(Check out Lexa's personal page in athletes/roster)

1999 Season: Straight From The Heart!

Junior Tide gymnast, Lexa Evans, who hails from Gilford, New Hampshire, is looking forward to returning to her native New England the weekend of February 19 - 21, for road meets with Penn State and the University of Massachusetts at their respective campuses in State College, Pennsylvania and Amherst, Massachusetts. Lexa has several relatives in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire who will be attending these meets and she is excited about the prospect of performing in front of her family members. It has become somewhat of a tradition over the years for Coach Patterson to schedule meets in or nearby the home states of Tide gymnasts during their junior and senior years, particularly those gymnasts who live outside of the southeast. Lexa and freshman, Natalie Barrington of Missassauga, Ontario, Canada, will no doubt benefit from this "northern exposure" trip if their families have anything to say about the matter!

As she prepares for her third competitive year with the Alabama gymnastics team, Lexa took time to reflect on her recruiting experience and how she ended up in Tuscaloosa. She recalled taking several recruiting trips to the northeastern colleges, including Penn State and West Virginia, prior to visiting Alabama, and one thing that stood out right away for Lexa was their definition of "fan support" versus the "real thing", as personified by the Tide's strong booster club following and the program's high average home meet attendance (1st in 1997 and 3rd in 1998 among all women's collegiate athletic programs). Lexa emphasized her impression of how much impact the Tide fans truly have on the gymnasts in terms of support and motivation throughout the year - and it's a big one!

Lexa made a personal commitment to come in this year in her best shape yet. However, she had an unscheduled bout of mono during the summer that sapped her for approximately 8 weeks, restricting her exercise routines greatly. She reported to Fall practice healthier but has had to learn patience as she slowly builds up her body's strength and endurance for competition season. While Lexa has been training vault, bars, and floor, she foresees being called upon this year to perform only on bars and floor, her specialty events during the past two years at UA. Her bars routine will include her trademark sky-high Tkatchev (reverse Hecht) release move and she is training both a double pike and a double layout dismount. Lexa's floor routine has been revamped with new music ("U Spin Me") and she will mount with a handspring front full to a punch front; second pass will be a front handspring followed by two front layouts; she will dismount with a roundoff handspring 1 ½ twist with her signature smile-a-mile accompanying her throughout this routine in 1999. When asked how she smiles so well throughout her floor routine, Lexa responded that she smiles so easily because she loves cheering and performing for the crowd. Her thoughts regarding the team for 1999? The talent of this year's sophomore and freshman classes is reportedly pushing the juniors and seniors to perform at higher levels, a "valuable asset" in Lexa's opinion! Finally, Lexa noted that this year's team definitely has their eye on the big prize. After a successful "regrouping" last year (to return to the podium in no worse than 3rd place), this year's team reportedly knows "...who we are and what we want" and "our heart is definitely in it this year" to go all out in order to win all out. In the meantime, we'll all be smiling with Lexa, hopefully all the way to Salt Lake City in late April!