Victoria Roberts: From Homeschool to LSU National Championship

**Victoria Roberts** (0:00)
It's honestly surprising for me coming in, because obviously I said everyone was telling me coming in to school, you know, it's going to be a culture shock, all of this. And I've found it surprisingly, I don't want to say easy, but simple to be able to incorporate my faith into being in college, and to not lose my faith, because this is a story that I tell everyone. When I was younger, I was probably around 10 years old. I would say, God, like help me to never lose my faith. I always want to know you.
And to be able to say that that's an answered prayer, and on top of that, I'm even more rooted in my faith than I ever have been. That's the biggest blessing to come out of any of this.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:44)
Your organization is known worldwide, and we certainly appreciate every facet that you do.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:49)
I do believe in what you're doing, because I've seen it in my family.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:52)
I'm so excited about all the things that, Robert, you guys do with Classical Conversations. It's been a huge blessing for our family.

**Robert Bortins** (0:59)
Grateful for the work at Classical Conversations. You're a leader and you have been in this movement for a long time.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:04)
We love Classical Conversations. I do feel like I have a debt of gratitude to you, your family, all of CC for just the fruit that has come from CC.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:16)
I appreciate all that you guys do, both through this wonderful podcast and also through Classical Conversations, which I am convinced is the best education resource out there. Thank you very much for all that you do for the cause of Christ and for our families and for our children. Really, really appreciate it.

**Robert Bortins** (1:32)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another informative episode of Refining Rhetoric, and I've been super excited to have this guest on. She's a Classical Conversations graduate. She's a D1 Gymnast National Championship runner-up, so we know that that's going to get corrected in the future, I hope.
It's Victoria Roberts. She goes to LSU. She was raised in Louisiana. She trained for 14 years at Elmwood Gymnastics Academy.
She registered her freshman year at LSU, which is really common, but she earned a spot on the SEC First Team Academic Honor Roll, and then really just broke out her sophomore year, contributing to LSU's National Championship run, where they finished runner-up in Fort Worth, Texas. She's one of the first Classical Conversations graduates known to compete in the Power 5 Division I level in Gymnastics. Actually, I know a couple who are going to be coming up behind you at different schools soon. So it's really cool to see a home school to college athletics pipeline, because so many people say, what about sports? And we know that's kind of ridiculous. So without further ado, Victoria, welcome to the show.

**Victoria Roberts** (2:42)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Robert Bortins** (2:45)
Hey, so, yeah, so tell us a little bit what it was like growing up being in Classical Conversations and training, dedicatedly training in gymnastics. My daughter, as we mentioned off air, she's 11, level 8 She travels or she travels on, of course, during the season, but 12 to 16 hours of practice every single week, plus doing Classical Conversations. And as you get older, you do even more. So yeah, break that down for us.

**Victoria Roberts** (3:13)
Yeah. So I believe my first year in CC was, I was about four or five years old, and we were actually introduced to it by a friend from gymnastics.
I had already homeschooled and they introduced this idea, and they told us about CC, of a once a week group that we go to and learn. And my mom looked into it, it really aligned with what our family is about and what we stand for. And so we started going to CC. So that's really all I've known, all I've ever known, gymnastics and CC since I've been young.
And it's always worked well together. I just can remember on the car in the way to practice reviewing for Memory Master. Like sometimes those times are a little bit traumatizing. There was one point, I remember this story, we laugh about it now. And my dad was quizzing me on, he's the question was, what is uniformitarianism? And he kept asking me, and for some reason I knew every answer all 24 weeks except for that one. And we got to the point, I was like crying. It was like this classic like dad review school moment, you know, and obviously we laugh about it now, but in the moment, it wasn't as funny. But those are such memorable moments, you know, foundations all the way out to challenge. And it's just been, it's been such a great thing for me going into college. And it's so impactful.