Feb. 9, 2017
By Tom Shively, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa - The life of a college athlete is certainly never easy, especially when it comes to health. However, for Penn State sophomore gymnast Michael Burns, the journey back to form is much more important than the struggle.
When he first arrived on campus Burns didn't compete in every event he wanted to, needing to recover fully from a knee injury before he felt comfortable again in all events. It took almost all of his freshman season, but he was finally able to take part in every event by the time the 2016 Big Ten championships came around.
"That kept me out of floor and vault for the most part," Burns said. "I wasn't competing in everything but I was training in everything, so it wasn't much of a difference. Now I definitely feel the effect of doing all of the events every weekend on my body."
Back for his second season, Burns has stepped into a much different role, serving more as a guide now to his younger teammates. The pressure is certainly higher, but he feels that it's much easier to help out the team when he is training the younger guys.
"This year I just feel like I know what's going on more," Burns said. "It's been helping me to try to help the freshmen, so I kind of figure out what I'm doing and then I can help them with their stuff. Last year, everyone else was trying to help me and it made me think of myself too much. When you go out there and compete for the team, it's a lot bigger than just yourself. But, when you know you have the rest of the team backing you, it also makes it [the pressure] a lot greater."
"Physically, he's much more prepared this year," head coach Randy Jepson said. "He needed some work in terms of his strength and body tension, and all that work is paying off. We're seeing really clean gymnastics from Michael. The other thing is that he's become much more stable and confident. We didn't really have that last year, and part of that is the physical work he's done in preparation for the season. We've really seen him step up and hit a lot of routines for us."
The injury can still nag Burns from time to time, but he understands the importance of pushing through for the team and staying persistent.
"I know the team needs me, so I'm just working through it as much as I can," Burns said. "I do enough during the week so I can be confident in myself on the weekend, but I don't do too much where it kills my back. The hardest thing has been learning when to stop and when to push through."
Burns certainly has pushed through at the right times, earning a top three finish in pommel horse and vault in the team's most recent meet at Illinois. He also put up three career-high scores earlier this season at the West Point Open, in floor exercise, parallel bars, and the all-around.
"The watershed moment for me was the West Point Open," Jepson said. "He's had a lingering back problem and even going into that meet was iffy and he hadn't done a lot of floor routines, but he hit every routine beautifully. This past weekend, in all but one event he was within one point of his start values. So he's doing really clean stuff and when you do that, you score well. That's kind of the motto we want our team to follow: It doesn't matter what happens, just finish within a point of your start value. If you can do that, stay on the event, we're going to be competitive with anybody."
Coming off the recent success, Burns has his goals set high for both himself and the team, understanding the potential within this group of guys.
"Honestly, I'd like to win a Big Ten and NCAA championship. Personally would be pretty cool, but I think that team ring would be awesome."
The next step of that journey comes this Saturday against Ohio State in the second double-dual meet of the season. The meet is set to start at 4 p.m. inside Rec Hall.