: people last night too. But I just wanted to know
- 25:40Speaker 1: from your experience, how how was watching that.
- 25:43Speaker 3: I was so impressed just everything that you guys have
- 25:47Speaker 3: been able to build up into now this is only
- 25:49Speaker 3: your third season. The fans are so engaged, even going
- 25:53Speaker 3: driving around campus, like you have your showcase posters up
- 25:56Speaker 3: everywhere and people are interested. And the way that the
- 26:00Speaker 3: video boards are explaining what a deduction is and what
- 26:04Speaker 3: vault is and all of these things. I thought that
- 26:06Speaker 3: everything was just I was telling your coaches, it's like,
- 26:09Speaker 3: if you're gonna bring a new sport into a school,
- 26:12Speaker 3: this is the way to do it.
- 26:14Speaker 2: There was I was blown away by it. It was
- 26:18Speaker 2: really cool.
- 26:18Speaker 1: Yeah, what about the gymnastics. Gymnastics, y who stood out
- 26:22Speaker 1: to you?
- 26:22Speaker 3: I know, we have a lot of new girls seem
- 26:24Speaker 3: too gymnastics. I was really impressed with Lily just because
- 26:28Speaker 3: I knew that she had come back from a really
- 26:30Speaker 3: tough surgery. Bree Clark is always fun to watch Ellissario.
- 26:36Speaker 3: I love her bars and yeah, and you know Ella, Yes,
- 26:39Speaker 3: I do know Ella. We've known each other since high school.
- 26:41Speaker 3: We went on a gymnastics like all star trip when
- 26:43Speaker 3: we were were from the same state, So, like, you
- 26:47Speaker 3: qualify for this.
- 26:48Speaker 1: Did you guys ever go to the same club gym
- 26:50Speaker 1: or we did?
- 26:51Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know if we ever.
- 26:53Speaker 3: I don't know if we ever overlapped, but we knew
- 26:56Speaker 3: each other from a tansa but we went to the
- 26:58Speaker 3: same gym. So yeah, Bree, Ella, you obviously on everything
- 27:02Speaker 3: you do, You're amazing. It's really cool seeing Emma that
- 27:07Speaker 3: you guys have already been able to get an international
- 27:09Speaker 3: gymnast in three years. That's something that, like I competed
- 27:13Speaker 3: at Ohio State for so long, we didn't have it.
- 27:15Speaker 2: We don't have an international gymnast right now.
- 27:18Speaker 3: So it's just really cool to see how quickly the
- 27:21Speaker 3: gymnastics is progressing and how quickly the program as a
- 27:25Speaker 3: whole is too.
- 27:26Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
- 27:28Speaker 4: I want to go back to like where you grew
- 27:29Speaker 4: up because I'm from Chicago too, So what part are
- 27:31Speaker 4: you from?
- 27:32Speaker 3: And I was from close to shambrig and Elgin.
- 27:34Speaker 4: It's called Streamwood, okay, but I'm from Deerfield so that's
- 27:38Speaker 4: like yeah, like right near there basically neighbors.
- 27:41Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy.
- 27:43Speaker 1: So like what where did you train?
- 27:45Speaker 2: Oh?
- 27:46Speaker 3: I trained everywhere because so are you a gym hopper? Yes?
- 27:51Speaker 3: But I hate that term because I had no say
- 27:53Speaker 3: over what happened. So, like I started at Mega. Loved
- 27:57Speaker 3: that place, but it was an algin and and I
- 28:00Speaker 3: was the highest level that you could be and I
- 28:02Speaker 3: was Level eight, so there was nowhere else to go.
- 28:04Speaker 3: So then I went to Legacy Elite.
- 28:07Speaker 2: Which is fun.
- 28:08Speaker 1: That's where eight. Yeah, that's where yes.
- 28:10Speaker 3: Ella an Angel were, But then just had some of
- 28:14Speaker 3: my own bad experiences. Quit gymnastics as a whole when
- 28:17Speaker 3: I was like eleven years old. I was in Level nine.
- 28:19Speaker 1: And I feel like every gymnast has been there. Yeah.
- 28:22Speaker 3: I quit for like a good two months, and then
- 28:24Speaker 3: one of my coaches from Legacy Elite was like, hey,
- 28:26Speaker 3: can you come back?
- 28:27Speaker 2: And I was like yeah, fine. So then I trained
- 28:30Speaker 2: went to IGI for all of high school.
- 28:32Speaker 3: Then the gym got shut down Sonet had to go
- 28:33Speaker 3: back to Mecca where I had originally started.
- 28:36Speaker 1: So oh wow.
- 28:37Speaker 3: So that's why I technically wasn't like a gym hopper
- 28:39Speaker 3: by choice. It just happened that out of your control.
- 28:42Speaker 3: Every bad thing could have happened.
- 28:45Speaker 2: When did you start gymnastics?
- 28:47Speaker 3: I did a mommy and me class when I was
- 28:49Speaker 3: very young, and then that was about it. And then
- 28:51Speaker 3: I started breaking couches trying to flip over them. And
- 28:54Speaker 3: I think that I was the broken couches that my
- 28:56Speaker 3: mom put me in at five.
- 29:00Speaker 2: Yes, I feel like gymnasts just start so early, and
- 29:02Speaker 2: I was late. Five years old was late? Wait?
- 29:04Speaker 1: I started at five, and I tell people I started
- 29:07Speaker 1: like pretty young.
- 29:07Speaker 3: Oh really, When I've talked to they're like, oh, I
- 29:10Speaker 3: was in the gym at two and three years old.
- 29:12Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, what are you doing it too?
- 29:13Speaker 3: Yeah, you're just tumbling at that point, rolling around, not
- 29:18Speaker 3: breaking couches.
- 29:19Speaker 1: So I guess five years old because my teammates start
- 29:24Speaker 1: like at three, right, started at three. I never even
- 29:26Speaker 1: thought about that, Like I'm five years old and I'm old.
- 29:30Speaker 2: Yeah, kind yeah.
- 29:33Speaker 1: You know what's crazy is Bree Clark. She started at
- 29:37Speaker 1: I think eight or either eight or like eleven like
- 29:40Speaker 1: she started later on. I think she did like a
- 29:42Speaker 1: tumbling thing or like a cheer thing before she started,
- 29:45Speaker 1: and then got her start and then has been able
- 29:48Speaker 1: to progress, so that that's really always shocking to me.
- 29:52Speaker 2: She needs that very very late gymnastics.
- 29:56Speaker 1: Wait, talk about how you got your internship with NBC
- 29:59Speaker 1: Sports to because I feel like that's a highly cupeted internship. Yes,
- 30:04Speaker 1: and I feel like it would give some of our
- 30:06Speaker 1: listeners maybe some insight on like jobs, careers, things like that.
- 30:10Speaker 3: So I think that one working in sports, the main
- 30:13Speaker 3: thing is that you're always making connections as much as
- 30:15Speaker 3: you should probably be doing your best job every single day.
- 30:19Speaker 3: Connections will get you very very far in the industry.
- 30:23Speaker 3: And so I had already done good work with Ohio
- 30:25Speaker 3: State Athletics, and my boss came to me and she
- 30:28Speaker 3: said that NBC Sports was looking for someone in journalism.
- 30:32Speaker 3: I had never done journalism ever, but I was like,
- 30:35Speaker 3: when else is this opportunity going to come around? So
- 30:38Speaker 3: I was like, sure, let me do it for you guys.
- 30:40Speaker 3: So I wrote an article for them, published my first
- 30:44Speaker 3: NBC Sports article while I was in pre season and
- 30:46Speaker 3: working for a High States That was because why not?
- 30:50Speaker 3: What else was I going to do? So that was
- 30:53Speaker 3: my junior year. But after I had published it and everything,
- 30:57Speaker 3: I emailed my boss for NBC Sports. I was like,
- 31:00Speaker 3: I'm more into video content creation. I will very much
- 31:05Speaker 3: be happy to keep writing articles for you. But they're like, great,
- 31:08Speaker 3: let's send you over to content creation. So then I
- 31:10Speaker 3: got to create videos, published I guess a ton of
- 31:13Speaker 3: videos for them that were on their website. And then
- 31:16Speaker 3: you just need to ask.
- 31:17Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 31:17Speaker 1: Literally yeah.
- 31:18Speaker 3: People are probably scared of me because I will take
- 31:21Speaker 3: any answer because I know that the worst is no.
- 31:24Speaker 3: That's how I'm at these colleges, That's how I did
- 31:26Speaker 3: my LEO collab with GK. I actually have to get
- 31:30Speaker 3: into the I just asked because what's the worst that
- 31:34Speaker 3: can happen. But that's how I got into NBC Sports
- 31:37Speaker 3: as a whole. That's how I published an article and
- 31:39Speaker 3: then also did videos. Was just doing my best work
- 31:42Speaker 3: making sure that anything that my boss at a high
- 31:44Speaker 3: state was asking me, I was over delivering every single time,
- 31:47Speaker 3: so that I was the person that she asked when
- 31:49Speaker 3: NBC needed someone.
- 31:50Speaker 2: It's crazy. What is the Leo collab?
- 31:53Speaker 3: So GK Lee is like the world's leading brand of
- 31:56Speaker 3: dymnastics apparel. There who TMSA wears at the Olympics. They
- 32:00Speaker 3: signature lines with some of bios Sunny Lee, everyone like that,
- 32:02Speaker 3: and then they also are who college gymnastics wares. But
- 32:09Speaker 3: me just always having a dream of every gymnast dream
- 32:12Speaker 3: is to design a leotard. I was like, Eh, why
- 32:14Speaker 3: not DM them? So I DMed them asking. I was like,
- 32:17Speaker 3: can we please do some sort of Leo clab. I
- 32:19Speaker 3: just got over my two years owning this page and
- 32:24Speaker 3: I think that gym fans would really love it. And
- 32:27Speaker 3: so we went through all these meetings and finally agreed
- 32:31Speaker 3: on whatever we were going to do.
- 32:33Speaker 2: So it's a very exclusive LEO.
- 32:34Speaker 3: We decided on a twelve like there's only twelve that
- 32:39Speaker 3: are ever being made, and so GK does a giveaway
- 32:42Speaker 3: in December from December first to twelfth. They really give
- 32:45Speaker 3: back to the gymnastics community by doing a giveaway.
- 32:48Speaker 2: So every day for.
- 32:50Speaker 3: Twelve days, someone wins four leos and they can go
- 32:52Speaker 3: on the website and they can choose four leos and
- 32:54Speaker 3: they just get them for free. But we made a
- 32:56Speaker 3: twist on it that this year they would pick three
- 32:59Speaker 3: leos and they would win this one leo of mine.
- 33:02Speaker 3: So the only way to get this leo would be
- 33:03Speaker 3: to win the giveaway. Wow, happening right now. You should
- 33:06Speaker 3: probably enter cool Cool. But it did really well in
- 33:11Speaker 3: the first day, so it just launched the number first.
- 33:13Speaker 2: Today's the fifth.
- 33:14Speaker 3: I think it launched the first and in the first
- 33:16Speaker 3: twenty four hours it was almost at twelve thousand comments
- 33:19Speaker 3: and entries.
- 33:19Speaker 2: Wow and sane, I thank you.
- 33:23Speaker 3: I was just blown away because I was like, no way,
- 33:25Speaker 3: I'm doing like I have an actual leo with this
- 33:28Speaker 3: brand that I've spent way too much of my mom's
- 33:30Speaker 3: money wearing throughout my gymnastics.
- 33:34Speaker 2: But yeah, just just by asking, just by asking an idea. Yeah,
- 33:40Speaker 2: a lot of work that went in before asking, but.
- 33:42Speaker 1: I was going to ask what was the process that
- 33:44Speaker 1: went into like creating the LEO? Number one in asking yes.
- 33:48Speaker 3: So the asking was easy, you can ask for whatever
- 33:51Speaker 3: you want. But then it was the one of the
- 33:55Speaker 3: managers responded to me, and at first they were interested
- 33:58Speaker 3: but not too much. But we said up a meeting anyways,
- 34:01Speaker 3: and we kind of got to know each other. Hear
- 34:03Speaker 3: what I mean on both sides. You have to make
- 34:05Speaker 3: sure that they're getting the brand exposure they want. I'm
- 34:08Speaker 3: getting what I the compensation that I should get from
- 34:12Speaker 3: it and things like that. But then after that I
- 34:16Speaker 3: kind of didn't hear from them for a while, and
- 34:19Speaker 3: then on a Monday, they're like, Hey, we actually really
- 34:22Speaker 3: want to do this LEA with you. Can you have
- 34:24Speaker 3: designs by Wednesday? So I had two days to design
- 34:27Speaker 3: a LEO. Nice I've never designed a LEO in my life.
- 34:31Speaker 3: They're like, just send us all of your LEO inspo.
- 34:34Speaker 3: So I sent probably like ten leotards. And for non
- 34:39Speaker 3: gymnastics people, there's a lot that goes into leotard from
- 34:42Speaker 3: the cut of the high neck or where you want
- 34:45Speaker 3: the neckline to be, then what straps you want, what
- 34:48Speaker 3: type of material you want the actual leotard to be.
- 34:51Speaker 3: And then I sent them hex codes for different colors
- 34:54Speaker 3: that I wanted, and then where the sequence will go
- 34:56Speaker 3: on the back? Do you want any cutouts and all
- 34:59Speaker 3: of these different things.
- 35:00Speaker 2: So I did that.
- 35:01Speaker 3: In a day and a half so that I could
- 35:02Speaker 3: send it back to them, because you want to send
- 35:04Speaker 3: it in like way before the deadline so if they
- 35:06Speaker 3: want to keep working with you, So then they have
- 35:09Speaker 3: a designer that takes all of my inspo gives me something.
- 35:12Speaker 3: And so they gave me a first rough draft and
- 35:14Speaker 3: they're like, you have I think it was a few
- 35:16Speaker 3: days maybe a week to have the final thing, and
- 35:18Speaker 3: this is what we're creating.
- 35:19Speaker 2: It's like okay.
- 35:21Speaker 3: So I called my best friend from home, she just
- 35:25Speaker 3: graduated from Michigan State for gymnastics, and I was like,
- 35:28Speaker 3: I need help.
- 35:28Speaker 2: It's midnight and I need to.
- 35:30Speaker 3: Get this in so on FaceTime, you know how you
- 35:33Speaker 3: can like draw. Yeah, So we drew this better like
- 35:38Speaker 3: edited leo. We took in we use like the color
- 35:41Speaker 3: pickers that it matched the colors of the leo, and
- 35:44Speaker 3: just drew in where we wanted changes to be.
- 35:47Speaker 2: And that's what I sent into GK. I was like,
- 35:50Speaker 2: I can.
- 35:50Speaker 3: Show you guys the drafts later, but I was like,
- 35:53Speaker 3: this needs change and this and this, and then they
- 35:55Speaker 3: loved it and now it's being produced. I'm going in
- 35:59Speaker 3: January to the Protection Facility so that whoever wins, I'll
- 36:02Speaker 3: be there to they're having me sign like handwritten notes,
- 36:04Speaker 3: and then also just getting content of them making this leon.
- 36:08Speaker 1: Now that is so fun. So in the Planet of
- 36:10Speaker 1: Gymnastics brand, thank you, Like, do you have merch? Like
- 36:14Speaker 1: what's coming up next?
- 36:15Speaker 3: For I would love to get into merch. It's just
- 36:19Speaker 3: clothing is a whole big monster that I haven't tackled yet.
- 36:25Speaker 3: But right now, the biggest thing was this college takeover.
- 36:28Speaker 3: I still have a few more schools to go to.
- 36:30Speaker 1: Okay, explain the college takeover to yes, Like, you went
- 36:33Speaker 1: to Florida, you went to Michigan State, You're now here
- 36:35Speaker 1: at Clemson. Who else is on the list? Why did
- 36:38Speaker 1: you want to do this?
- 36:38Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 36:39Speaker 1: Kind of explained a little bit of getting the background
- 36:41Speaker 1: of people who like do their sport, but who they
- 36:45Speaker 1: are off the mat as well.
- 36:46Speaker 3: But yeah, I really wanted to do this because in
- 36:49Speaker 3: my comments last year, a ton of people after season
- 36:52Speaker 3: were saying, hey, I'm from somewhere in Europe. I'm from
- 36:55Speaker 3: a different country. This is the first time I've had
- 36:57Speaker 3: access to NCAA, and as trying to grow the sport,
- 37:00Speaker 3: the best way to do it is give fans across
- 37:03Speaker 3: the world access, especially free access, and so that's how
- 37:06Speaker 3: this kind of came up. I was like, all these
- 37:08Speaker 3: things that I took for granted or that was just
- 37:10Speaker 3: my normal day as a student athlete, nobody else has
- 37:13Speaker 3: ever seen. And so I started again. Just my first
- 37:17Speaker 3: DM was to the Florida head coach. I was like,
- 37:20Speaker 3: I want to come to your school. Can we make
- 37:22Speaker 3: that happen? And that was like in the summer, So
- 37:24Speaker 3: all of these plans have been happening for a very
- 37:27Speaker 3: long time to make sure then that when I get
- 37:29Speaker 3: a sponsor that our contract is my pitch deck was
- 37:31Speaker 3: good enough for them to sign a contract with me.
- 37:34Speaker 3: And then from there you're going I'm just literally dming
- 37:37Speaker 3: these coaches like hey, please let me come to your school.
- 37:40Speaker 1: And it's got to be daunting, like you have to
- 37:42Speaker 1: explain like why right, Like you're coming here to film
- 37:45Speaker 1: my athletes for a while.
- 37:47Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And the fact that all these coaches have
- 37:49Speaker 3: believed in me and been able to give me this
- 37:51Speaker 3: access has been so rewarding to just see and fulfilling,
- 37:56Speaker 3: like you believed in Planetive Dynastics enough to let me
- 37:59Speaker 3: be able to do this. But yeah, so I'm trying
- 38:02Speaker 3: to go behind the scenes in a ton of different ways.
- 38:04Speaker 3: So I've talked to the academic advisors, I've talked to
- 38:07Speaker 3: sports psychologists, I met with people that are in your
- 38:11Speaker 3: recovery rooms and things like that. Everything that gymnastics fans
- 38:15Speaker 3: haven't been able to see, especially not for free, and
- 38:18Speaker 3: just being able to give people this access and being
- 38:22Speaker 3: able to grow the sport in this way is just
- 38:25Speaker 3: so much fun for me. I have very very fun
- 38:29Speaker 3: top schools that I'm going to next, and it's been
- 38:33Speaker 3: really cool because all of these schools have been reaching
- 38:35Speaker 3: out to me instead of it being the other way
- 38:37Speaker 3: as they've seen the first few come in. I've had
- 38:40Speaker 3: like maybe four or five more schools in the SEC
- 38:44Speaker 3: big ten everywhere asking for me to come to them next.
- 38:47Speaker 1: That is so cool. Cool kind of get to put
- 38:49Speaker 1: the school on a pedestal too, and ye give the
- 38:51Speaker 1: school more exposure as well. So I don't see why
- 38:53Speaker 1: they would say.
- 38:54Speaker 2: No, right exactly, so that's so cool that you get
- 38:56Speaker 2: to do that. Thank you. How do you go about
- 39:00Speaker 2: out building your brand? Like even going from that parking
- 39:03Speaker 2: lot you're starting it, you grew it so quickly, you
- 39:06Speaker 2: continue to grow it. I think people hold themselves back, right,
- 39:10Speaker 2: and all the fears that you talked about are so real.
- 39:13Speaker 2: But how do you take that next step and just try?
- 39:16Speaker 2: And I'm sure there's been things that you've tried that
- 39:17Speaker 2: didn't work, but I think growing a brand is daunting. Yeah,
- 39:21Speaker 2: it's easier to not do it than to try and
- 39:25Speaker 2: maybe see the reward that you're now seeing, but sometimes
- 39:28Speaker 2: you don't. It takes longer. How did you just go
- 39:31Speaker 2: for it? I went for it because I.
- 39:34Speaker 3: Was just at such a bad mental place and I
- 39:38Speaker 3: really just needed something to do. I wasn't getting out
- 39:41Speaker 3: of bed for like seventeen hours in the day, but
- 39:43Speaker 3: at least I could post on planet, and so I
- 39:46Speaker 3: gave myself a goal. It was like three or five
- 39:48Speaker 3: posts every day, which was very hard at the beginning
- 39:52Speaker 3: when you're first learning how everything works and editing and things.
- 39:56Speaker 3: But I posted every day consistently. Then you get your
- 39:58Speaker 3: first viral posts and then it's just like.
- 40:01Speaker 2: You're addicted to it.
- 40:04Speaker 3: After senior year, I was now working in the NFL,
- 40:07Speaker 3: so I would finish my NFL game day, I would
- 40:09Speaker 3: come back to Massics meets would be on. I would
- 40:11Speaker 3: post until midnight one am. You just have to really
- 40:14Speaker 3: want it, especially just right out the gate when you're
- 40:18Speaker 3: trying to grow. I mean this is now December marks
- 40:20Speaker 3: two and a half years. But for the first two
- 40:22Speaker 3: years I didn't see any return on anything. It was
- 40:24Speaker 3: just because for the love of.
- 40:25Speaker 2: The game, I guess, but.
- 40:28Speaker 3: You just once I found what I liked to do,
- 40:32Speaker 3: there wasn't really much that was going to stop me
- 40:34Speaker 3: from seeing what could be next. So for the first
- 40:37Speaker 3: year or two, it was just growing that brand identity
- 40:39Speaker 3: so that people knew who I was. I after some
- 40:42Speaker 3: NC DOUBLEA weekends, I would have like twenty posts in
- 40:45Speaker 3: a night, and so I just did not stop.
- 40:49Speaker 2: And then once I felt.
- 40:51Speaker 3: Like I had enough brand, like people knew who I was,
- 40:54Speaker 3: then I started reaching out to these colleges and I
- 40:57Speaker 3: started doing these clubs with GK and doing things like
- 41:02Speaker 3: this that otherwise you wouldn't be able to do, even
- 41:05Speaker 3: reaching out to level times because I want to highlight
- 41:07Speaker 3: other people I'd reach out to level times when they
- 41:09Speaker 3: made it's national, It's like, hey, send me your videos.
- 41:11Speaker 2: I'd love to highlight you.
- 41:13Speaker 3: So just trying to reach every part of the sport
- 41:15Speaker 3: and just bringing everyone together ends up giving you.
- 41:19Speaker 2: A lot of content. Just how much are you willing
- 41:22Speaker 2: to do in a day? Wow?
- 41:24Speaker 4: What was that feeling like like when you first got
- 41:26Speaker 4: that like viral video or like your most viewed video.
- 41:30Speaker 1: What was the viral video too?
- 41:32Speaker 3: Well, the first one like viral to me at the beginning,
- 41:36Speaker 3: when I had like fifty followers, was like one hundred
- 41:38Speaker 3: k and it was this one of my old teammates.
- 41:41Speaker 3: Her name is londz of It, and she competed at
- 41:43Speaker 3: IOWA and she stuck a vault and for some reason
- 41:45Speaker 3: it just like did really well. I started gaining followers.
- 41:48Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, this is so fun.
- 41:50Speaker 3: And that also gave me the confidence that I needed
- 41:52Speaker 3: to continue to post, because when you start from zero,
- 41:55Speaker 3: it's like so daunting. You're like, this is kind of dumb.
- 41:57Speaker 3: Why am I posting for twenty followers right now? But
- 41:59Speaker 3: I love all twenty followers. But just that first viral
- 42:04Speaker 3: video really just gets you going to keep growing.
- 42:08Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like on social media too, Like I
- 42:10Speaker 4: feel like I always hear like just post, like keep posting,
- 42:13Speaker 4: post what you want to post, because like at some point,
- 42:16Speaker 4: like I feel like you do catch like that break
- 42:18Speaker 4: or like you hopefully do so like would you say,
- 42:20Speaker 4: like for people that want to like grow their content,
- 42:23Speaker 4: grow their brand, like just to keep posting.
- 42:25Speaker 3: Yeah, keep posting, but also try to give yourself at
- 42:27Speaker 3: least some sort of niche or reason.
- 42:30Speaker 2: You don't want to just post.
- 42:32Speaker 3: I mean, you could just post whatever you want to,
- 42:34Speaker 3: but I like to think that I have a little
- 42:36Speaker 3: bit of some strategy going on behind what I do.
- 42:40Speaker 3: But for a ton of people, the hardest part is starting.
- 42:42Speaker 3: And for me it was because I was embarrassed or scared.
- 42:45Speaker 3: So I just blocked people that I thought would make
- 42:47Speaker 3: me scared and that was the only thing that was
- 42:50Speaker 3: stopping me at that point. So really, just I think
- 42:54Speaker 3: the biggest thing that I've learned is you don't wait
- 42:56Speaker 3: for opportunities.
- 42:57Speaker 2: You make them.
- 42:58Speaker 3: And once I got over that, I was like, Okay,
- 43:00Speaker 3: I've made an opportunity for myself. I'm not gonna let
- 43:02Speaker 3: the fear of people judging me get in the way.
- 43:04Speaker 3: Block them that's done with the next step is to
- 43:06Speaker 3: start posting three to five times a day, grow it
- 43:08Speaker 3: to twenty posts a day, and then I love that.
- 43:12Speaker 2: Because that's real, right other people, as much as we
- 43:14Speaker 2: want to say, maybe we don't care about what other
- 43:16Speaker 2: people think we do like r flan'll just block them. Yeah,
- 43:19Speaker 2: you're just not going to see my content if you
- 43:21Speaker 2: want to talk to real life, like come stay ahiad
- 43:23Speaker 2: to me. But I love that.
- 43:25Speaker 4: And you're growing your own opportunities, like you're not waiting
- 43:27Speaker 4: for people to like be like hey, like can you
- 43:30Speaker 4: do this, Like you're like no, Like this is my brand,
- 43:32Speaker 4: Like I let me show you like who I am
- 43:34Speaker 4: and you know what I stand for.
- 43:36Speaker 2: So that's really cool.
- 43:38Speaker 1: You're being super proactive about everything. I feel like you,
- 43:41Speaker 1: what's like one thing you wish you knew before you
- 43:43Speaker 1: started all of this, like two years ago in the
- 43:45Speaker 1: parking lot, Like, what's one thing or one piece of
- 43:48Speaker 1: advice you would give yourself.
- 43:50Speaker 3: Don't let yourself be down by criticism. It'll happen anyways.
- 43:57Speaker 3: But once you get your first takee comments, that.
- 44:00Speaker 2: Means you made it. So it means you're big enough
- 44:03Speaker 2: to have made it.
- 44:04Speaker 3: So I think I take those to heart, especially just
- 44:07Speaker 3: as a gymnast, everything is like everything is you're under
- 44:12Speaker 3: a microscope, Like everything is just scrutinized about everything, and
- 44:16Speaker 3: so that was the hardest part for me.
- 44:18Speaker 2: I like to I'm a people pleaser.
- 44:20Speaker 3: I want people to like me, and so sometimes I'd
- 44:23Speaker 3: be so down about some of the comments. I'd be like,
- 44:25Speaker 3: I don't want to post anymore. But then I just
- 44:29Speaker 3: see all the people that have enjoyed my content and
- 44:32Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, well I keep doing it. So yeah,
- 44:35Speaker 3: I just don't care what people think. They're all BB's.
- 44:38Speaker 3: There will always be more people that do care.
- 44:40Speaker 1: I feel like it's so hard to because as as
- 44:44Speaker 1: a gymnast, you're a perfectionist, so you want everything to
- 44:46Speaker 1: be perfect at all times, and that's just never the
- 44:48Speaker 1: way things work out. So like learning that and being
- 44:51Speaker 1: able to move on from that is a great lesson
- 44:54Speaker 1: for anyone as they're starting to build their brand.
- 44:57Speaker 2: Yes, things like that.
- 44:57Speaker 3: Yeah, my boyfriend makes fun of me because after working
- 45:00Speaker 3: for House of Highlights and now he is a social
- 45:01Speaker 3: media manager elsewhere. But like the amount of perfection that
- 45:06Speaker 3: goes into my posts, Like if I don't like the size,
- 45:08Speaker 3: I'll like tweak it just by one size, or I'll
- 45:11Speaker 3: have to like make sure that it's centered like ten
- 45:14Speaker 3: times before I can post. So it's been my downfall
- 45:17Speaker 3: a little bit.
- 45:18Speaker 2: But I just listened to a speaker who had said,
- 45:21Speaker 2: if you have haters, it means you're doing something right. Exactly.
- 45:24Speaker 2: People are going to hate because of their own insecurities
- 45:27Speaker 2: or jealousies because they wish that they could or would
- 45:30Speaker 2: do that. So congratulations, thank you so much, Thank you
- 45:34Speaker 2: so much.
- 45:35Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask one final question. What has
- 45:38Speaker 1: been your favorite reaction from either a celebrity or someone
- 45:43Speaker 1: who's acknowledged your post or something like that that you've
- 45:46Speaker 1: been like, oh my gosh, like I'm starstruck.
- 45:49Speaker 3: I think the first time that I was like, oh wow,
- 45:53Speaker 3: what is going on? Last year, they're always in doctor's appointments,
- 45:59Speaker 3: but I had just back from either a surgery check
- 46:02Speaker 3: up or physical therapy. I was on the parking lot
- 46:03Speaker 3: and Sissa reposted my posts and I was like, I
- 46:06Speaker 3: have a vinyl of you. You're in my Spotify wrapped
- 46:10Speaker 3: like I really liked Scissa, and she reposted and commented
- 46:14Speaker 3: and she did multiple times, and then from there like
- 46:16Speaker 3: I had a ton of like someone in the NBA
- 46:18Speaker 3: and then just influencers that have nothing to do with gymnastics, and.
- 46:24Speaker 1: That's a crazy, crazy yeah that we're showing gymnastics to.
- 46:28Speaker 3: These Yeah, I've had some of the Kardashians like my
- 46:31Speaker 3: stuff and wow. It was like, this is just so
- 46:34Speaker 3: weird but fun, especially because I started the page after
- 46:38Speaker 3: I was done with gymnastics, so I think besides like
- 46:41Speaker 3: the celebrities, just seeing the gymnasts, like I had two
- 46:45Speaker 3: of your teammates yesterday, We're like, oh my gosh, I'm
- 46:47Speaker 3: a big Planet gymnastics fan. I feel like I should
- 46:48Speaker 3: be fangirlling. It was like, that's so weird because I
- 46:51Speaker 3: didn't see any of this.
- 46:53Speaker 2: When I was a gymnaste.
- 46:55Speaker 3: Created this and then posted from my couch, so I
- 46:59Speaker 3: just love seeing how much it's impacted gymnasts.
- 47:02Speaker 2: So fun.
- 47:02Speaker 1: Literally it's inspiring too.
- 47:05Speaker 4: It's like you just like literally just created your own
- 47:08Speaker 4: path and like what you wanted to do, so like
- 47:10Speaker 4: definitely inspiring for people who are like unsure of what
- 47:12Speaker 4: they want to do.
- 47:13Speaker 2: To thank you. And now it's my full time job.
- 47:16Speaker 3: I created my own business this past summer, so I
- 47:18Speaker 3: do social media management for different clients and then plan
- 47:21Speaker 3: it also is just another side gig. I guess that
- 47:24Speaker 3: happened to do really well. But now I get to
- 47:27Speaker 3: do this all for free or all for fun and
- 47:30Speaker 3: full time, not for free, not for free paid.
- 47:33Speaker 1: I get that is so fun. Hannah. Thank you for
- 47:37Speaker 1: coming on.
- 47:38Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
- 47:39Speaker 1: Where can people find you on social media? I know
- 47:41Speaker 1: you said it a bunch of times, but if they
- 47:42Speaker 1: haven't heard, where can people find you? Either your personal,
- 47:45Speaker 1: your TikTok.
- 47:46Speaker 3: Anything Instagram and TikTok would be out Planet of Gymnastics,
- 47:51Speaker 3: and then my personal is hannd Olivos and you can
- 47:54Speaker 3: find me on Instagram, TikTok. I have a sports media page.
- 47:57Speaker 3: If you're trying to learn how to get into sports,
- 47:59Speaker 3: it's Hannah all the varos and LinkedIn, LinkedIn. I don't
- 48:03Speaker 3: post on LinkedIn. I really need to, but I don't
- 48:07Speaker 3: at some point like if I get overwhelmed, then that's
- 48:09Speaker 3: like it and LinkedIn overwhelms me. So I'm on LinkedIn.
- 48:14Speaker 3: You can look me up. But my last post, I
- 48:16Speaker 3: think is from last year with the Browns.
- 48:18Speaker 1: So great, Thank you so much, thank you for having me.
- 48:23Speaker 2: This was really fun