NEW CHALLENGE FOR COMANECI
Author: By John Powers, Globe Staff
Date: Sunday, December 3, 1989
Page: 50
Section: SPORTS
THE OLYMPICS / JOHN POWERS

Now that she's arrived in the States, Nadia Comaneci's real challenge begins -- how does she make a living with few marketable skills in a country whose language she barely knows?

That's one reason her old coach, Bela Karolyi, talked her out of defecting twice before. Karolyi and his wife, Martha, went through an immigrant's nightmare when they defected here themselves in 1981. Even though Karolyi was recognized as the world's premier gymnastics coach, it took him months to find work in his field. Meanwhile, he took menial jobs unloading ships and cleaning restaurants in Los Angeles, trying to learn English by watching "Sesame Street."

"If you cannot explain yourself in English," he quickly learned, "you begin at the bottom in America."

When she arrived in New York Friday afternoon, Comaneci said she was prepared for a sociocultural shock. "I know it will be different," she conceded. "I was nine times in the States; I know the life here."

Comaneci should be able to make a couple of quick hits for cash -- a book, maybe a TV movie, possibly a national "Nadia!" tour similar to the Olga Korbut/Mary Lou Retton production that played in eight cities last month. But at 28, her only skills are gymnastics judging and coaching (in Romanian), and US Gymnastics Federation head Mike Jacki indicated in Indianapolis yesterday that there may be a role for her in that capacity.

Restrictive as socialist life was, it provided Comaneci with a lifetime sinecure. Before she attempts anything here, she'd better take an immersion course in the Queen's English, which she speaks only haltingly now. And remember what her old coach said about Living in America: "It is horrible for the immigrant."