Morgan Hill resident enjoys successful career before
retiring
Scott Keswick, a four-time national champion on the rings and 1992 Olympic competitor, will be elected into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame on Aug. 23 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
“It really caught me by surprise,” Keswick said. “I think it is obviously a very nice honor and a nice way to wrap up your career. The thing I am most excited about are the people being inducted with me.”
Keswick, who trained at UCLA, will be joined in the Hall of Fame by teammate Chris Waller. Others who will be inducted are Shannon Miller, who Keswick competed with, Bonnie Davidson, Harold Holmes Jr., Charles Lakes and Jaycie Phelps.
Keswick and his wife moved to Morgan Hill about six years from Los Gatos and have two kids. The 33-year-old retired from the sport in 1996 after a back surgery kept him out of the gym for 11 months and kept him from getting the score he needed in the qualifier to make his second trip to the Olympics.
“I just never got back to the level I was at before for the trials,” Keswick said. “I felt like I was able to accomplish a lot during my career. The one disappointment was not being able to get back for the ‘96 Olympic games.”
The 1992 USA team in Barcelona finished in sixth place, but just having that chance to compete was something he never would have imagined having.
“The highlight of my career was definitely the Olympics,” Keswick said. “It was not so much the competition itself, but being at the Olympics – participating in the opening ceremonies and living at the Olympic Village with all the other athletes.”
He got into gymnastics when he was 8 years old after his father was stationed in Iran.
“It was actually total luck,” Keswick said. “One of the summer programs was the trampoline class. So my parents signed me up in that class. And I took to it very well. The instructor for that class was actually the one who suggested my parents look into gymnastics.”
When he came back to the states, Keswick competed in gymnastics three days a week and played baseball three days a week until he was 12 when he made the Junior National team and was asked to quit baseball.
Currently Keswick works at a retirement consulting firm in Campbell and is no longer active in gymnastics. He keeps busy with hockey, golf and softball.
“When I retired that was pretty much it,” Keswick said. “When I was done, I was ready to start something else.”
At one point, Keswick was ranked fourth in the world during the 1991 World Championships. He ranked as high as seventh in the world in rings and was a four-time U.S. National champion – a feet he was the first ever to do. He was also on three world championship teams.
“I did everything, but rings and high bar were my main events,” Keswick said.
Keswick contributed his success to the training and coaching he received while at UCLA and the ability to stay healthy until the end of his career.
