This feature originally appeared in the 2024-25 Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.

 
It's been said that it takes a village to raise a child, and that African proverb is absolutely true for eMjae Frazier of the California women's gymnastics team. Long before she led the Golden Bears to a runner-up finish in their first NCAA Championship final appearance and broke the NCAA's scoring record, Frazier was just a girl from Erial, New Jersey, following in her sister's footsteps.
 
Frazier grew up in a household with two loving, supportive parents, Tina and William Frazier, and her sister, Margzetta Frazier, who is four years her senior. Both parents came from athletic backgrounds as Tina was a track and field athlete growing up and William was a diver and football player.
 
By the time Frazier was old enough to begin her own athletic journey at age 4, Margzetta was already well on her way and their parents had some experience navigating the world of youth sports. eMjae enrolled in soccer and gymnastics from the jump.
 
"My earliest memory with gymnastics is me wearing my sister's leotard and just messing around," eMjae Frazier said. "You start so young so it's hard to pinpoint exactly when everything started, but I remember always practicing our compulsory routines in our parents' bedroom. They would actually learn our routines and my dad would be helping with the choreo, telling us things like 'keep your chin up, stay sharp, and use more sass' while actually performing the moves with us. He actually taught me my first back handspring and back half on our trampoline at home."
 
The early memories of the Frazier parents performing alongside their daughters in the bedroom were just the beginning of the family's involvement in the sport. It's around the time that young gymnasts make the jump from compulsory gymnastics, where everyone performs the same pre-set routines, to optional gymnastics, where gymnasts are free to create their own routines to showcase their individual strengths, that things begin to get more serious. That is often when young gymnasts decide if the sport is a hobby or a passion.
 
"That's when girls start deciding if gymnastics is really for them," eMjae Frazier said. "You're no longer in there three or four days a week for three hours, you're in there five to six days a week for four to five hours. It's a commitment. It gets harder and your expectations change. You're there because you want to be there and you want to get better, not because your parents want you to be there."
 
For Margzetta and eMjae, it's a passion. Their parents understood how important training with the right people at the right place is to have a chance to compete at a high level, so they enrolled their daughters at the prestigious Parkettes National Gymnastics Training Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Five days a week, the Frazier parents would make the 166-mile round trip that took anywhere from two to three and a half hours each way.
 
Parkettes is where eMjae and Margzetta met the next members of the village that would help raise them - head coaches Bill and Donna Strauss, and the rest of the coaching staff they would spend hours upon hours with over the next several years.
 
"I owe [Parkettes] so much," Margzetta Frazier said. "That program turned me into a champion. They did not have to do all the things they did for us, but they did, and they took such good care of eMjae and I. They even let me coach her some days, which was such a fun experience. They still reach out to us to this day."
 
With a four-year age gap, eMjae and Margzetta never really got to compete together. But they did have opportunities to train together, and seeing her big sister continue to grow and advance through the different levels of gymnastics played a huge part in keeping eMjae motivated.
 
"I looked up to my big sister so much, and I still do," eMjae Frazier said. "I wanted to get to where she was. So, I was always just kind of chasing her. Trying to do the skills and do her dance and be like her, and I think it is a really big influence because if she would have quit like a year or two before, who knows if I even would have started. It's really crazy how things work out because she is a big influence; she was the guinea pig and the first child to start all of it."
 
Over the next few years, eMjae and Margzetta began to coach each other and became each other's support system. Margzetta earned a spot on the USA National Team and a few years later, so did eMjae. The younger sister ran with that opportunity, joining the senior team for the 2021 World Championships, which is rivaled only by the Olympic games.
 
Margzetta committed to one of the top gymnastics programs in the country and a standout academic institution in UCLA, and a few years later eMjae did the same when she committed to Cal. In 2021 Margzetta became the Pac-12 uneven bars champion and in 2024 eMjae scored the most points in NCAA history and was named WGCA West Region Gymnast of the Year.
 
While eMjae credits so much of her success to the village that raised her - her older sister, her family, and her club coaches - Margzetta knew her little sister was destined for greatness from the beginning.
 
"I remember being at practice one day and seeing her do this crazy, smooth sequence on bars and it hit me that my little sister is really kicking butt and it made me so happy," Margzetta Frazier said. "eMjae really is my favorite gymnast. She is so flexible, so coachable, and so brave. Ultimately, seeing how amazing she is makes me feel so amazing, too. It's proof that I did everything right as her big sister and I love that."