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| Vol.25, No. 11 | Jan. 21, 2000 |
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| Vol.25, No. 11 | Jan. 21, 2000 |
By Abigail Beshkin
On a hot morning during the 1992 summer Olympic games, Trent Dimas, now 29 and a student in Columbia's School of General Studies (GS), found himself running down a street in Barcelona, Spain, late to meet Katie Couric for a live Today Show interview.
Around his neck, Dimas wore an Olympic gold medal he had won the night before, having completed an almost flawless high-bar routine in the men's gymnastics competition.
Suddenly, the ribbon snapped, and Dimas watched his medal drop to the ground. When he picked it up, it was dented. Now, when he thinks about having it fixed, he always chooses not to, deciding that even the scratches on his most hard-earned possession are reminders of an incredible 16 days in his life.
Until Dimas stuck his final dismount, few had expected him to place, let alone win the men's high bar event. The films of his victorious moment show Dimas' face slowly register shock, then exuberance.
Dimas had trained 21 years for this moment, only squeezing in school when he could. Now, Dimas doesn't want to make school secondary. Last fall, he embarked on the post-athletic phase of his life, committing himself to finishing college and changing careers. With a position at Momentum Inc., a sports marketing firm, Dimas moved to New York from Colorado, and applied to GS.
He was convinced the University was out of his reach, a common feeling among students who have interrupted their education to pursue another passion, said Peter Awn, dean of GS.
Still, even though he was nervous, Dimas said, "I remember getting off the subway at 116th and Broadway, and walking through those gates. And I thought, 'There is no other place I want to be.'"
Now that he's here, the rigor of school is familiar.
"It's just like gymnastics," he said. "If I have a great instructor, I can expect to learn. So far, coming to Columbia has been like having an Olympic coach training me in academics."
That's high praise coming from someone who until three years ago spent almost every day training with Olympic coaches.
Dimas began gymnastics lessons when he was 5. The son of evangelist parents in New Mexico, he and his brother Ted were home schooled, competing on karate, soccer and gymnastics teams in the afternoons. Then, the time came to choose one sport and give up the rest.
So why gymnastics?
"We were huge cartoon fans," said Dimas. "Gymnastics was the closest thing to being a super hero."
Once Trent and his brother started attending public school in middle and high school, they would train from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m., then go to school until 2:30 p.m. Then, it was back to the gym. Other than the few hours in school, the rest of the day belonged to gymnastics.
In 1988, both Ted and Trent tried out for the Olympics but neither qualified. Trent was 1989's blue-chip gymnast, having been offered full athletic scholarships to every U.S. university that had a gymnastics team. He enrolled at the University of Nebraska, but walked away from his scholarship and his studies to give the 1992 Olympic try-outs his all.
This time, he made it. And won gold.
After the Olympics, Dimas worked as a coach and corporate spokesman, and continued to train. But two years ago, Dimas said to himself: "Here is Trent Dimas. Now he's 27 and he hasn't finished his college education."
"The Olympic games are like no other event," he continued, "but when you get out of the athletic arena and people still look at you as an athlete... sometimes there's a bad stigma that comes along with that. I think that's a shame. A lot of athletes give a better part of their lives to their countries, but in the end we have to make up time lost in the so-called real world."
But in fact, said Awn, the strength of GS is that it recognizes that there is no single "real world." Its students arrive at GS often having had non-traditional, but unparalleled life experiences.
"Our students come from hundreds of different places in life," Awn said. "They're world-renown chefs, ambulence drivers-turned novelists, award-winning production designers and New York Times reporters."
Having worked as a corporate spokesperson, Dimas wanted to experience the other side of the sports marketing table. He is now working to design a specialized communications major, and concentrating on completing his core requirements.
He still does some appearances and particularly enjoys working with children. He never likes to take his gold medal to public events—unless the events involve kids.
"For the kids I always try to take it," Dimas said. "They like to hold it or wear it—children can be convinced that it's within each of them to go after the seemingly impossible dream."