Ray has come to realize that the pain of the 2000 Games led her to compete at the University of Michigan, which rekindled her waning love of gymnastics, which led her to coaching and eventual dream job she was appointed to in May by Husky athletic director Jen Cohen.
This is not quite the Olympic story we were inundated with for two weeks, all those uplifting tales of adversity overcome and triumph realized.
Oh, Elise Ray had adversity, all right, just without the accompanying triumph. In fact, it took the new University of Washington gymnastics coach quite a while before she could even watch the Olympics without pain.