Mikulak wins Michigan's first U.S. Gymnastics Championship

During the NBC broadcast, it was mentioned that Jake Dalton (on last year's Olympic team with Sam and finishing in third place today), gave up his last year of eligibility at Oklahoma to train full time.  I assumed he'd simply graduated.  (The top two men going into last year's Olympics were never college gymnastics, training in private clubs.)  I assume sponsorships are a big deal, but the advertising opportunities are more noticeable with the women's gymnastics stars, most of whom are too young to be in college, and so cute and marketable that an Olympic medal can be gold in more ways than one.  (The college "girls" are too womanly to compete on the international level.)  Sam could definitely be marketable by now, as popular as he's become.  But he's sticking to college, so though he can be trending on twitter, he can't do ads for them, and he often mentions how much he and his M team enjoy competing.

Along those lines, an interesting case is Michigan gymnast Elise Ray.  She was the 2000 U.S. champion and competed in the 2000 Olympics before she came to Michigan.  She's not alone among the women in going to college after outgrowing international competition, but I don't believe they can compete collegiately if they've taken remuneration beforehand.  But she came to Michigan, had a record-setting career, and later went "pro," which in her case included three years in Cirque du Soleil, occasional commentary for BTN, and now coaching at U. of Washington (working for a former ass't coach at Michigan).  There's a great article in their Daily [LINK] which gives a good picture of why one might prefer competing in college (of course her Olympic team was the famous one that "underachieved" and was given the bronze medal a full decade later, after it was finally proven that members of the Chinese team had been under age): 

Right after the Olympics, though, Ray contemplated if she should just give up gymnastics and move on. But she didn’t — which brought her to Michigan. “Just what I needed.” Ray tells the story with a smile.