elegated to math instruction in the segregated South, were called into service during the labor shortages of the war. Then sudde

Alex Naddour stops himself in mid-thought, his brain tapping the brakes so he can stress that hes aware his spot on the 2016 U.S. mens Olympic gymnastics team is not simply the result of the force of his considerable will.Im the luckiest guy I know, Naddour said.Let him count the ways.Theres his infant daughter, Lilah, whose arrival earlier this year gave the 25-year-old a perspective while sanding away the rough edges to his intense personality.Theres his wife, two-time world champion Hollie Vise, who knows a thing or two about the sacrifices it takes to compete at the highest level in an uncompromising sport.Theres his father, Mike, who came out of retirement to help his son become more than the one American whose grace makes pommel horse look like a good time, something to be enjoyed instead of endured.Maybe thats why the tears came so freely after Naddour heard his name called as part of the five-man group that will head to Brazil next month with the hopes of getting the U.S. back on the podium after flaming out in the finals in London four years ago. Maybe thats why he pounded his right hand over his heart at the end of his pommel horse routine on the final night of Olympic Trials.It took a lot of people to get to this point, he said.An alternate in 2012, Naddour never lacked belief he would make it even as he saw other teammates bask in the kind of attention that seemed to elude him.There were banners outside national championships, and Im not on them, he said. There were promos, I wasnt in them.There was the embarrassment of the 2013 world championships, when he was held out of the all-around competition despite finishing second behind Sam Mikulak at nationals.Nearly three years later, the snub still stings. Yet it provided more fuel to an internal fire that has long led Naddour to go his own way. He left the powerhouse program at Oklahoma in fall 2011 after clashing with coach Mark Williams over workload. Naddour wanted to focus all his attention on getting to the 2012 Olympics, something he doesnt believe he could have done if he stayed with the Sooners. Concerned over the potential workload of competing in the all-around during a collegiate season, Naddour headed back home to Arizona to train with his father.While he didnt make it to the floor in London -- watching from the stands as the Americans slipped from the top of the leaderboard in qualifying to fifth in team finals -- Naddour has no regrets, pointing out hes nearing a degree in business management at Arizona State. And because he didnt have to worry about retaining his amateur status following those games, Naddour was able to turn the paychecks he received for participating in the post-Olympic tour into a down payment on a house.I know (leaving) was the right choice, said Naddour, who dabbles in real estate to help pay the bills.So was the decision to press forward with a family. He found a kindred spirit in Vise, who won a pair of gold medals at the 2003 world championships. They were married last May and she pointed to a narrow window in which they could get a jumpstart on parenthood before training for Rio overtook Naddours life.Lilahs arrival in late winter would have signaled an abrupt lifestyle change in most marriages. Not for the Naddours, who upgraded to a one-story ranch to make it easier for Lilah (and they hope, one day, the rest of their kids) to get around. Hollie gave give Alex the master bedroom so he could get some regular sleep while mother and daughter moved to the other side of the house.Maybe some other wives would get frustrated but she gets my training, she knows how bad I want it, Naddour said. She takes care of Lilah in the morning so I can sleep and nighttime when I can sleep. Without her being in the sport and knowing what it takes, that would be difficult.A typical day for Naddour includes training at the gym from 11:30-4. Hollie then arrives at the gym -- where she runs the womens program -- and leaves Lilah with one of the grandparents before Naddour takes over from 4-8. Then its dinner and a little quiet time. When Hollie and Lilah head off to bed, Naddour heads outside for cardio.Ive got some payback to do as soon as all this is over, Naddour said. Im on daddy duty probably indefinitely once my career is over.Theres no telling when that day will come. Naddour built his reputation as one of the few Americans who excel on pommel horse -- a 45-second battle between gravity and the lactic acid in your arms and legs that few Americans win. Its a pretty quick way to get the attention of U.S. national team officials, yet after just missing out on London, Naddour realized he needed to become a more complete gymnast.When we didnt get to compete (in London) it was like: `Why? What happened? he said. Then we looked at the scores and while we contribute on pommels, it wasnt enough. With a five-man team, you need other events. Everyone knows it, I didnt at the time.Now he does. While Naddour won pommel horse easily during trials, he was also third on rings, sixth on floor exercise and eighth on vault, performances that made him a lock for Rio, while other teammates were relegated to alternate.Its a role he respects, but one hes happy not to fulfill this time around. Wholesale Air Force 1 . -- Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson asked his players a simple question during Fridays morning shootaround: How many of them had ever been on a team 14 games over . Buy Nike Air Force 1 Wholesale . Pedro scored from a pass by Lionel Messi in the 33rd minute and added two more goals in the 47th and 72nd after Valdes saved his second penalty in four days following his stop in Wednesdays 4-0 over Ajax in the Champions League. http://www.airforce1cheap.com/ . LOUIS -- Rookie Tavon Austin has missed another day of practice, lessening the odds hell be ready for the St. Air Force 1 Cheap Online . -- Edmontons Val Sweeting is two wins away from a trip to Winnipeg to play in Canadas Road of the Rings in December. Authentic Nike Air Force 1 Wholesale . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. Somewhere tonight, a little girl will be tucked in and told that she is loved to the moon and back.She may begin, before drifting into dreamland, to compute the distance her caregivers love has to travel to reach the moon and then return to her.And if author Margot Lee Shetterly has her way, when that little girl awakens from her slumber, shell learn the names of the women who helped charter that journey.Hidden Figures, Shetterlys first book, is the story of the nearly forgotten black women who worked at the?Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia -- the National Aeronautics and Space Administrations first field center, circa World War II. In the 1940s, these female scientists and mathematicians were the human computers behind some of the biggest advancements in aeronautics.The title of this book is something of a misnomer, Shetterly noted. The history that came together in these pages wasnt so much hidden, but unseen -- fragments patiently biding their time in footnotes, family anecdotes and musty folders before returning to view.Shetterlys book, which will be released Tuesday, will also be adapted into a 20th Century Fox film of the same name that will hit theaters in early 2017.The movie, which is expected to be a blockbuster success, will star Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a physicist, space scientist, and mathematician; Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, a mathematician; Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson, also a mathematician; and Kevin Costner as Al Harrison, the head of the space program.Seeing such boldface names attached to a film adaptation of her book was quite the shock for Shetterly. So much so that she didnt believe the movies producer, Donna Gigliotti (Silver Linings Playbook), when she expressed interest in the story.I was like, Yeah, OK, whatever, right, but everything she said every step along the way has really come to fruition, Shetterly said.The book starts with World War II and travels through the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the space race, providing a fly-on-the-wall style account of the women who helped create some of the greatest aeronautics accomplishments for the United States.These former school teachers and beautiful minds, who were relegated to math instruction in the segregated South, were called into service during the labor shortages of the war. Then suddenly things at Langley became a bit more colorful, and of course, inspiring.Shetterleys father was a NASA engineer and her mom worked as an English professor at Hampton University in Virginia, so she grew up in the same neighborhood where many of these maverick women resided. ?When writing about the unseen and seemingly forgotten women who contributed to NASAs race to the moon, Shetterly is preoccupied with the narrative of numbers: For too long, history has imposed a binary condition on its black citizens: either nameless or renowned, menial or exceptional, passive recipients of the forces of history or superheroes who acquire mythic status not just because of their deeds but because of their scarcity.?The book also focuses on who these women were beyond their jobs, and sees them from a community perspective. They were mothers, wives, Girl Scout troop leaders and your next-door neighbors, Shetterly said.Literally, for me, they were women in my neighborhood. But they were concurrently doing this extraordinary work. The idea that you can be an ordinary person and an extraordinary person at the same time, as opposed to the pressure of being the one and only black person, or the one and only woman.dddddddddddd ... The fact that there were so many of them is what makes this story so exceptional.Shetterly has spent the last six years counting exceptional communities of women. The numbers of known women mathematicians who worked for NASA are continuing to grow, and she hasnt finished counting yet.After completing Hidden Figures, Shetterly started The Human Computer Project, the mission of which is to tell the stories of the pioneering women who worked as mathematicians and computers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and NASA in the early days of aeronautics and the American space program.Shetterly hopes that with the release of her book and accompanying film, even more names will begin pouring in, and more history will be revealed. Thereafter, shed like to expand research to NASAs Glenn Center in Cleveland. The book, she says, is the first part of a midcentury African-American history trilogy.Shetterlys boundless optimism is apparent when speaking with her. It comes across in the lilt of her voice, in the way she laughs after she says, You know? It is more than simple joy; it is hope.She moves through the world like a woman who has never been told, You must be crazy! for the crime of speaking her ambitions aloud.Before writing became her full-time gig, she thrived in corporate America -- working in investment banking for JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch. Then she transitioned to publishing, eventually establishing her own English language magazine, Inside Mexico, from 2005 to 2009 with her husband and fellow writer, Aran Shetterly.So for her, writing this story was more of a dream initially.This book really came about the way I think a lot of these engineering and math things did, she said. You come up with a plan, but then youve got to take one step and another step, and then break the whole thing down into tiny parts. The same is true for this project.Shetterlys steps included archival research and personal interviews. The details of her book are rich with first-person experiences, like this line from chapter five, that dissects the womens treatment in their work cafeteria: A?white cardboard sign on a table in the back of the cafeteria beckoned them, its crisply stenciled black letters spelling out the lunchroom hierarchy: COLORED COMPUTERS.?These very intimate accounts provided the pages a very deep understanding of the dedication and strength of these women.Hidden Figures, as a project, is the revelation of those previously unrecognized women. It reads like a family history for distant cousins who dont come around too often. Shetterly quilts together pieces of the stories she painstakingly gathered over the years until the tapestry was deep, engaging and warm.Her mission, both in writing the book and heading The Human Computer Project, is to help little girls around the world -- in particular those of color -- know that women who look like them and share their history helped make the United States great.Imagine if every girl was able to say, as Shetterly writes in the introduction of her book, the face of science was brown. ' ' '