Class didn’t start until 8 a.m., but some students were wide awake and ready to go hours earlier at Spring Creek Academy buzzing about their newest alumni-turned-Olympic champion.
Madison Kocian is a standout member of the “Final Five” US women’s gymnastics team. She won a silver medal in uneven bars and a gold medal in the team competition last week in Rio.
The 19 year old is UCLA-bound when she returns from the games, but until just last year, she was a student at the Plano school.
Spring Creek is a private academy that provides more flexibility for students pursuing elite athletics and arts. Most students attend classes for about half the day and spend the other half training in their respective field. School leaders say many put in more than 35 hours per week in training.
In Madison’s case, she trained at the near-by World Olympic Gymnastics Academy and did her studies at the school, eventually graduating in 2015.
Many of the students heading back to school Monday said they know Madison well and they’ve been watching her Olympic journey closely.
“I watched everyone else fine, but then when it got to her I was like, ‘I don’t want to watch because I’m so nervous,’" fellow WOGA gymnast and classmate Erin Hutchison said. “But I couldn’t not watch. I was so nervous for her.”
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Teachers at the school said they couldn’t help but share a tear of pride as Kocian received her Olympic medals.
“I taught her, I think [starting] when she was in third grade,” said Spring Creek Social Science Teacher Charlie Vann.“So now to see her with her Olympic medals, it’s really thrilling.”
The students made large congratulations posters as school administrators added Madison’s pictures to their ‘Wall of Fame’ and her name to the school’s entrance sign next to fellow alumni and Olympians Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin.
The students said watching Madison compete has been a wild ride, but that, to them, she is still just Maddie from class.
“It’s weird, because you see her on TV and it’s like, that’s who she is. She’s the same sweet, fun, nice person all the time,” said Hutchison. “She’s earned it all, she’s worked so hard for it.”
