A Fraction of a Point: Gymnastics History Awaits

When local writer Nina Mandell’s editor at her college newspaper at Northwestern University assigned her cover women’s lacrosse at the school, she had no idea how it would change her life. But the women’s lacrosse team went from worst to first during the three years that Mandell reported on their games for the paper, launching Mandell’s career as a sports writer in the process.

“At the time, women’s lacrosse had been a club team and was just promoted to Division I,” says Mandell over coffee at a Phoenix Coffee near her Cleveland Heights home. “In three years, they went from a club team to a national champion. It was a really fun story. The emotional part of this story is that there was a young cancer patient named who followed them through their championship run. For a 20-year-old to see how much sports can change a person’s life was amazing.”

From there, Mandell would hold down various sports reporting gigs. She worked for USA Today and NBC Sports Washington before she and her husband moved to the Cleveland Heights neighborhood, where her husband grew up.

‘Another key moment in her writing career came when she wrote a preview of the 2021-2022 girls high school gymnastics season for Cleveland.com and discovered that the Brecksville team was on the verge of winning the state title 20 years in a row. That would pique her interest in the sport and lead her to learn more about the team’s storied history. She parlayed that coverage into her forthcoming book about the team, A Fraction of a Point: A Gymnastics Dynasty on the Line, which arrives on March 10 via Kent State University Press.

“For that Cleveland.com story, Brecksville was the first team on the list of schools I needed to contact, and I called their coach, Maria Schneider,” she says. “I asked a dumb question. I said something like, ‘You guys have won many years in a row. Is that a lot of pressure?’ She said, ‘Yeah, man.’ That was the start of the whole thing. After talking to Maria a few more times, I wrote about them for ESPN and did a podcast for a series called Sports Explains the World. I thought, ‘I think we have something here.’”

At that point, she knew the coaches and team members, so she gained access and documented the team’s history under coaches Joan and Ron Ganim and then their daughter, Maria Schneider. She also captures behind-the-scenes moments from the entire 2022-2023 season, leading into district and state meets.

“They were so welcoming,” she says of the coaches and players. “I always say that if a random stranger came up to me and asked about following me around for a day, I would say no, but they were so welcoming right from the get-go. I can’t believe how privileged I was to be in their world for a little bit.”

When she started the book, she realized that the team actually thought it would lose its winning streak in 2022.

“They had a bad time on the beams, and they were in the back room crying and thought that was it,” she says. “The next season, they also thought they would lose. There was so much anxiety. I started the story with that 2022 championship.”

To celebrate the book’s release, Mandell will host a panel discussion with former Brecksville-Broadview Heights gymnasts Alecia Farina and Rachel Kelly from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, March 13, at W Sports Bar in Lakewood, and she’ll appear at a book signing at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 29, at Fireside Book Shop.

“I hope people enjoy the story about how strong and how incredible these gymnasts are to uphold a legacy that started before they were born,” she says when asked about what she hopes readers get from her book. “There is a lot of focus on mental health and sports and the pressure we put on ourselves and our kids. It’s an incredible story about the [Ganim] family too. I have covered a lot of sports events, and that state final was the most exciting final event I have ever been to.”

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