 Hi, I'm Kelsey Rothaus and welcome to the fourth episode of Behind the Hype with CalTV Sports. I'm here in front of Haas Pavilion with a pair of sisters from our women's gymnastics team that finished third in regionals last year, 20th overall in the country. Jessica and Emily Howe, thank you both so much for being here. Thank you for having us, Kelsey. Yeah, no problem. So you guys both practice beam, floor and bars, three of the four events. That is a lot of work. Gymnastics is very taxing sport on the body. I have a lot of respect for you both. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. And also on top of that already really hard work, you both had two massive surgeries because of gymnastics within the past two years. Emily a spinal surgery, Jessica a wrist surgery, Jessica starting with you, can you talk about that process a little bit, how hard it's been? Yes, so last year I had surgery on my left wrist and was disappointed not to be able to compete in the all-around but was thrilled to be able to compete on beam with an arms-free beam routine. It was really exciting. Wow. That was crazy. Now did that go through your head when you were performing beam like, oh I can't fall on my arm, I can't catch myself or did you just kind of block that out? Balanced beam is second nature for me so I didn't think about it and I was just happy to be on this stage. Emily with you a spinal surgery, that's some scary stuff, can you talk about that process as well? Yeah, so a year and a half ago I had a spinal surgery. I got two rods and four screws put in and a cage in between my vertebrae. So it took me about a year to recover but I'm slowly but surely coming back and training with the Cal team is a lot more fun. Yeah, definitely. That's crazy. And did you have to wear a brace, you know, how long for that year where you went a lot of pain? I had to wear a brace for three months. It was all the way up to my neck and all around my back and then after that I was in therapy for six months and then it took about eight more months to recover. Wow. So most of those injuries were because of gymnastics over time, right? Yes. Bars are from gymnastics and you guys feel okay now. You're ready to compete. Definitely stronger than ever. Excellent, very impressive again. And now you guys are both from Plano, Texas, which for those who don't know is right outside of Dallas, so you've come a long way. You've come from a very different environment to come to Cal. Could you guys each, Jessica, starting with you talk about if you could narrow it down to one thing, what is the biggest difference between Plano and Berkeley? I'd say the biggest difference is having the availability to go to an amazing city like San Francisco and having beautiful beaches so close. In Texas there's beaches like 10 hours away and the ones here just so much more beautiful, so that's probably the biggest difference. Cool. And Emily? The biggest difference for me is probably the diversity here. There's so many different things and anything really goes here and in Plano it's a lot different. Absolutely. Now part of what makes it probably so fun for both you guys to compete here is to be a part of the Cal family and you guys take that very literally as actual sisters, but being a part of an athletics program that's so strong all around. Football team made the bowl game playing December 29th in Fort Worth, Texas, that's decently close to where you guys are. You're going to try to go support the Bears. I wish we could. We have to be back in Berkeley for training, but if we were still in Texas we would definitely be there with our whole family to support the Golden Bears. But before we wrap up, we have a little game to play. It's called Her or Me. I'm going to give you guys each one of these signs. Thank you. And I'm going to ask you a couple questions and just hold up the side that you think fits best, okay? So which one of you is the messiest? Are you both messy? We have our days. She's better at making her bed every day. Okay, fair. Who do you think is the most flexible? Who is more likely to become the next president? Who's the funniest? Okay, we agree on something. Emily, you were the funniest. There we go. Who's more likely to be visibly upset after making a mistake during a meet? Jessica, a little bit more visibly upset. Yeah, I think so. I'm working on that. Working on that. Who was more likely to get in trouble as a kid? Jessica, like the perfect one. Perfect child never got in trouble, didn't do anything wrong. That's okay. It seems like you guys are doing well now. Who's more likely to star in a reality TV show? Emily, funniest reality TV show makes sense. And lastly, who's more likely to win in an all around competition between the two of you? Gonna maybe make this one hard. I'll go with. And on a cute note. Very nice. I'm sure you guys are both great. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having us, Kelsey. Thank you. And you guys should definitely check out their first home meet. February 1st here at Haas First UCLA. Really fun to watch gymnastics live a couple weeks after we get back from break. So good to watch. And if you haven't checked out our last episode of the behind the hype, please check out Cal TV's YouTube channel, NASA interviewing the captain of the dance team trying to try out with them. It's funny stuff. And that's it for this semester. But NASA and I will have plenty of more videos coming up after the break. Thank you so much for watching and happy holidays. See you next week.