Marcia Frederick is shown in the video clips of her gold-medal winning performance in the World Gymanastics Championships in Strasbourg, Frace in 1978, on the uneven parrallel bars and during an intervew with her two years later, both on ABC Sports.DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- More and more people in recent months have asked me if Anna Frederick and Marcia Frederick are my sisters since both regularly post responses on my Facebook pages dealing with my trials and tribulations as publisher of the award-winning 24/7 internet newspaper here in Central Florida, HeadlineSurfer.com.
Especially since both of these Frederick gals often post personal responses -- Anna Frederick, typically related to her strong Christian faith, and Marcia Frederick, more often sarcastic and playful.
Anna Frederick is a younger sister among my six siblings -- three girls and three boys. At 52, I'm the second oldest among the seven children in my family.
Marcia Frederick, a year younger than me, is my second cousin. She actually made quite a name for herself before I even got into college and then then hit the ground running in the 30 years since getting my bachelor's degree.
We have grown very close. I hadn't even met her until two summers ago when she flew down for a week-long visit with my wife, Serafina, and I in New Smyrna Beach, just before we moved to Lake Mary and then Sanford.
And while I've made a name for myself in my family's eyes in college and in the real world in a 30-year journalism career, Marcia had already made a far greater name name for herself and the Frederick Family.
Marcia Frederick won a gold medal for American in gymnastics in the world championships in Strasbourg, France in in 1978, but her rival, Nadia Comaneci was on the cover of the magazine after winning gold in the 1976 Olympics. Same with American gymnast Mary Lou Retton after winning an olympic gold medal in 1984.At the age of 15, Marcia Frederick was the first American gymnast to win a gold medal. She beat Nadia Comaneci in the uneven parallel bars during the world gymnastics championships in Strasbourg, France in 1978.
Had it not been for Jimmy Carter boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, Marcia might have won gold on a far greater world stage.
She injured herself in 1981, and by the time 1984 rolled around, her time had passed. And she has been left behind, a star for a weekend afternoon on ABC Sports, two years before one of the ugliest stretches in American history.
The 1970s was a decade of failure for America, getting squeezed by OPEC, which led to the gas crisis; the downfall of the Nixon presidency with Watergate, the humiliation of losing the Vietnam War and the Iranian hostage crisis.
Marcia Frederick, is shown in this image from 2010. She won a gold medal in Strasbourg, France in 1978.By the time 1984 rolled around, gymnast Mary Lou Retton was the darling of America and Marcia long since forgotten, in the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, having won won five medals, including gold in the individual all-around competition. Her performance made her one of the most popular athletes in the US.
But of course, the Soviets and Iron Curtain countries boycotted LA in retaliation for the American snub of Moscow. One of the reasons I hate politics. Imagine if Marcia and her fellow American athletes had been allowed to compete in Moscow how she might have been America's darling.
Then again we helped Osama bin Laden against the Soviets after the Evil Empire invaded Afghanistan and look at how he repaid us: Blood spilled on American soil in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Marcia has led a low-key life since then, raising two children to adulthood, and making her living as a gymnastics instructor back home in Massachusetts. And it's kind of ironic that Marcia Frederick played the role of the stunt double of the gymnast even more famous than Retton, the great Nadia Comaneci herself, in the 1984 TV movie, "Nadia."
Had politics not gotten in the way, Marcia Frederick might have repeated her gold medal performance in Moscow, the center of communism behind the Iron Curtain.
It may very well have bee Marcia Frederick on a Wheaties box four years after Bruce Jenner and four years before Retton." There will always be the ""what ifs."
But one thing is certain, Marcia Frederick was the first American gymnast to win gold. Marcia often compliments me on my career as a newspaper reporter with 65-plus award-winning stories, a third of them just in the last three years with the digital media platform I carved out for myself, even as I struggle with it financially at times. S
he also marvels at my continued growth as a writer well beyond the barriers of the daily grind of years worth of daily print newspaper stories. I'm well into authoring three books for which I have secured publishing rights and financial commitments with. They are:
• "Creepy Ass Cracker" on the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman saga, an intense book on my experience with Florida's courts, expected to be published in May;
• "Wrestling Rewind," subtitled, "My Lifelong Love Affair with the Theater of the Absurd in the Squared Circle," featuring interviews I've done over the years with wrestlers like Diamond Dallas Page, Chris Jericho, Kevin Nash and Bill Goldberg, as well as my Daytona coverage of the suicide of retired wrestler Mike Graham and issues of steroids, plus all-time rankings and trivia. With publication in September;
• "The Day NASCAR Died: 15th Anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's Death in the Daytona 500," on the legend's last-lap crash in the 2001 signature race, whose death has impacted the sport like no other with lingering questions and a growing focus on the billionaire France Family and its incestuous grip on stock car racing.With publication in February 2016.
I could envision, recognition of Marcia Frederick in either of the latter two books or perhaps as the leaden to a second three-book scenario. She is a true American icon who I love and respect. Like anything in life worth pursuing, it's all a matter of timing as she knows full well.
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