Dianne Durham, Barrier-Breaking Gymnast, Dies at 52

Dianne Patrice Durham was born in Gary on June 17, 1968. Her father, Ural, worked at Midwest Steel in labor relations, and her mother, Calvinita (Carter) Durham, taught elementary school.

Dianne took up gymnastics at age 3 and before long started winning competitions. After claiming the 1981 junior championship at 13, she moved to Houston to train with Karolyi. Her mother soon quit her job and moved there as well.

Durham retired from competition soon after the 1984 Olympic trials. In the early 1990s she was the assistant women’s gymnastics coach at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She found work doing choreographed gymnastic and dance routines and appeared in the closing ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. She also performed at a theme park in Osaka, Japan.

From 1996 to 2013, Durham ran her own gym, Skyline Gymnastics, on Chicago’s North Side. Some gymnasts she had trained won state and regional competitions. She also served as a judge at gymnastics events, including the national championship.

She married Tom Drahozal, a school administrator and a girls’ basketball coach, in 1994. In addition to her sister, her husband and father survive her.

Reflecting on her 1983 championship victory in her hall of fame speech, Durham gave much credit to her family and friends. Relatives had chipped in to help pay for her training in Houston as a young teenager. For the competition in Chicago, buses drove in from Gary carrying hundreds of supporters, members of Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, where a great-grandfather of Durham’s was one of the earliest deacons in the 1920s.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/sports/dianne-durham-dead.html