Sullivan visits her Southern roots with Gymnastics

Rural Georgia is not the most likely place to find a feeder high school for Penn. In fact, of the 113 students in the class of 1995 at Lamar County High School in Barnesville, Ga., only around 13 went to college. And just one of those went out of state. Fortunately for the Penn gymnastics team, that one was Molly Sullivan, who is currently the Quakers' senior co-captain. Next week Sullivan will make a homecoming trip to the South as the Quakers compete in two meets. Penn will be at the Wolfpack Invitational tomorrow at North Carolina State before heading to Alabama for a meet at Auburn. It will be an exciting opportunity for Sullivan, who will compete in the South for the first time since high school. Sullivan grew up on a beef cattle farm in Jackson, Ga., which her family still owns. She plans to take care of the family farm her first two years out of college. While the farm is in Jackson, Sullivan's home phone number comes out of nearby Griffin and her high school is in Barnesville. The closest town center lies 15 miles away from Sullivan's farm. Needless to say, there was no such thing as a quick trip to gymnastics practice. "I started with gymnastics when I was five," Sullivan said. "I first practiced in Macon which was an hour away and then in Jonesboro which was still an hour away. My mom would pick me up at school at 3:00 and I would eat my dinner in the car on the way to practice." Sullivan's mother had to drive 300 miles a day to keep up with Molly's passion for the sport. One of the family's cars has 450,000 miles on it while the "new" one has logged just 200,000 miles. One of the girls whom Sullivan competed with as a child was Kentucky senior Shawnte Hall, whose Wildcats will also be participating at Auburn. This will mark the first time that Hall and Sullivan have been able to see each other compete in college. "I didn't really know what to think of her at first," Hall said of her close friend. "After we competed in a meet, she told me, 'My goal was to beat you and I did.' At first I took it as hate but then I got to know her. It's a good opportunity for us to finish our careers as they began." Four years ago, Penn coach Tom Kovic wasn't sure how Sullivan would respond to her official recruiting visit to Penn. Her visit fell during Penn Relays weekend, when there were about 40,000 extra people on campus. For someone who grew up surrounded by more cows than people, this was obviously a major change. "I figured that if this kid can handle this, she can handle anything," Kovic said. "She went to Penn Relays all three days and just about everywhere else she could. She really fell in love with the place." The transition from rural Georgia to the streets of Philadelphia was not nearly as easy as Sullivan's transition from the gyms of Georgia to Penn's Hutchinson Gymnasium. She won ECAC Rookie of the Year and was the Ivy Classic individual champion as a freshman in 1995-96. At the Palestra last weekend, Sullivan again won the Classic championship to bookend her conference career. "The biggest thing with her was culture shock and naivete," fellow senior captain Shannon Stafford said. "She has a ton of stories and I've probably heard them all a million times." According to Kovic, Sullivan is not just a team leader and passionate competitor but also loyal and selfless with a "beautiful sense of humor." Kovic would find unanimous agreement among Sullivan's teammates on his first descriptions but not the last. Sullivan bought a Joke of the Day book this year so that whenever a teammate appears frustrated in practice she can tell the person a joke in an effort to lift her spirits. "They are the stupidest jokes you've ever heard in your life," Stafford said. "She thinks they're so funny. You can't help but laugh at the way she laughs at her own jokes." It is no joke, however, that Sullivan, one of just five Quakers ever to win even one Ivy Classic all-around title, has been one of the most important athletes in Penn's gymnastics history.