sented, to him, the fulfillment of a
dream.
"I turned down sponsors, because
I hadn't yet won a national champi-
onship with the team," he recalled.
"I just couldn't let my teammates
down. I couldn't do anything to jeop-
ardize our chances. We all knew, the
next two years, we had a very good
opportunity to win.
"If I had left the team to accept
money, it could have been a down-
fall. I stuck with the team, and we
won back-to-back championships."
Sticking around represented self-
imposed pressure. Michigan wasn't
assured of the storybook ending de-
veloping in the years since Mikulak
stayed put.
"If I stayed with the team, we had
to win," he said. "That's the only way
to make it worth it. You have to have
In his career at U-M, Mikulak was a three-time Big Ten Gymnast of the Year, a 17-time All-
American and a three-time NCAA all-around champion.
PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS
