Jacqueline Johnson has made an early commitment to the University of Utah gymnastics team. If things go according to her plan, she'll be a little late arriving.
      Johnson, a high-school senior-to-be from Michigan who trains at high-profile Cincinnati Gymnastics, recently gave Ute coach Greg Marsden her word that she'll sign an NCAA letter-of-intent in the November signing period for a fall 2008 start.
      And he told her he's "fine with anything," she said, when it comes to her actual arrival on campus, which she hopes could be delayed for the 2008 Olympics.
      Per NCAA rule, Marsden is unable to comment on recruits until they actually return a signed LOI.
      A U.S. team member, Johnson hopes to finish in the top five at the USA Championships next month in St. Paul, Minn. "That would get me a spot on the national team, and hopefully that will qualify me to world (championships) selection camp," Johnson said via telephone Monday with the Deseret Morning News. "I've tightened up a lot on my form, and I feel that I'm a lot more powerful than I was last year."
      She made a name for herself in March when she tied for third in the multinational 2006 American Cup preliminaries in Philadelphia (2006-07 U. recruit Daria Bijak of Germany was eighth in the prelims, seventh in the finals). Only the top two from each country advance to the finals, where Americans were first and second.
      If she can make the World Championships and/or Olympics, she could also make a name for herself by getting a skill named for her. On her best and favorite event, bars, she does a Khorkina release from the Stalder position rather than the Hecht that Khorkina uses, and if she performs it on one of those two international stages, it could be named for her.
      She has big skills, including a standing Arabian/punch front on beam and double Arabian 2 1/2 twist to layout punch on floor and is working on triple-twist dismounts, according to a recent Inside Gymnastics magazine article.
      "I feel that it leaves a mark with the judges and helps them remember me," she said of her unusual elements. "It's something out of the ordinary that helps my gymnastics stand out."
      Johnson began gymnastics at age 3, going to the gym daily with her mother, Angie, a coach and gym owner. She was coached early by a Bulgarian Olympian and a Bulgarian World Championships team member, who recommended that she progress to a higher-level gym. She and her mother moved to Cincinnati to further her career while her father, Chuck, and older brother, Marshall, remained in Michigan.
      She was slowed in 2002-2004 by an elbow injury and competed some of the time with one arm but made her first international appearance in El Salvador in 2003 and placed second in the 2004 Junior Olympics. She has trained at the U.S. center in Colorado Springs and has several times recently been to national-team training camps with U.S. coach Marta Karolyi in Houston.
      Johnson, who made an unofficial visit to Utah in March, narrowed her scholarship choices to Stanford, Alabama, Georgia and Utah and picked Utah because "I felt that the program that they have, both academically and athletically, is awesome, and I loved the girls, the coaches, the facility that they have for gymnastics."
      Inspired by earlier school studies in DNA, she plans to major in biology and go into forensic science.