LOCAL GYMNAST DEDICATED TO HELPING YOUNGSTERS COACH AWAITS 2008 GAMES.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY -- Steve Luce was inspired by Cathy Rigby when he was growing up in the San Fernando Valley and wound up competing in gymnastics himself for California State University, Northridge, where he placed 10th in the nation on the high bar in the mid-1970s.

``I idolized her when I was young,'' Luce said.

He developed a dream of teaching gymnastics to children, which he has been doing since 1976 in Simi Valley, operating several of his own gyms and now holding gymnastics classes at the YMCA.

Over the past 30 years, Rigby and other stars have inspired thousands of children to enter the sport, which has helped give Luce the career he dreamed of and helped make American gymnastic teams among the world's best.

``Even if it's recreational gymnastics, being in the Olympics is in the back of their minds,'' Luce said of his students, who have been inspired by Rigby, Mitch Gaylord, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton and Paul Hamm.

In the 1970s, Luce was an assistant coach at California Sun Gymnastics in Northridge, where he worked with Gaylord, who lived in Van Nuys and became a gymnastics superstar and actor.

Luce said gymnastics coaches have improved tremendously over the years and can help gymnasts get better, but the athletes who are destined to go on to Olympic competition usually have their own special dedication that comes from within.

``He really did want to be an Olympian,'' Luce said of Gaylord. ``He was the first American to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics. Like most Olympic sports, you have to dedicate your entire life.''

David Ogawa of Simi Valley, a retired Chatsworth High School teacher and coach, remembers coaching Luce in the 1970s.

``He was first on the high bar in the West Valley League on our team,'' Ogawa said.

Gymnasts have gotten much better over the years and are continuing to improve dramatically in spite of fewer opportunities to learn the sport in public schools, Ogawa said.

``By 1968, high school kids were approaching tricks that the world's best gymnasts did in the 1964 Olympics,'' Ogawa said. But most high schools eventually stopped offering gymnastics programs.

Now coaching in the area is mostly left up to the private schools, which see increased enrollment when Olympics superstars come along, like Comaneci in the 1970s.

``I started teaching in 1976 and lucked out,'' Luce said. ``Nadia Comaneci just revolutionized the sport.''

He started working in Simi Valley at a combination dance and gymnastics studio, but with Comaneci, gymnastics eclipsed dancing.

``All the little girls wanted to be Olympians, just like Nadia,'' he said. ``Out of 300 students, we had only 10 boys.''

The most recent gymnastics sensation was Hamm, who became the only American man in Olympics history to win the gold medal in the individual all-around competition in Athens in 2004. After his victory, the enrollment of boys in Luce's gymnastics classes jumped 10 percent.

Over the years, Luce has coached at three of his own gyms in Simi Valley, and has worked as an assistant gymnastics coach at Moorpark College and Simi Valley High School.

``I used to coach anybody -- boys, teenagers, the Special Olympics, camps for children with cancer,'' he said. ``Now I'm exclusively with the young kids between 2 and 8 years old. ... It's their first exposure to gymnastics.''

As far as the future, Luce said he has seen young gymnasts perform tricks that were unimaginable when he was young, and he thinks the routines will get even more amazing in the future.

In the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, gymnasts will be allowed for the first time in decades to compete in single events without competing in the overall all-around competition.

``That should change a lot,'' said Luce, who is taking Chinese classes and hopes to work in the gymnastics stadium in Beijing. ``It's going to be very impressive. You are going to see probably the best performances ever, the best we've ever seen.''

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(1 -- 2 -- color) Gymnastics coach Steve Luce watches as he works with youngsters on the bars during a class at the Simi Valley YMCA. He developed a dream of teaching gymnastics to children, which he has been doing since 1976 in Simi Valley, operating several of his own gyms and now holding gymnastics classes at the YMCA.

(3) Gymnastics coach Steve Luce works with youngsters during a class at the Simi Valley YMCA. He expects future Olympians to perform even better routines and achieve greatness faster than past Olympians, with the help of dedicated coaches to push them along -- plus their own devotion to the sport.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer