All Georgia Dabritz has wanted is to be perfect.
She calls it the gymnastics motto — perfection. But it’s that same motto that may have been holding her back.
Ever since she first stepped foot on campus, Dabritz has been key in the Red Rocks’ lineup, and there have been numerous moments where she has performed brilliantly. As a freshman in her first Super Six, she scored two 9.90s, as a sophomore she was the national runner-up on bars and as a junior she was a five-time All-American.
But it’s the moments that didn’t go so well that stick with her most. She openly admits that she hasn’t been her best during the postseason in the past. She fell off the beam at Regionals in 2013 and she only scored a 9.775 on floor during the national semis last season (a meet where the Utes missed out on the Super Six by .075) — those are the moments that linger.
Dabritz hasn’t been bad during the current postseason, but she hasn’t been perfect.
“This year I realized it’s my last year,” Dabritz said. “I want to go out and have fun and enjoy it while I still can. I know when I don’t do my best, it’s when I am trying too hard, or thinking too much, or overdoing things, or overcorrecting. This whole year has been a complete change for me, I know I do my best when I’m having fun, so I try to just keep that out there.”
It’s a more mature approach from an athlete who has been forced to grow up this season much faster than she probably would have liked.
Dabritz’s long-time club coach Laura Tebo lost her battle with cancer midway through the season, and going through that experience has helped shape Dabritz’s senior season.
Tebo coached Dabritz since her beginning at Ace Gymnastics, in Dabritz’s home state of Massachusetts. Under Tebo’s tutelage, the current Utah star became a multiple state and Junior Olympic champion, before earning a full scholarship to Utah. Dabritz had even taken to calling Tebo her “second mom” because of the amount of time the two spent together.
Tebo was diagnosed with cancer prior to the 2015 season, and early last December, Dabritz had an idea to hopefully make her feel a little better. During the Red Rock Preview all of the Utah gymnasts wore orange ribbons in their hair — Tebo’s favorite color.
“She loved it, and she was so happy that we did it,” Dabritz said.
A couple weeks later, Dabritz was at Tebo’s side at the hospital. She knew things weren’t going well, and that Tebo’s health was deteriorating, so the thought crossed Dabritz’s mind that that moment could be her last with her coach. But Dabritz couldn’t stay away.
In January, Tebo’s condition worsened, and as the news of her coach’s declining health reached Dabritz she knew she had to go back home. The Utes were in mid-season, so when Utah wasn’t on a road trip, she was traveling back to see Tebo.
“It was hard to see her like that, but I was really glad and fortunate that I got to see her a couple last times,” Dabritz said. “Those were probably the hardest couple weekends for me. It’s just quality time before she didn’t have any more of it. And even though she was coherent in the end and she knew I was still there and she had a smile on her face the whole time.”
Even when her pupil wasn’t with her, Tebo was still mindful of Dabritz.
In every competition the two were at together Tebo would tell Dabritz to “play nice” and even in her final days, Tebo found a way to relay that same message.
“She would still tell me that every meet,” Dabritz said. “And that’s something I always think of when I get on the floor.”
On Feb. 1, Dabritz received the sad news that she was anticipating — Tebo had passed. Though the death was expected to an extent, it still took its toll on Dabritz.
“My immediate reaction was just a flood of tears on the phone with my mom,” she said. “It was every emotion at once. I was concerned, I was sad and I was upset, it was just a flood of everything going through my mind.”
But that first day wasn’t the hardest to bear for the Utah senior.
The weekend following Tebo’s death, the Utes had a meet against Arizona State, and Dabritz asked Utah coach Greg Marsden if she could wear the orange ribbon again. He offered a better suggestion — why not have the whole team wear them. Moments before that meet, with an orange and white ribbon clinging to her hair, it all hit Dabritz.
There would be no “play nice” message, there would be no “good job” texts — at that moment Dabritz realized that Tebo wouldn’t be watching or cheering her on.
As pre-meet warmups were happening around her, Dabritz broke down in tears, fully feeling the weight of her longtime coach’s passing. Both the Utah head coaches, Greg and Megan Marsden, pulled the senior to the side and had a long talk with her, but Dabritz wasn’t sure if she was going to make it through the meet.
Performing in her first event since Tebo’s passing, Dabritz created a moment she, and thousands of Utah fans, will always remember. In a performance that she says was for her late coach, the senior landed a perfect 10.0 on vault, matching teammate Tory Wilson’s score from moments earlier, and making it back-to-back 10s for the Utes.
“To be able to go out and have that first event like that, was so emotional for me,” Dabritz said. “It was amazing for us to do that.”
That performance showed the change that the Utah star had gone through. Just minutes before that vault she was unsure if she could even perform, but then she was perfect.
“I think with the experience she has used that to her advantage,” Greg Marsden said. “I think what she went through this year with the death of her club coach, and traveling back and forth to home, and just having to deal with a lot of things I think that has given her a different perspective as well.”
Dabritz isn’t the only gymnast that has had to deal with challenges this season. The seniors on this year’s squad have had more than their fair share of trials out of the gym. Dabritz has dealt with the death of a long time friend and coach, Tory Wilson sustained season- and career-ending injuries and Corrie Lothrop’s father has been in and out of the hospital for much of the year.
“[Lothrop’s] dad has been in intensive care quite a bit, and lost a foot, and has been in rehab,” Greg Marsden said. “He’s finally getting out in time to see her at championships, but he couldn’t be here many other times.”
Lothrop said she is expecting him to be able to make the trip to Fort Worth, Texas for her final collegiate competition, but that gymnastics has helped her keep her mind off her ailing father.
“Gymnastics — what it does for me is allow me to separate my sport and my personal life,” she said. “When all that stuff was going on, I think the best thing for me was going to practice, because there I am surrounded by my coaches, and my teammates, and people that care about me, and I think that’s what helps the most.”
“From a coaches’ perspective, whether it’s Georgia or Corrie or Tory, you try and help them have a perspective that life is going to be full of challenges and ups and downs,” Greg Marsden said. “It’s not whether you’re going to have those, it’s how you deal with them. You try and do the appropriate thing and be supportive but help them have a perspective and get through those times to better times.”
Ever since her freshman season, high expectations have been put on Dabritz. It’s natural to see a great athlete, and expect them to be near perfect each and every time. Dabritz gives off that aura of perfection — when she falters, it’s a surprise. She has even put that mantle on herself, but after what she has dealt with this season, it seems the weight and pressure of perfection has been lifted — which may just lead her to some of her greatest moments.
Two weekends ago at the Berkeley Regional competition Dabritz had one of, if not the best performance of her Utah career. With her teammates struggling around her, Dabritz dominated the meet, winning every event, with three 9.950s (bars, vault, floor) and a 9.90 (beam), to lead Utah into its 40th-straight National Championship appearance.
“It’s definitely helped in this postseason, that I have been through so much this year,” Dabritz said. “I almost feel relieved, and I am just excited. I’m so prepared for it, because I have been through everything and I know how to handle things which I haven’t been able to do in past years. I think it has helped me mature a lot through this year, I wasn’t always the most stable person out there. I think all the things that I have been through this year, has made me grow up fast. It has changed me.”
That change could lead to greatness, if not perfection.
@millerjryan