Mormons in Sports blog: Gymnast makes national team, and RM saves a life

MyKayla Skinner is a 14-year-old gymnast and an LDS high school freshman from Arizona. She recently made the U.S. Gymnastics National Team and is competing for a spot in the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

A Nov. 29 article in the East Valley Tribune described how Skinner does her best to balance the life of a celebrity with that of a normal teenager while she attends Higley High School in Gilbert, Ariz.

Her secret weapon? Early-morning seminary.

“I get up and go to school (at 7:20 a.m.). I do four classes. Tuesday and Thursday I take seminary (religious classes through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints),” Skinner told reporter Michelle Reese. “Then I come home and get ready and go straight to gym,” where she stays for seven hours.

“It’s such a blessing that I’m in seminary right before I go to the gym,” MyKayla said in an interview with the LDS Church News. “I used to feel so stressed about going to train. In seminary I feel the Spirit, which helps me feel peaceful. I’m much calmer now.”

Her mother, Kym Skinner, says MyKayla likes the idea of attending BYU in a few years. “The media has given her the idea of majoring in broadcast and sports commentary like Nastia Liukin,” Kym told Amber Singh of the Daily Universe. “We don’t know which college she will end up selecting yet, but BYU is still an option.”

RM saves a life

Oregon offensive tackle Mark Asper made headlines when he performed the Heimlich maneuver on a man who was choking on a piece of meat last week during the Beef Bowl.

Asper, a returned LDS missionary from Idaho Falls, said he was eating dinner with his teammates when a man at another table started choking, according to the Los Angeles Times. One of the restaurant’s chefs tried to dislodge the chunk of meat, but was not successful.

Asper stepped in and, after a test heave, a “full force heave” popped out the beef.

“He came up to me afterward and said, ‘Hey man, thanks a lot, but you broke my sunglasses,’” Asper told reporters. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll see if I can get you a new pair.’”

More RMs in college football

Since publishing two stories about returned LDS missionaries in college football in recent months (see part 1and part 2), more continue to pop up.