NEW ORLEANS (AP) After asking the question aloud and leaning back, Li Li Leung does something that has become all too uncommon during her revolutionary time as USA Gymnastics’ president and CEO.
She pauses.
What have I discovered? Leung repeats.
She chooses a response that, in true Leung form, expresses a lot by expressing only a little after a quick exchange to gain some time.
Leung told The Associated Press that he hadn’t had time to consider it. The main idea is that I haven’t had time to process everything that has transpired in the last six years.
One of the several reasons—and possibly the primary one—that it’s time to move on.
Leung has been constantly on the move since the day she entered the organization’s then-dungeon-like Indianapolis office in March 2019—during the height of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal—until this weekend’s U.S. Championships. Since then, the office has shifted to one with significantly more natural light.
Even though Leung’s natural work ethic is partly to blame, the former Michigan gymnast understood she had no other option. The U.S. Olympic movement was in ruins, both financially (USA Gymnastics had only six weeks of cash flow when Leung took over) and, more importantly, culturally.
Internal and external trust had been undermined. It would take time to restore. Additionally, it would require the kind of empathy that Leung’s immediate forebears had not been able to produce.
One of Leung’s instructors advised her not to strive to please everyone before she accepted the position, saying that striving to please everyone was a foolish endeavor.
It could have been the only piece of advice she ever ignored.
“Well, I’m going to boil as much of it as I can,” Leung replied in answer to him.
Quiet compassion
Leung recognized early on that the most crucial part of her mission was to rebuild trust among the organization’s hundreds of thousands of members and, equally important, the hundreds of women who were abused by Nassar under the pretense of medical treatment, even as the former NBA executive started the process of trying to keep the organization financially viable.
Leung and USAG board chair Kathryn Carson made it a point to attend dozens of hearings, listening to the experiences of the women abused by Nassar and using quiet moments when the tape recorder was off to reconnect, even though she was restricted in what she could say publicly during the protracted mediation process between USA Gymnastics and the survivors.
“We heard their stories directly and had the chance to personally express how much we cared about trying to do the right thing,” Carson added. Many tears were shed.
And finally, advancement. Leung realized that although the historic $380 million settlement provided some closure, it was only a stop along a journey that she knows will never be finished.
Leung wanted the organization’s leadership group to consider not just how far the organization has come but also how far it still has to go when she announced in early June that she would be leaving at the end of the year.
I thought, “You guys got this,” Leung remarked. They also possess it. I mean, I believe I’ve taught them that we’re never finished. We should constantly push ourselves to be better since there is always more that can be done. We frequently discuss it in our meetings. Is there anything else we can do better? And I believe they are aware of that.
Coming full circle
Leung’s reluctance to reflect is partly due to this. Even after guiding USA Gymnastics out of the shadows, Leung is hesitant to take center stage because of the humility her parents taught in her and her twin sister May May while they were growing up in New Jersey.
Leung would much rather divert attention by emphasizing that the team’s efforts are equally significant to her own.
This quality, combined with her experience in a sport that can be both exhilarating and harsh, enabled her to get through those pivotal early years when everything seemed so precarious.
According to Carson, she refrained from letting herself get shaken when the rest of us may have. The most significant thing she did was to pursue her love of the sport by just being there in the community, everywhere, and with all kinds of people.
And keep quiet. Leung is many things, but performative is the one thing she is not. The list of individuals who were critical of the organization was lengthy, noisy, well-known, and, well, warranted in their annoyance and rage when she appeared.
Leung saw the significance of allowing those most impacted to be heard and included in the solution, even if she had nothing to do with the institutional failures that produced a culture where the athletes’ authority was skewed too far away.
When Olympic champion Simone Biles, who had survived Nassar, criticized USA Gymnastics prior to the 2019 U.S. Championships for its persistent failure to protect its competitors, Leung had only been on the job five months. Five years later, Biles gave the organization credit for working hard to implement the adjustments required to rebuild confidence.
Dominique Moceanu was the youngest national champion in the history of USA Gymnastics thirty years ago. She was one of the Magnificent Seven that won gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Moceanu also became a vocal opponent of coaches who were physically and emotionally abusive long before Nassar’s misdeeds were made public. She believed her relationship with USA Gymnastics was finished because she felt like a pariah.
But on Sunday night, on the 30th anniversary of her victory, she was there, waving to the crowd inside the Smoothie King Center. This was a full-circle moment that would not have occurred without Leung and the changes Moceanu, who now owns her own gym with her husband Mike just outside of Cleveland, sees in the sport as a whole.
Moceanu stated, “I think there are things that are shifting, but Li Li has been a constant and stable leader, which has been very good.” And that indicates that USAG is, in a way, beginning to recover from the injuries, the harm, and everything that occurred.
Moving forward
But the healing process is far from over. Furthermore, Leung is well aware that without ongoing attention, all of the progress gained over the last six years might soon come undone.
According to her, we strive to make our surroundings as undesirable as possible for predators. And when we discuss how we attempt to alleviate (issues), we sort of adopt that mentality. How we attempt to establish accountability and zero tolerance.
The fact that a job that no one wanted six years ago—not even Leung—is now noticeably more appealing is indicative of how far USA Gymnastics has come on almost every front. It helps that under Leung’s leadership, the number of members has increased to almost 240,000 athletes, trainers, and gym owners. The business sponsors who left following Nassar have come back. USA Gymnastics and NBC Sports signed a relationship last week that will continue until the 2032 Olympics.
In the process of finding her successor, Leung is acting as an advisor. While she thinks it would be beneficial if the next president was a gymnast, she strongly believes whoever it is must be a former athlete.
(They need) someone who understands sports and understands high-pressure environments and high-pressure competition, in order for that person to be successful, she said.
As for Leung, she says she wants a break. The last few months have been challenging in her personal life, reinforcing the need for her to step away and hit reset.
How long that might take, she s not sure, pointing out that how she feels in early August might not be the way she feels on Dec. 31.
Leung has received numerous overtures from other entities in recent years as USA Gymnastics found itself on increasingly firmer footing. She said no to them all. She might say no to them some more before moving on to what s next.
The one thing she will do, however, is listen. If Leung has learned anything over the last six-plus years, it s that. Listening leads to growth, a personal philosophy that has also become one of USA Gymnastics guiding principles.
Yes, she could use the next three years in the run-up to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as a victory lap. That s simply not her way. Her goal when she arrived was to leave the gymnastics community at large in a better place than she found it. While she wouldn t trade a second of the journey it s taken to do just that, she s also aware of the toll it has taken personally.
The parallel or the analogy that I would draw to gymnastics is staying in competitive shape this entire time, with no rest, she said. That s only sustainable for so long. So I m going to finally get my rest.
