John Macready and John Roethlisberger's Flip Fest

Shawn Johnson and Carly Patterson to attend Flip Fest Camp in July!

Lacy | 06/30/2009

Hey campers-here's an awesome update: Shawn Johnson has confirmed she will be attending Flip Fest during week 9. She will be here Thursday, the 30th of July. Any of you not registered yet, be sure to sign up online ASAP before the last spots are taken!
Carly Patterson has also just added week 6. She will be here Tuesday July 7 - Friday July 10. All you week 6 campers get ready to meet the 2004 Olympic Champion!

Fun February

JROE | 03/04/2009

So, February was a crazy month. We were all over the place. the end of January was the Sanddollar meet for me and Macready was at the CGA meet in Ohio (see Macreadys go to Ohio) The Sanddollar meet was great. Of course a couple days of warm weather is always good. The meet was awesome and ran great. There were a lot of boys and girls there and a lot of familiar faces. I had the chance to see World Champion Shayla Worley and her sister Jolene and their mom Debbie. They are all doing to well and it is good to hear Shayla is back training. I know there are a lot of fans who are hoping to see her at Worlds.

Special thanks to all the parents from Orlando Metro and Jeff Wood for letting us be a part of their meet. It was a lot of fun and we hope to see you all next year.

The John Roethlisberger Iceberg Invitational in Minnesota was again a lot of fun and it was great to get home to see family and friends. The meet is one of the best boys meets that I have the chance to attend every year. And it has nothing to do with me. Northshore Gymnastics runs the meet and it is in conjunction with a Minnesota college meet every year and they hold it on campus at the University of Minnesota Sports Pavilion. Check it out next year. I promise you, you will love it.

The following weekend is one of our busiest of the year every year. We attended the Chicago Style meet hosted by IGI and Todd Gardner. Again it was a great event. This year they registered with the Guiness Book of Worlds Records to go into the book as the biggest meet in the world. Pretty cool. Macready even tried to put a leotard on and compete so he could get in the book. It did not go well.

The competition is always run very well and is a lot of fun. They also had a women's college meet on Saturday night which was a huge hit. Chicago is such a great city, even during the winter. We had a chance to hang out with Olympic Silver Medalist Sam Peszek for a little while during the weekend as well. She is back training and we look forward to seeing her out on the competition floor again soon. Thanks to everyone from IGI for making our weekend a great one and having us as part of the event.

This year was the first year I had the chance to go to the GymQuarter's Invitational in St. Louis. The meet is hosted by GymQuarter's Gymnastics and Scott and Debbie Cusimano. It was a blast! They hold the meet at the Millenium Hotel which makes it so easy to get to and from the meet and you are around a lot of great stuff to do. I had the chance to spend the weekend with Randy Parrish for the first time this season which was a lot of fun. If you haven't had the chance to hear Randy announce awards yet, you are really missing out. It is very entertaining. I think he is up there just entertaining himself, but its pretty funny. The Cusimano's do an awesome job of taking care of the visiting coaches. We all had a great time. Thanks Scott and Debbie, we will see you all this summer.

If you read John's blog about about American Cup you saw that we were at the Buckeye Classic and The Circle of Stars meet the next weekend. I spent the weekend with Randy again at the Circle of Stars which is hosted by DeVeau's Gymnastics in Indy. Again, it was a great time and good to see Randy for the second straight weekend. We had a good time doing trivia and giving away t-shirts in the awards rooms. The Convention Center they hold the meet in is awesome. The parents from DeVeau's do a great job and are a lot of fun to work with. It was also good to see the boys there as well.

Last weekend I got to go to Atlanta with Brian Jones and Osh to promote camp and hang out at the Peachtree boys meet hosted by Atlanta School of Gymnastics. It was great to see the boys do there thing. There were a lot of good kids there. David Durante was also there making an appearance and talking with the boys. it was good to see him there. We are hoping to have him up to camp this summer. Keep checking our website for updates.

Randy went to the Gateway Invitational at the beginning of the Month in Collinsville, IL, and by all accounts did a great job hosting the Team Championship. I have no doubt he did. I hope to see you guys back there again next year.

The travels continue this month, so keep an eye out for us. I will be at the National Gymnastics Challenge in Athens, GA next weekend and Randy will be at the St. Louis Classic this weekend and the Derby Classic next weekend. Brian and Osh will be at the always entertaining Arnold Classic this weekend. Don't forget to send those pics in for the "Where in the World is Flip Fest" contest. Look for pics that have been submitted on our website coming soon. Including ones submitted by our staff. Keep working hard gymnasts! State meet is coming soon.

2009 Tyson American Cup

JMAC | 02/22/2009

Whats up Campers? What a long but fun weekend! I started out flying from Knoxville to Columbus Ohio. I got all set up in Columbus, hung out with some Flip Fest Friends and the next morning I got on a plane to Chicago to host the 2009 Tyson American Cup. John R was holding down the same schedule except he was in Indianapolis at Circle of Stars. He started there with Randy and then left Saturday to drive to Chicago and work for NBC. The competition was awesome, considering it was the year after the Olympics, and a lot of athletes are a little rusty from taking a little time off. However, “a little rusty” was not the case for team USA. Both the men and the women looked great. Germany’s Fabian Hambüchen just edged out USA’s David Sender and 13-year-old Jordan Wieber from team USA won her first major international meet.
After the meet John and I immediately hit the road and headed back to our meets. I flew back to Columbus and John R drove back to Indianapolis. We hung out some more and spoke at some awards ceremonies and then we will head back home tonight.
So as you can see it was a long but very eventful weekend. We got to see some of this year’s special guests like Blaine Wilson and Nastia Liukin who both can’t wait to come to Flip Fest this year.
Keep working hard and if you happen to see us at a meet make sure you come say hello.

Macready's Go To OHIO

JMAC | 01/30/2009

Last weekend was a great weekend for Flip Fest and the Macready’s. I got to travel with the family, which is such a treat for me because I get to work and spend time with Lacy, Ella and Hudson. Home base for me last weekend was Mary Lee Tracy’s Coaches Spectacular. It was a very well run meet and really gave back to the coaching community for everything they do. They had a spa set up for the coaches and they even took all the coaches in a limo to Montgomery Inn for some famous ribs.
Lacy and the kids took down the city. They went to the aquarium, the children’s museum and of course tried out the hotel pool. While they were doing that I went and visited a few more meets in the area. I stopped by Queen City Gymnastics and visited with some of the boys competing there. Then I stopped by The TOP’s Super Challenge. I got to visit with Melissa and some of the TOP’s team kids and speak at one of the awards ceremonies.
It was great seeing everyone and meeting new friends like Monty, Lisa, Mallory and Kaley from Zanesville Gymnastics. I hope everyone is training hard and getting ready for an amazing summer. It’s coming fast!

Happy New Year

JROE | 01/21/2009

The new year has started with a bang. We have already had three weekends of meets. I started in Florida at the National Judges Cup. It was a good start to the season with girls and boys both competing. This is a great event that raises money for the National Judges Association. Next year it is in Cincinnati at the beginning of January. I hope to see you all there.

From there it was off to the Nations Capital and a visit to Stafford Royals with old friend Tiffany Gomes. I had a blast hanging out in the gym and talking with the kids. It was great talking with the parents too. They were a tough crowd, but I think I got them to laugh at a few of my jokes. After I left my visit with the Royals I went to D.C. and stayed with my 1992 and '96 Olympic Teammate, Jair Lynch. He's a very successful real estate developer in D.C.. It was great catching up with him a little bit.

I spent the rest of the weekend at the Jerrell Steel Meet with Doug and Colleen Lubking from GymQuest. It was a great meet and good to see a lot of familiar faces.

There was no time to rest as we had the Flip Fest Invitational next. it was the biggest Flip Fest Invitational ever with 2700 girls, boys and tumbling and trampolinists. It was a great event, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Johnny Mac and I had the chance to talk to all the kids in each of the awards sessions and mingle with everyone during the competition. Everyone from Premier did a great job running the meet. It was a pretty cold weekend in Knoxville and we thank everyone for making the trip and we hope everyone had a great time.

Randy Parrish has been busy traveling as well and was supposed to be at the St. Jude Benefit meet this weekend but had sudden hernia surgery. Evidently, he was breaking it down on the dance floor a little to much. If you see him or talk to him, make sure you ask him how he's doing, and tell him to simmer down on that back spin he's been working on.

This weekend I will be at the Sanddollar/Whitlow meet in Orlando, Johnny Mac will be in CIncinnati at the CGA meet, the Queen City boys meet and the Kids are Tops meet (he's going to be going crazy) and Randy will be at the Bravo Classic in Illinois. We hope to see you soon.

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