By Caroline Domecq
LSU Sports Information
From the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, Lisa Rennie came to Baton Rouge a year ago not knowing exactly what to expect. But as usual, she has excelled as both a student and athlete in her time here.
In her first season as an LSU gymnast, she came in right away and competed in three events for the Tigers including the bars, beam and floor exercise. Recruited mainly for her skills on the bars, her sensational performance in those other two events really gave the lineup a boost.
“Lisa was recruited basically with the mindset that she would be able to make major contributions on bars because that was obviously her strongest event,” coach D-D Breaux explained. “She told us she was really good at beam, but we never got to see her compete because she was recovering from an injury her last year of high school. So we had stats, but we never had anything visual.”
But Rennie was right, as her best event statistically her freshman year turned out to be the balance beam. She finished the season ranked 20th nationally on that event with a regional qualifying score of 9.915. She won three straight beam titles to conclude the regular season and scored a 9.800 or higher in 11 of her last 12 routines.
“Beam is one of my favorite events,” Rennie said. “I like beam and bars the best because they’re both very intense and they’re also the events that most people like the least. That makes me like them even more. I don’t know exactly why I do so well on beam, but I don’t have too many mental blocks that hold me back.”
According to Rennie, getting past those mental blocks and adjusting to the nature of college competition were the most difficult things about coming to LSU.
“The major difference between club and college would have to be that in club we compete in maybe six or seven meets at most a year, and in college you compete every weekend of a season, sometimes two meets a weekend. It was like double the meets and over double the intensity because when you come to college pretty much everybody’s at your level. Everybody wants to beat someone, wants to get in the lineups and wants to just be on top.”
Now that Rennie has showcased her skills in three events, she is working very diligently at her vaulting skills. If she can break into the top six in that event, then she would be able to compete in the all-around, a very important goal she would like to achieve.
And that is not something too far away with some hard work, especially considering that Rennie won the all-around at the team’s preseason intrasquad meet. With four scores of 9.750 or better, Rennie posted a 39.350 to claim the all-around title.
“I was pretty surprised at that because April (Burkholder) is an awesome gymnast and she was our all-arounder last year,” Rennie said. “I didn’t get to compete in the all-around last year–vault was the only event I didn’t get to compete in–but I did vault in the intrasquad and I hit everything. There were things I know I could have done better on, but the end result was pretty exciting and shocking.”
Coach D-D Breaux said she definitely recognizes all of Rennie’s effort and that because of it she will probably make the vaulting lineup, thus becoming an all-around competitor.
“Lisa never complains and is always willing to do more,” she said. “As far as conditioning, she comes in a lot on her own and does a lot of extra work. And the reason I believe she will ultimately be able to make our vaulting lineup is because she comes in extra on her own and does volunteer training aside from the team. I would never tell Lisa she couldn’t do something she sets her mind to.”
Despite coming from somewhere like Las Vegas, Rennie was still a little overwhelmed when she came to LSU, according to Breaux. She said Rennie had to adjust to the significance of athletics at LSU and how much work is involved in being a student-athlete.
But she has overcome that and become an outstanding student and a very committed athlete, earning a 3.44 cumulative GPA in her first three semesters at LSU.
On top of being concerned with her athletics and her studies, Rennie has something even more important she must be concerned with. She is an insulin-dependant diabetic and must pay particular attention to her health.
“She is an insulin-dependant diabetic,” Breaux explained, “So she really has to watch everything that she eats. Her diet is of paramount importance. How she trains and how she conditions really matter. She takes care of herself really well, she’s just the total package.”
She admits she misses the glamour of Vegas, but Rennie is also very glad she made the decision to become a Tiger and is very excited about her second year of competition.
“I learned a lot about each team we competed against last year–what they were like, what the audience was like, and how to expect things like that–so I think I’ll just be more ready this year when it comes to things like that.”
And while she hopes for a better focus, she is also working to improve her dance moves, Rennie joked. She is learning to dance to Chingy’s music from teammate April Burkholder.
“It’s a joke before the meets in the locker room,” Rennie explained. “I’m not the best natural dancer, but April will do her moves in the locker room before the meet and I’ll try to do them with her. I try to do it, but it doesn’t work too well. But it gets us pumped and laughing.”
Burkholder admitted that Rennie does have a “unique” way of doing the Chingy dance, but that she’s getting better every time, just like with her gymnastics.