even to think about it, Ramallo said.Being polite is easy when youre winning b | Forum

LOS ANGELES -- If this is a nap, it needs work. Denver Nuggets Jerseys . But leaning her head against the window of an Uber in stop-and-go traffic is as good as it gets these days, and so it will have to do. Even when there are only a few minutes of actual sleep.Even when the driver wakes her to say what a big fan he is.Even when shes only 16 and its all so crazy that less than four months after thinking it couldnt possibly get any more amazing than realizing her lifes ambition of making the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team, shes being stopped on airport curbs and in public bathrooms by people telling her that her Paso Doble was great.I wouldnt call me your average 16-year-old, she says.Nope, but Laurie Hernandez is living the current version of the post-Olympic American dream, first winning a gold medal in Rio de Janeiro with her Final Five team and an individual silver medal on beam, then coming home to a national tour, and one of the highest-rated shows on television.She initially planned on going to the University of Florida and competing on its three-time NCAA championship team, but only after the Olympics.I loved Florida, Hernandez said. That was the No. 1 school I always wanted to go to. [But] I realized I had a lot of opportunities coming my way and I really, really wanted to experience them. I didnt just go pro overnight. I really thought about it. But I think it was one of the best decisions Ive made.She said she definitely wants to go to college one day. She also wants to compete in the 2020 Olympics. And in Rio, she appeared shocked at the notion of taking a year or more off before resuming her training, something Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas did after the 2012 Olympics.Ask Hernandez now about the future and anything is possible, including an acting career after it is suggested that she would be a natural.What I dreamed of originally was just going to the Olympics, so this is all kind of like a bonus, she said. Ive always wanted to be an actress. I think that would be cool. But I cant even tell you what Im doing tomorrow.The face that inspired the nickname human emoji defaults to wide-smile mode while her eyes dance and shine. It comes in handy for a life of wonder and joy, two qualities that carried her through the Olympics, engage her legions of young fans on USA Gymnastics 36-city tour and light up the screen on ABCs Dancing With The Stars, where, with partner Val Chmerkovskiy, she is currently a favorite to win.The show is perpetually in the top 20 in respect to ratings, drawing (on average) more than 12 million viewers per episode this season, and has had among its contestants 22 former Olympians (including Hernandez), though only one, gymnast Shawn Johnson (Season 8), has won the coveted mirror ball trophy.On this night, in the sixth week of the season, Hernandez is holding hands with actress Marilu Henner, 48 years her senior, as the two jog up the stairs before the show begins. Random shouts of Go Laurie can be heard from the ballroom crowd, and its quickly apparent that shes wildly popular with both fans and fellow contestants.Her maturity is ahead of her years, Chmerkovskiy said. She doesnt act like 16, but at the same time, she has the youthfulness and joy of a 16-year-old. She is loved by everybody, and its hard not to smile around her. Its hard not to be happy around Laurie. But at the same time, she is a fierce young lady, very driven and very strong.Hernandez, who is the youngest on the show this season, calls her 30-year-old partner a big brother and the group a family as she chats with fellow contestants Maureen McCormick and Amber Rose as if theyre old friends (Rose has since departed the show). That she is on the show at all, she said, was both a surprise and a thrill.I was at the Olympics and we had finished one of the workouts, I think it was after the team finals and before beam, and my coach said, Oh, by the way, youre doing Dancing With The Stars, and I was freaking out and calling my parents, Hernandez recalled.No one told me, Hey, by the way, you might do it or Were thinking about somehow getting you in, or anything like that. It was just out of the blue. I think my coach and everybody knew that I wanted to go on the show so it wouldnt be disappointing to say, Youre going. It wasnt like, Were forcing you to go. Like the other gymnasts who have competed on the show, Johnson, Raisman (who finished in fourth place in Season 16), and Nastia Liukin (who was also placed fourth in Season 20), Hernandez was a quick learner and an instant contender.But Chmerkovskiy said Hernandez is different than the other gymnasts the show has previously featured.Beyond gymnastics, I think shes a star, he said. Besides being a great athlete and person, she has a presence about her that fills up a room. I see her being a huge Hollywood star and a huge motivator for her generation.Her partner got an early glimpse of another side of Hernandez when, waiting backstage to compete in the featured final spot following fellow Olympian Ryan Lochte in the opening show, Lochtes judging was interrupted when a man in the crowd rushed the swimmer on the live telecast before being tackled and dragged off by security. As the show awkwardly cut to a commercial, Chmerkovskiy said Hernandez demonstrated her Olympic-level poise.She was so composed and its that, and her sense of strength when it comes to rising to the occasion, thats so impressive as well, he said. I feel like I was more flustered than she was and [thats] my world. Something Ive been doing.Though some fans might assume DWTS should be easy for gymnasts, who have dance elements in their floor routines, the athletes say muscle memory can often get in the way.Its so different, Hernandez said. With gymnastics, youre showcasing your flips, your leaps, your turns -- whereas with dancing, youre showcasing the dance. The dance is the performance. Theres so much technical, the footwork and things like that, that goes into dancing as much as gymnastics.Pointing is kind of the same, but there will be times when Val will say, OK, shift your weight, and I keep doing a gymnastics lunge where Im supposed to be leaning on my front foot and my back foot is supposed to be pointed. But its habit for me so Im still trying to break out of those. Or like when Im turning, hes like, No, you have to put your elbow in, but I keep doing it as if Im doing a twist on floor or something.And then there are the hips, a frequent subject of the judges comments on the show.Youre not supposed to move your hips in gymnastics, so that was caged away for a while, but now my partner Val is trying to bring that back and its interesting, Hernandez said. The first week I was like, Im scared to move my hips. Im also 16.She giggles.The show, with its Argentine tangos and Latin salsas, requires a level of emotion and depth of, um, experience that has made Hernandezs lack thereof a charming source of amusement.In the fourth episode of the season, rehearsing for a tango faceoff against Henner, Chmerkovskiy tried to get Hernandez to caress his cheek as she dissolved into laughter.Ive never had a boyfriend or anything, she explained to him. I sleep with a teddy bear at night.After the dance, when asked how she channeled the emotion and ended up so convincingly looking the part of the sultry love interest, Hernandez puckered her lips and inhaled deeply for the judges. I was telling Val, Ive got to pretend Im smelling a really good quesadilla.Other than bruising the bottom of her big toes from doing relevés in heels, she wont even try to compare the Olympics to this.I do get a little bit nervous before I go out and dance, but not much really compares, she said. Theyre really two totally different sports. I associate dance as a sport because its hard and I feel like its kind of underrated.She has practiced her steps on planes and studied a video Chmerkovskiy sent to her of the Michael Jackson-inspired dance in Week 4, during the U.S. teams White House visit in September. She fits in homeschooling on set and when shes not in L.A. practicing, she is juggling the U.S. tour stops and DWTS rehearsals with Chmerkovskiy, who flies in to meet her on the road.Life is hectic and decidedly different now that she is famous.People would tell me, Youre going to start getting recognized and stuff, but no one could have really, actually prepared me for what it was like, she said. I cant walk around without getting recognized, which isnt a bad thing, but my whole life did a 180. Its all different. Were all going to the MTV Music Video Awards, were all doing Jimmy Fallon -- things like that and thats incredible.While she almost passed out meeting Beyoncé, Hernandez said she is just as floored when a celebrity recognizes her.When a celebrity walks up and says Im a big fan my mind just explodes, she said. Im like, But wait, Im a big fan of yours. Hernandezs mother Wanda, a school social worker who travels to L.A. for shows -- either with Lauries father Tony, or older daughter Jelysa, 27 (Laurie also has a brother Marcus, 20) -- said she finds her youngest daughters self-perception reassuring.She doesnt see herself as a celebrity, Wanda said. Sometimes people just want to take pictures, but sometimes its Hey, how are you doing? and Laurie is enjoying the process of meeting people, no matter who they are.The money involved with all of this -- DWTS winners typically earn as much as $350,000 -- is irrelevant, Hernandez says.Ive always wanted to be on the show and when they told me, I was really excited, not because I would get paid for doing it but because I would be dancing, she said.Still, said three-time Olympic medal-winning gymnast Paul Hamm -- now 34 and retired -- who visited the USA tour when it stopped in Chicago, its a nice bonus.Shes obviously a great dancer, I think shes great on the show, very likeable, so those things really worked out well for her, he said of Hernandez. I think its great for gymnastics. ... It fits well. The girl Olympic gymnasts transition over to this Dancing With The Stars, its sort of like a path that you take nowadays.And it is a path that must be seized upon while the proverbial window is open.There are more opportunities opening up [for Olympic medal winners], but [in] the four to six months afterward, you try to capitalize on the stardom you created in the Olympic Games, he said. Its s a real big roller coaster that athletes go through emotionally, because its this big Olympic hype and youre on worldwide TV, and you go on these tours and these shows and all of a sudden that ends -- and youre like, Ohh, Im supposed to train now?Hernandez is too busy to think about that now. And having much too much fun.There are so many opportunities, she said. I wake up in the morning and theyre like, OK, youre going here, and that keeps happening, so Im curious how long thats going to last. Definitely I want to get the most out of them because this could never happen again. 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Spiller left Week 3s 27-20 loss to the New York Jets with a thigh injury, but fully practiced with the team all week and expects to be ready to go on Sunday. Adelaide United coach Guillermo Amor must wait to learn whether hell spend more time on the sidelines for his outburst during the Reds round-seven 3-1 A-League loss to Perth.Football Federation Australias independent disciplinary and ethics committee sat in Sydney on Monday night but reserved its decision on whether to further punish Amor, who last weekend served his mandatory one-match ban for unsporting conduct towards a match official after being banished to nib Stadiums stands.Whether or not the committee throws the book at the Barcelona legend hinges on the force with which it believes Amor touched fourth official Adam Fielding as he protested a controversial decision that resulted in the Glorys second goal.The incident followed referee Jarred Gilletts decision to award Andy Keoghs 68th-minute goal straight after Glory captain Rostyn Griffiths was perceived to have fouled Reds goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic.With no video evidence available, testimonies from each of the protagonists are key.Fielding submitted a report stating the feeling of the contact was not a tap, it was also not enough to push me over. It was sufficient to make me take a step forward.The usually mild-mannered Amor strongly denied pushing Fielding, arguing he merely touched him to gain his attention so he could alert Gillett to the apparent error.FFAs disciplinary council suggeested Amor may have touched Fielding with more force than he intended while in a heightened emotional state. Paul Millsap Nuggets Jersey. Amor, represented by Reds general manager of football Ante Kovacevic, told the committee he did not understand why hed been sent off and was confused as Fielding followed him to the bench to see through Gilletts expulsion.If I had understood at that point, or even after the game, that I had committed bad behaviour I would have gone straight to the referees changing rooms to say sorry or ask for an explanation, Amor said through a translator.Video footage directly after the incident showed the frustrated coach picking up his jacket and water bottle before wagging his finger at Fielding and saying words to the effect of you are not professional.Assistant coach Jacobo Ramallo said pushing a match official would be completely out of character for last seasons A-League coach of the year.Its difficult for me to imagine him doing this, even to think about it, Ramallo said.Being polite is easy when youre winning but he was losing every game (at the start of) last year and he was a gentleman.Amor said he will accept whatever decision is handed down in the next couple of days.Adelaide host Wellington on Sunday. 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