Jan. 26, 2017
By Tom Shively, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa - From a young age, Penn State freshman gymnast Favian Valdez was a natural gymnast. Going all the way back to his playground days, Valdez referred to himself as a wild kid, racing around the monkey bars and swinging all over the place.
He chose gymnastics as a way to harness all the pent up energy inside him, and his original inspiration came from an unlikely source.
"When I was young, I was very hyper," Valdez said. "My dad would take me to the park and there was this one stranger that went up to my dad and asked if I was in gymnastics. He [Valdez's father] said no and he said, 'You should consider it.' So one day, my dad put me in gymnastics class and I ended up loving it. I've been doing it ever since."
The individual nature of a sport such as gymnastics allows little time for team development especially on the highly-competitive junior circuit. For Valdez, this doesn't seem to have been much of a problem, as he has been a three-time member of the Junior Olympic National Team, winning the national championship in vault and the all-around in 2014.
In college, however, the focus is much more on collective success and doing whatever you can to help the team win.
"My freshmen understand that there's a responsibility that's on them," head coach Randy Jepson said. "Some of them take it too heavily to where they're a little intimidated to let anybody down. That's a common thing with young guys but we'll hopefully get through that."
With an increased team aspect comes more focus and desire for Valdez, knowing that he has to devote much more of his time to be up to par with the elite guys in the gym. Just as any athlete, he wants to be the best and he uses those around him to motivate him. He finds a huge source of motivation from his teammates both in and out of the gym.
"All my teammates are super supportive," Valdez said. "They help me not just in the gym but outside too. They help me with school and the older guys are really supportive."
The motivation has paid off, as Valdez now has won Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors in back-to-back weeks. This award comes on the heels of three top-five finishes in the Nittany Lions' most recent meet, including an individual title on pommel horse.
"I heard Trevor [Howard] got a few of them, maybe six or seven," Valdez said. "I'm actually looking forward to trying to break that. It does give me confidence because I was a little nervous at first but I killed it last week and I did pretty well again this weekend."
"He's a really solid competitor, and we knew that he could compete at a high level coming in," Jepson said. "He's done that for years as a junior national competitor and it's good to have a guy who's seasoned that way. As his fitness and body develop, his skill level will expand and he'll be able to compete at a higher level."
Throughout his career prior to Penn State, Valdez was one of the highest rated prospects in the country, naturally leading to several Division I scholarship offers from some of the top schools for gymnastics. When it came time to make a decision, however, Valdez was very confident in his choice.
"Why wouldn't I come here?" Valdez said, "I mean, it's amazing. You have great facilities, great academics. Overall, it's the best I think."
Now that he's here, Valdez doesn't shy away from a challenge, particularly on the toughest event, which also happens to be his favorite: pommel horse.
"It's the hardest event for most guys," Valdez said. "I struggled with it first but I kept practicing it like crazy and now it's my best event."
He certainly has a great claim to the pommel horse as he has finished first and second in his first two meets in that event.
Valdez and the Nittany Lions are back in action Jan. 29 at 1 p.m. when they travel to Springfield College.