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Brooks' Bonds
May 28, 2010
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Chris Brooks grew up in Houston, long a gymnastics hot spot, and trained at Cypress
alongside fellow future stars Raj Bhavsar and Jonathan Horton, frequently
competing against cross-town rival Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons.
Brooks would reunite with the latter two at Oklahoma, where the Houston
threesome competed collegiately for the Sooners.
Both Horton, who has been one of Brooks best friends for as long as he
can remember, and Abdullah-Simmons molded the gymnast Brooks has become.
“I don’t know if I’d say I ever really looked up to Jon,” jokes the 5-8
Brooks of his more diminutive buddy. “I respect him too much as a friend to
really think of him as a role model.
“I learned a lot from Taqiy,” Brooks adds. “I used to worry and worry
and worry about stuff in the gym and
he was always like, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and that was just revolutionary. I
mean, ‘Don’t worry about it?’ Who does that? Well, Taqiy does that.”
In the gym, Horton and Abdullah-Simmons, who won NCAA all-around titles
in 2006 and 2007, respectively, were polar opposites. “Somewhere between Jon
doing 70 double pikes until he sticks one and Taqiy not worrying about it,”
Brooks says, describing his own style. “Taqiy was just able to turn it on when
he needed it to happen. I learned from him, that, no matter what you feel like,
you flip that switch when the competition comes.”
Recently, Brooks has found himself flipping that switch to face off
against his friend, Horton. “When we were real young, I used to beat Jon all
the time when were like, Class IV, then I decided to grow six inches in six
months and Jon grew, like, one inch in six years,” says Brooks, laughing. “He
was unstoppable for a while and now I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where
I can keep up with him.”
Though they may be gunning for the same titles, Horton and Brooks will
always support each other. “At the [American Cup,] going into the last two
events, we were like, ‘This is just like when we were kids. Let’s finish this
thing off and do it big.’ We definitely have each other’s backs.”
Brooks
and Horton will meet up again next week at the men's National Team training
camp in Colorado Springs, Colo. and Brooks hopes this trip goes better than his
last one, where he sprained his ankle and missed out on a trip to the recent
Moscow international event. (OU teammate Alex Naddour went in Brooks stead and
earned silver on pommel horse.) Brooks is slowly coming back from his ankle
injury and hopes to once again be at his best at the U.S. National
Championships in Auugst.
“I'm telling Jon every day
that he better watch out at USAs,” Brooks says with a smile. “I'm gonna be
ready.”
For more on Chris Brooks check out the current issue of Inside Gymnastics which features an in-depth profile on the rising U.S. star.
Photo of (L-R) Ian Jackson, Horton, Abdullah-Simmons and Brooks courtesy Jake Messina
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