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August 3, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

If You Run a Red Light, Will Everyone Know?
BYLINE: By BRAD STONE
SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; ESSAY; Pg. 4
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WANT to vet a baby sitter? Need to peek into the background of a prospective employee? Curious about the past of a potential date?

Last month, PeopleFinders, a 20-year-old company based in Sacramento, introduced CriminalSearches.com, a free service to satisfy those common impulses. The site, which is supported by ads, lets people search by name through criminal archives of all 50 states and 3,500 counties in the United States. In the process, it just might upset a sensitive social balance once preserved by the difficulty of obtaining public documents like criminal records.

Academics have a term for the old inaccessibility of records like those for criminal convictions: ''practical obscurity.'' Once upon a time, people in search of this data had to hire private investigators to navigate byzantine courthouses and rudimentary filing or computer systems, and to deal with often grim-faced legal clerks. In a way, the obstacles to getting criminal information maintained a valuable, ignorance-fueled civil peace. Convicts could start fresh after serving their time without strangers knowing their pasts, and there was little risk that unsophisticated researchers could confuse people with identical names.

Well, not anymore. The information on CriminalSearches.com is available to all comers. ''Do you really know who people are?'' the site blares in large script at the top of the page.

Databases of criminal convictions first moved online several years ago. But users of pay sites like Intelius.com and PeopleScanner.com had to enter their credit card numbers for access -- often enough of an obstacle to discourage casual or improper inquiries.

According to Bryce Lane, president of PeopleFinders, the new site draws data directly from local courthouses and offers records of arrests and convictions in connection with everything from murder to minor infractions like blowing past a stop sign -- at least for jurisdictions that include traffic violations in their criminal data. It also lets users view a map showing addresses and names of all those arrested or convicted of a crime in a specific neighborhood, and to place alerts that prompt e-mail when someone in their life gets busted or someone with a record moves in nearby.

''We are just trying to provide what's already out there in an easier fashion, for free,'' Mr. Lane said. ''We think it's pretty helpful to families.''

PeopleFinders, originally called Confi-Check, was founded in 1988 by Rob Miller, a former investigator for Intel. PeopleFinders has been selling records to consumers for the last decade and recently acquired a large public-records firm -- Mr. Lane declines to say which one because the transaction was private -- that allowed it to introduce the expanded free service.

Mr. Lane concedes that his site contains some mistakes. Every locale has its own computer system, he notes, and some are digitizing and updating records faster than others.

A quick check of the database confirms that it is indeed imperfect. Some records are incomplete, and there is often no way to distinguish between people with the same names if you don't know their birthdays (and even that date is often missing).

To further test the site, I vetted some of my colleagues at The New York Times. One, who shall remain nameless, had a recent tangle with the law that the site labeled a ''criminal offense,'' while adding no other information. Curious, I called my colleague with the date and city of the now very public ignominy. The person was stunned to know that the infraction -- a speeding ticket -- was easily accessible and described as criminal.

''I went to traffic school so this wouldn't appear on my record. I'm in shock. This blows me away,'' my colleague said, demanding that I ask PeopleFinders how to have the record removed. ''I don't necessarily want you all knowing that I'm a fast driver.''

PeopleFinders' response: take it up with the authorities. When they update their records, the change will automatically appear on CriminalSearches.com.

My colleague's quandary illustrates why privacy advocates work themselves into knots about this kind of site. In the past, Congress carefully considered how the public should use criminal records. Amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1997 required that employers who hire investigators to obtain criminal records from consumer reporting agencies advise prospective employees of the search in advance, and disregard some types of convictions that are older than seven years.

''I don't think Congress stuck that in there randomly,'' says Daniel J. Solove, a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and author of ''Understanding Privacy.'' ''Congress made the judgment that after a certain period of time, people shouldn't be harmed by having convictions stick with them forever and ever.''

BUT now, of course, none of the old restrictions apply. The information is available from a variety of sources, and now free. Jurors can and almost certainly will be tempted to look up criminal pasts of defendants in their cases. And employers can conduct searches themselves without hiring investigators. Mr. Lane of PeopleFinders says that employers cannot legally use the database in making hiring decisions -- but there is nothing to stop them.

A recent investigation at the Justice Department demonstrates how once-obscure, now easily accessible public information can be abused in egregious ways. The investigative report by the department's inspector general and internal ethics office said government lawyers mined sites like Tray.com and OpenSecrets.org, which report on individual political contributions, to discover political affiliations of job candidates.

But the Internet entrepreneurs who are making public records accessible have little patience for the privacy worrywarts who are getting in the way of their business goals.

''I think people generally understand the 21st-century reality that this type of public information is going to be widely available,'' said Nick Matzorkis, the chief executive of ZabaSearch, a search engine that provides people's addresses and phone numbers, culled from public records. CriminalSearches.com ''is another indication of the inevitability of the democratization of public information online,'' Mr. Matzorkis said.

Mr. Lane of PeopleFinders concurs and compares his site to the seat belt, saying it will make everyone safer.

Of course, that is easy for them to say. According to CriminalSearches.com, they are both clean.
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GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Bryce Lane, president of PeopleFinders, which offers a free service that uses government records to let users check on others' backgrounds. He says it can contain errors because governments vary in their updating of digital archives. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MAX WHITTAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The New York Times
August 3, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

COVER GIRL
BYLINE: BY MIMI SWARTZ.

Mimi Swartz is a co-author of ''Power Failure: the Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron'' and an executive editor of Texas Monthly.

SECTION: Section MM; Column 0; Play Magazine; THE PAYDAY; Pg. 62
LENGTH: 4463 words
Here is the way the sports agent Evan Morgenstein tried to finagle an exclusive for one of his most important clients, the 18-year-old gymnast Nastasia Liukin: He was absolutely, positively not interested in a story that might compare her commercial success to anyone else's, especially yhat of her 16-year-old teammate Shawn Johnson,

who came out of nowhere -- or rather, Iowa -- to become this year's Olympic ''It'' girl. ''Not interested,'' was the way Morgenstein put it, with polite but indisputable finality. ''We're doing our own thing.'' You could almost hear him shrugging, and possibly yawning, over the telephone, his accent suggesting a familiar type of New York City brawler, even though he was calling from his office outside laid-back Raleigh, N.C.

Boundaries drawn, Morgenstein downshifted in the direction of negotiation. Johnson is a nice girl and a major talent, he admitted generously, and her agent, Sheryl Shade, is ''one of the few people'' he ''truly admires in this business.'' And even Morgenstein would have to concede that Shade helped to persuade Olympic megasponsors Coca-Cola and McDonald's to go with Johnson, the all-American imp with the killer smile and seemingly unending winning streak. (At the Olympic trials in June, she beat Liukin by 1.8 points, though both girls handily made the United States women's team.) ''But who can compare three to four months of success with endorsement deals dating back two and a half years?'' Morgenstein asked. Liukin, he said, is a global star. She's a three-time world champion in individual events as well as a two-time United States all-around national champion. Her father and coach, Valeri, was a two-time gold medalist for the Soviets, and her mother, Anna, also Russian, won the rhythmic gymnastics world title in 1987. The couple immigrated to the United States in 1992 with little more than their talent and 2-year-old daughter, whom they groomed into a poised and ponytailed gold-medal contender now worth some $1 million (and counting) in sponsorships. ''Now, that's an Olympic story,'' Morgenstein said.

Clearly, this was a man who aimed to be as good at the gymnastics of marketing as Liukin was on the beam and the uneven bars -- especially with the Games looming and, depending on her performance, her window of opportunity either opening wider or narrowing abruptly and then possibly closing forever. Unlike conventional sports stars -- Tiger Woods, Venus and Serena Williams, Tom Brady, to name a few -- Olympians typically have a short, capricious period in which to capitalize on their names. For football, baseball or basketball stars, there is always another game or another season. But time, age and injury can cull the ranks in the four years between the Olympic Games. Only the luckiest and most gifted athletes win gold medals, and even fewer return for subsequent Games. For the rare few with championship potential, it isn't just an athletic career that hangs in the balance but the chance to make a substantial fortune with a carefully planned campaign of commercial endorsements. So while Liukin is focused on mastering a double Yurchenko, it falls to Morgenstein to make sure that she maximizes her earning potential so that, as he puts it, ''the name Naaahhhstia goes on forever.''

Or at least until the Games are over. Liukin, who before this year was virtually unknown to all but devout gymnastics fans, can be seen performing aerial magic on a Visa commercial narrated solemnly by Morgan Freeman; appearing online in the AT&T blue room; touting CoverGirl makeup and Secret deodorant; and soon smiling from billboards in ensembles from Vanilla Star jeans. Morgenstein called these endorsements his effort to ''help a kid achieve a dream.''

The rewards of this dream can vary, from $50,000 to $100,000 per deal before the Games to possibly millions if an athlete wins gold. Gymnastics in particular is a sponsorship bonanza. Since 1984, when the gold medalist Mary Lou Retton became the first female to land on the front of a Wheaties box, women's gymnastics has become a national obsession, inordinately popular during the Summer Games. The opportunities to make money have therefore become both vaster and far more complicated. Technology and globalization have the capacity to turn an Olympic champion into not just a Wheaties star but also a worldwide role model. ''The things we're doing with Nastia -- we're taking her to a higher level,'' Morgenstein told me in mid-June. ''Of course,'' he added almost as an afterthought, ''she still has to do well in Beijing.''

''This is not about the money,'' Liukin told me, pre-empting any endorsement questions as she dived into a footlong shrimp roll at a sushi place

near her parents' gym in Plano, Tex. (The Liukins currently operate three gymnastic training facilities in the sprawling, wealthy north-Dallas suburbs. ''It's the family business,'' Morgenstein said, meaning both the gyms themselves and the nurturing of Olympians. In addition to their daughter, the 2004 gold medalist Carly Patterson trained at the Liukins' gym.) Liukin's mother, Anna, a slim woman whose blond ponytail, high forehead and supersize shrimp roll matched her daughter's, nodded in agreement. ''Nastia never does a sport for the money,'' she said. ''It's the passion, it's the love.'' It was easy to believe them -- no one subjects herself to the Olympic gauntlet for the money. On the other hand, Liukin was already something of a walking advertisement, giddily tapping texts on her iPhone, courtesy of sponsor AT&T, talking animatedly about her appearance in the Disney movie ''Stick It'' and the makeover she got from CoverGirl, whose parent company, Procter & Gamble, is another sponsor. (CoverGirl suggested a change from black to brown eyeliner, ''except in photographs,'' Liukin told me.)

While she ate, she spoke effusively of her agent. ''He's on the same side as my parents,'' Liukin said. ''He'd do anything to help me.'' In general, Olympians and their agents make for complex pairings, especially when the athletes are young, as they tend to be in so-called women's gymnastics. Because parents can be anxious and overbearing, kids sometimes turn to their agents as a buffer. That explains why the relationship between Morgenstein and Liukin is less like that of a parent and child and closer to that of a big brother and kid sister. ''So many of these athletes have sports psychiatrists, and that's my role with her,'' said Morgenstein, who has four young children of his own. ''Agent, confidant, friend, business manager, adviser -- I feel like I hold a lot of hats with her, and that's what makes our relationship special.'' Once, for instance, when Liukin had trouble performing for the requisite drug test after a competition, she texted her agent for help. ''Think about waterfalls,'' Morgenstein replied right away.

Morgenstein, 42, is a ferocious yenta with meaty lips, worried blue eyes and long, dark, center-parted hair. He jokingly claims to be bipolar and to suffer attention-deficit disorder. He started his agency, Premier Management Group, 13 years ago and became known, even by the hardball standards of sports agents, as a formidable player, what he calls an ''athlete's advocate.'' (The first time we met in early June, he was on the phone, grousing that a swimsuit company, TYR Sport, was suing one of his clients, the Olympic prospect Erik Vendt, for wearing a Speedo to a meet.) It's the kind of reputation that can make people nervous in the smaller and more genteel world of Olympic athletics. Morgenstein recalls an official from USA Gymnastics saying, upon their first meeting, ''We all try to get along here.''

Morgenstein is well suited for the life he has chosen. He's the son of a former Bronx schoolteacher whose pack-rat habit inspired him to start running flea markets and, eventually, trade and home shows. His mother had a kitchenware store in Nyack, N.Y. Despite an affinity for sports and celebrities -- young Evan met his share of famous chefs in those days -- Morgenstein started his working career as a salesman for a series of software companies. He was fired from the last one; as he recalled, it was a bad fit -- he was unable to endure the lockstep, buttoned-down culture. Next, he landed a job with a sports-management firm run by the former N.B.A. player Charles Smith. He eventually left to start his own business because, he said, he was tired of representing ''arrogant'' basketball players. (''The running joke with the guys in the league was that you never put the girlfriends in the same box as the wives,'' Morgenstein said.) His specialty became Olympic athletes, and by 2006 he was representing Bruce Jenner and Mark Spitz, along with Amanda Beard, Dara Torres and other current hopefuls. That same year, he happened to catch Liukin on television competing in the Pacific Alliance Gymnastics Championships in Hawaii. ''I'm not prone to be someone to watch gymnastics,'' Morgenstein confessed. In fact, he had never represented a gymnast. ''I was just in awe of what I watched Nastia do. I was absolutely taken.'' Immediately, he ran to his desk, Googled her and saw no agent mentioned. So he sent an e-mail message to her Web site: ''Hi, I'm Evan Morgenstein,'' he wrote. ''Is it possible I could talk to one of your parents?''

At the time, Liukin's only representative was her father, Valeri. Then 16, Nastia was already making a name for herself as an athlete and a nascent brand. She hadn't been able to compete in the Athens Games in 2004 -- at 14, she was too young -- but her status as a comer had been ratified by the United States women's team coordinator, Martha Karolyi, who said she would have selected Liukin for the team had she been eligible. Instead, Liukin performed in a commercial for Adidas that ran during the Games. It showed her performing a computer-enhanced duet on the uneven bars with the young Nadia Comaneci. The tag line was ''Impossible Is Nothing.''

When Morgenstein contacted the family about representing Nastia, Valeri politely put him on hold. (Valeri had lined up not only the Adidas commercial but sponsorship with Visa and Longines as well -- not bad for an amateur.) But as Nastia continued to win championships throughout 2006 and looked more like a sure thing for the 2008 Olympics, other agents began offering their services. So her parents finally agreed to interview some of them. Morgenstein, who had been courting the family for some time, flew to Dallas and met them at a Mexican restaurant. ''I'd been to a lot of meetings like this,'' Morgenstein said. ''Most of the time the parents never stop talking. But this time, nobody had anything to say. They all had this steely European persona. They didn't give me anything.''

Later, Morgenstein discovered that the Liukins weren't incurious -- they had already made up their minds. ''He was the one,'' Nastia told me. The family was especially pleased that Morgenstein had never represented a gymnast before. They figured he would be more imaginative when it came to finding sponsors.

His first deal was a big one: AT&T. He landed it quickly -- at the time, Liukin looked like the biggest star in the women's gymnastics galaxy which was a relief to Morgenstein, who says that new agents have about 90 days to make something happen before their clients begin to doubt their choice. The deal puts Liukin in print ads and on the Web through this year; it's a wait-and-see arrangement typical of sponsors that don't want to sign long-term agreements until their athletes prove themselves at the Games. ''Nastia lives the perfect AT&T life,'' he told me. ''She's always e-mailing on her iPhone or BlackBerry, or calling her friends. She's using thousands of minutes a month, and if you're AT&T, could there be anyone better?''

Apparently not. Jamie Butcher, the vice president of sponsorships and employee communications for AT&T, brimmed with peppy corporate-speak when talking about Liukin. ''Liukin is very on-brand for AT&T,'' she said. ''When you think Nastia, you think winner, hope, spirit, class act. We want people to think of AT&T that way.'' Liukin appeals to that coveted youth demographic that spends hours and hours texting and talking. ''We are about connectivity,'' Butcher continued. ''Someone like Nastia, who is always connected, brings to life what we do every day.''

Building an endorsement campaign is a little like planning a high school party: the hope is that once you get the coolest kids to come, everyone else will want to show up, too. That's what happened with Liukin. After AT&T, Morgenstein negotiated a deal with Adidas that, like her Visa contract, stretches through 2008 (Valeri's deal with Adidas was for just the one commercial), and a more lucrative renewal of her contract with a company called GK Elite Sportswear, which makes a signature line of Liukin leotards. He also suggested new ways in which to expand the Nastia franchise: a pink balance beam and matching hand weights, autographed by Liukin, for a division of Spalding called American Athletic Inc. (AAI), and an appearance on the package of the Sega Olympics video game. In Morgenstein's universe, there is no other gymnast but Liukin, and when it comes to this particular sport, he isn't far off. Companies that are looking for a wholesome girl with gold-medal potential and wide appeal don't have many options. An agent's job is to sign his client with as many of these companies as possible while avoiding the ''sellout'' tag. Johnson's agent, Sheryl Shade, told me she insists that her clients endorse only products they like and will actually use. The endorsements have to be age appropriate, too. Certain beauty products for women, for instance, ''are too adult. It's not cool. It wouldn't ring true.'' By Shade's estimation, then, Liukin's list of endorsements makes sense: sportswear, athletic equipment, cellphones, makeup. Morgenstein says that his share as her agent is the industry standard of somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of generated revenue. He doesn't want to get more specific. ''That's too much information for people who don't really care,'' he said.

By the fall of 2006, Liukin looked like a sure shot for Olympic and financial triumph. Then, in October, she injured her ankle during practice and required surgery to remove bone chips. Masochists can check out her comeback struggle on a wince-inducing YouTube video called ''Nastia Liukin: Taking Its Toll.'' Liukin was clearly competing while in severe pain -- her brow knit, her eyes clouded with tension. Her landings were sometimes uncharacteristically shaky. She nonetheless reclaimed the world champion balance beam title in September 2007 and won the all-around at the Tyson American Cup against the new reigning national champion, Shawn Johnson, last March. But she was not the same bewitching pixie she had been before her injury. Meanwhile, Johnson, a few years younger, was winning comparisons to Mary Lou Retton, the iconic Olympic sweetheart.

Liukin is subdued when she talks about her recovery, a grueling time not just for herself but for her agent. ''It was hard for him,'' she said, ''seeing me down and not being able to do what I wanted to do.''

Morgenstein had his work cut out for him: he had to keep Liukin's original sponsors happy (most were locked into the agreements, regardless of injury), while continuing to sell new recruits on a brilliant phenom's suddenly uncertain future.

On a rainy, unseasonably cold day in June, AT&T held a press conference at Boston University's Agganis Arena. The event was scheduled to coincide with

the first round of the Visa national championships, a qualifier for the United States Olympic team trials. Out on the sidewalk, Tyson Foods, a USA Gymnastics sponsor, was offering deep-fried snacks on toothpicks. Upstairs, representatives from CoverGirl, another sponsor, were setting up tables for free makeovers for the hordes of gymnastics fans waiting to enter the building.

The doors finally opened, and a crowd of young girls, many of them wearing T-shirts sporting the names of their gymnastics clubs, piled in. A handful of reporters followed. An AT&T employee herded everyone toward a long, bulky object hidden beneath a battleship-gray automobile cover. The girls shrieked when the cover was removed to reveal . . . a racecar plastered with sponsor logos, including a large AT&T emblem partially covered by an image of Liukin wearing a spangled pink leotard. (The swimmer Michael Phelps was shown on the other side of the car; this crowd wasn't his demographic.)

The Nascar driver Jeff Burton stood up to say a few words about the new paint job on the car he would soon be racing. A compact man with sandy brown hair, he seemed a bit disoriented, as any Nascar driver would be while trying to entertain a crowd of excitable preteen girls. ''Obviously, Nastia Liukin is on this side,'' he said, indicating the left rear door. ''And she's quite amazing. Obviously, I don't follow gymnastics, but I hear she's quite amazing.'' Steve Penny, the president and C.E.O. of USA Gymnastics, followed with a nice recovery, thanking AT&T ''for helping us expand our brand beyond our wildest dreams.'' Jamie Butcher put it this way in the press release: ''We are excited to integrate our support for professional stock car racing and Team USA into this fresh and unique paint scheme.''

The average person might wonder what gymnastics, especially women's gymnastics, has to do with Nascar, but if you are someone like Butcher, you want to link the two through your sponsorships in the hope that there is crossover appeal. This is what used to be known in the '90s as synergy and is now known by the buzzword ''integration.'' A star like Liukin is used to ''activate'' the deals.

''Not so very long ago, sponsorships were about putting your sign on your building or property,'' Butcher said. ''It's so much more than that now. Now we really are very focused on what type of unique content we can get our customers.'' If you visited AT&T's sports and culture Web site called the blue room in mid-June, for instance, you would have seen the Olympic hopefuls it sponsors featured next to a plug for Coldplay's most recent CD, ''Viva La Vida.'' AT&T believes that by putting these different types of content together, it can make itself more relevant to both existing and potential customers. An exclusive interview with Liukin shown on the blue room means, according to Butcher, ''I can see her, and I can't get it anywhere else, and I can get it on my hand-held. We spend a lot more time thinking about that kind of thing than we did in the past.'' (''It really is a huge honor,'' Liukin said of working with AT&T. ''They did a thing with Deion Sanders called 'Home Turf' about my life at home. It was right before I got my braces off.'') According to USA Gymnastics, there are some three million recreational gymnasts in the United States. Merging that group with millions of Nascar fans might sound like a shotgun marriage, but creating excitement with a paint job is maybe worth the stretch. And it isn't just Liukin and AT&T that profit from the exposure, but USA Gymnastics, another partner in this particular integration. ''Olympics and Nascar,'' Morgenstein e-mailed me. ''Nascar fans are very patriotic! Olympic fans are AT&T customers. It works. Using Nastia is a great way to merge across platforms.''

For Liukin, of course, the benefits are more obvious. With a global sponsor, she (or, rather, her parents) can stop worrying about the expense that went into her years of becoming a Beijing contender and instead concentrate on gymnastics. Morgenstein thinks of himself as a ''chaperon of her brand,'' carefully hedging her portfolio of endorsements with blue-chip companies but also looking at smaller businesses that might pay off in different ways down the road. Even so, the loss of Coca-Cola and McDonald's to Shawn Johnson still rankles and can prompt a soliloquy from Morgenstein on the ubiquity of junk-food sponsorships available to supposedly health-conscious athletes.

Morgenstein warned me that he might not be able to sit still during the competition in Boston -- he, like Anna Liukin, canbarely stand to watch

Nastia perform. Unfortunately, some sociability was called for from the both of them, as he had brought along a new sponsor, Addie Swartz, founder of a company called Beacon Street Girls. This was one of Morgenstein's more ''out there'' projects; it would bring little to Liukin initially, but he thought the partnership might pay off big down the road. The Beacon Street Girls are a group of fictitious young teens who triumph over adversity (obesity, drinking, dyslexia, adoption) in books and on an interactive Web site that also provides advice from various experts, including Dr. John Knight, a Harvard Medical School associate professor and the director of the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research of Children's Hospital Boston. (The end of the book ''Freaked Out'' contains Dr. Knight's lists ''This is what happens to your body when you get drunk'' and ''Why drinking alcohol is dangerous for young people.'') Like the executives at Vanilla Star, who were so eager to see Liukin in their clothes on billboards, Swartz believes that American parents and their kids need relief from the Lindsays, Britneys and Parises of the world. When the company contacted Morgenstein about making Liukin a spokeswoman and Web site persona, he thought it was a great idea. ''Nastia never has a drink,'' he told me. ''She lives what she preaches.''

Morgenstein believed that the Beacon Street Girls deal might work as some sort of royalty business, which is one reason he asked for no money upfront and instead requested equity in the company. He had created a similar situation for another client, the swimmer Amanda Beard, who in his words has risen to the level of ''lifestyle celebrity.'' Beard currently has equity in a line of razors made by Epilady as well as in a skin-care company and, soon, a hedge fund. ''Amanda wants to be a piece of who she is,'' he told me. So-called stick-and-ball athletes have long held rights to their own names. So it makes sense that Liukin, who now has a stake in AAI (the company that makes her balance beam and weights) and in the performance-drink company PureSport, should ask for and get a piece of the Beacon Street Girls. Her celebrity role in the company is still fluid. She already has an interactive online school locker that girls can visit and leave messages for Liukin to answer. She might also appear as a character in a book or maybe as an adviser on the Web site. ''Beacon Street Girls could be the next American Girl,'' Morgenstein said, referring to the Mattel doll subsidiary. ''Nastia could reach more people with this than anything else she does. We believe it will be a very good, very solid company.''

Addie Swartz certainly looked solid, in the way of a middle-school English teacher. She was petite and gregarious, with a Dorothy Hamill haircut, chartreuse blazer and brilliant floral skirt. Her entrepreneur's focus never wavered, not even when the gymnasts started the program. ''It's all about encouraging girls and making them think they can accomplish anything with what they have,'' she said, as a roar went up from the crowd. Shawn Johnson had just stepped onto the mat, a tiny powerhouse in a gold and orange leotard.

She executed a supremely confident floor routine, hurling herself through the air with grace and precision. Liukin did the same thing a few minutes later -- except for a less-than-perfect landing that cost her points, as did a step out of bounds. Johnson also outdid her on the vault with a more complex routine, and by the time the program was half over, Liukin was in eighth place. Anna was clutching her stomach and rocking back and forth; eventually she excused herself ''to see a friend.'' Morgenstein slumped in his seat, scrolled through his BlackBerry and announced to us -- and probably to himself -- that Liukin wasn't competing against anyone in particular, ''just herself.'' Liukin rallied later in the program, however, with a near-flawless performance on the uneven bars, and she defeated Johnson on the balance beam with a breathtaking series of back flips and balletic pirouettes. By the end of the day she finished just behind Johnson.

Morgenstein was sanguine after the event, certain that Liukin would dazzle them all when the Olympics finally came around. (''The European judges love her!'') Not that he wasn't nervous -- he was waking up in a sweat many mornings, thinking of all he still wanted to accomplish for his young client. By late June, her Web site had been redone. ''The transition we're making is getting her out of being that little pixie girl and looking more like a woman,'' he said. Morgenstein wants to find a health-care provider or a packaged-food company that Liukin can work with to encourage healthy eating among kids. He has a Nastia Liukin energy drink for young women in mind and a motivational-speaking tour aimed at tweens. Liukin is already part of a charity campaign run by The Dallas Morning News, but there's so much more she can do in this world! ''It's about leaving a mark,'' he told me.

A few days after the Visa Championships, an entourage from AT&T showed up at the Liukins' gym in Frisco, Tex., for a print-advertisement photo shoot. The gym was a giant, sunny space, with scores of children squealing and tumbling, some of them with the kind of muscle tone a 20-year-old would envy. Several huge umbrella-covered lights were set up in front of the uneven bars. There were company representatives, ad-agency representatives and chicly scruffy photographer's assistants. Liukin had her hair and makeup done while surrounded by a gaggle of high school friends, and then slipped on the official red, white and blue USA Gymnastics team leotard. The photographer, a precise Italian with a slicked-back ponytail, tried to explain what he wanted. Liukin listened attentively and said, ''Let me show you what I can do.'' Then she bounded toward the uneven bars, jumped up and, while her father spotted her, executed a routine that made almost everyone at the shoot stop checking their BlackBerries.

The photographer wanted just a little more. Could she move her legs wider when she's in the air? he wanted to know. ''The one problem is I never see your face.'' Liukin and her father smiled indulgently. If the move was properly done, you wouldn't see her face, Valeri explained. Liukin got back on the bars and expertly executed a compromise, head down, her legs flying higher into the air. Everyone was pleased. .

cover girl