DENVER — For five years, Mia Sundstrom was a constant bright light for the Denver Pioneers.
But this year, she’s taking her strong vaults and uplifting smile to the sideline. The Boulder native is now a volunteer assistant coach on the Pios staff. Sundstrom talked about paying extra attention to her coaches during her last year.
“It was cool for me to watch the way that the coaches interacted with the athletes and consider what made the biggest impact on me and made the biggest impact on my teammates, and build an awareness of what those things were so that as I transition into this role I could start to apply those.”
Her first couple of days on the job were a little different.
“I was so used to running around the floor for warmup that I didn’t know what to do,” laughed Sundstrom. “Standing on the side I was just like ‘I’m just standing here I’m watching them run. So I gave them high fives which felt like the right move.”
So what is the former Pio focusing on as she starts a new chapter? “Being really in tune for what the athletes need and how to bring out their fullest potential is a continuous art and it’s a really great challenge that I didn’t appreciate as an athlete.”
Sundstrom has so much knowledge that she brings from the beam to the sideline.
“It’s so nice to have someone that’s younger and more relevant to what they just recently experienced,” said DU Head Coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart. “She’s been part of this program so she really embraces our character, teamwork and philosophy and she knows the program inside, out, and backwards at so many different levels.”
Sundstrom’s desire to return to the mat still lingers though, ‘It’s interesting sometimes when I dream about gymnastics I’m still doing it. And I think that will be there for a while. The itch will never go away. My goal is to just be as enthusiastic as I can be and to help them fall in love with the journey because I think that’s just the most important part of all of this and so to be able to provide that perspective I hope has been helpful to them and has also been really rewarding to me.”
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