Ruby Harrold thought her freshman teammates on the LSU gymnastics team weren’t going to like her.
For openers, her age, 20, wasn’t typical for a freshman barreling into college and her first collegiate meet. And, in Harrold’s case, she was 4,543 miles away from her home in Bristol, England.
“She deferred [her entering college] so that she could [participate in] the Olympic Games and train for that,” associate head gymnastics coach Jay Clark said. “She’s at a different place in her life than the average kid who just turned 18 and [went] off to college. I was wondering how that is going to mesh, but it’s working so far.”
Perhaps, that’s because Ruby is not the typical freshman. At first, she thought her two freshman teammates — now roommates — would be apprehensive.
“They probably were dreading it,” Harrold laughed.
“Dreading having an ‘old maid,’” Clark jabbed.
This month Harrold leaped into her first season for the Tigers as an all-around gymnast. Before her time as a fully enrolled student-athlete — nearly a month after her trip to Brazil for the 2016 Summer Olympics as a member of Great Britain’s fifth-place national gymnastics team — she had visited Baton Rouge twice.
But connection to LSU spans years.
“My coach at home and [current sophomore all-arounder] Lexie’s [Priessman] old coach had a pre-existing relationship,” Harrold said. “We used to come overseas and train and go on camps and share ideas and coaching styles.”
Coincidentally, during Clark’s first year at LSU, he ran into Harrold on one of her trips to Priessman’s gym — Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy — and was later eventually able to escort her to Baton Rouge on an unofficial recruiting visit. Later, she made an official recruitment visit.
“She was a Tiger the first time she came on campus,” underscores LSU head coach D-D Breaux.
Was it tough for Harrold to obtain consent from her father to attend a school at a university for far from home?
“My dad was pretty open to the idea,” she said. “He never said no; he was always open to giving it a go.”
“Fortunately, her coach, her dad and Ruby cooperated and everything came together and we were able to get her on our campus twice — which is what we thought was a big victory in the recruiting process,” Breaux said.
But with Olympic training comes Olympic recovery, which Harrold is still undergoing in accordance with a plan Clark developed for her.
It’s important to rest her body with some down time and not feel the pressure to immediately prepare again, said Breaux.
“Jay’s plan is very good and we’re still in it. She’s still not doing what everyone else is doing in the gym.”
Harrold’s thankful for the recovery period, but she is driven to return to full-time training.
Most important to Breaux, she jokes, is Harrold’s cherished childhood memories for and attachment to English football are no more.
Not in Louisiana.
“We’ve already established the fact that she likes American football better than soccer,” Breaux joked. “That’s a big deal.”