Believe it or not, collegiate gymnastics has something critical in common with collegiate wrestling, cross country/track and field and volleyball. There is no high-profile, high-paying professional opportunity awaiting the very best after graduation. There is no NFL, NBA or MLB to aim at and one day reach.

There is instead a definitive end to most careers.

There are some professional and semi-pro opportunities for runners and field specialists. You can find volleyball circuits. Wrestlers have the UFC more and more now and I suppose the WWE is an attractive alternative for others as well. In all of those sports, there is the Olympic dream, too.

It’s different for gymnastics, who are too old when they’re, say 22. In truth, by the time a young woman graduates college, she’s done. She’s put in 12, 14, 16 years into the sport and even if there were opportunities to pursue — and there are, like exhibition tours … but realistically, not the Olympics, because of age — it often doesn’t happen because bodies have had enough.

And that’s not me saying that. That’s from now former WVU gymnast Amy Bieski, who was the Da’Sean Butler or Robert Sands or Jedd Gyorko of her sport.

“I know football and basketball players and I know what they do takes a toll on their bodies, but it’s different with gymnasts,” Bieski said. “You’re bending different ways you shouldn’t be bending and flipping around and doing things that some 22-year-old body probably shouldn’t be doing.

“For most girls, by the time they’re seniors in college gymnastics, they’re done. Their bodies aren’t shot, but they’re past their prime. I was really lucky. I was healthy throughout college.”

Imagine reaching that end, though. It’s different when you’re not good enough to keep going and you can accept a 9-to-5 or continuing your education or some outcome that comes after making peace with the end of a long career of competition in your sport. Bieski was good enough to go on and her body was, relatively speaking, in very good shape.

The end the sport was to give her was not the end she was willing to accept.

So Bieski tried out for Cirque du Soleil. And she was invited into the system, which is the equivalent of the minor leagues, where she’ll wait for a call to come join a new show. For that, she can thank her years in the gym, her height and her all-important lines, but also her cat, Nellie, who helped her pass the acting audition.

“I am not an actress, so I’m starting to worry, like, ‘Oh, my goodness. I really have to do this?’ ” she said. “It was so intense because there were so many talented people. I think I’m very talented at gymnastics, but when it comes to acting, I’m very dramatic, but they were asking you to transform from a human into an animal and then back into an animal.”

Oh, and Bieski was first.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “So I’m sitting there trying to decide what animal I’m like. It was amazing.”

Just when Bieski, from Nanticoke, Pa., thought she couldn’t rely on gymnastics, she realized her time in the gym and with her teammates was most valuable.

“I decided to be a cat,” Bieski said. “It’s the first thing that came to my mind. All my teammates are like, ‘You two are so much alike.’ I’m like, ‘Shut up, she’s a cat.'”

For a few minutes, so was Bieski. She thought of Nellie, her Siamese-tabby mix she adopted two years ago because of the pretty blue eyes, and then acted just like her pet.

“I was thinking, ‘What does Nellie do?'” Bieski said. “I know it sounds really dumb, but we had to do sound effects and meowing. And it wasn’t just me. Some of the others picked roosters and frogs and the craziest animals they thought of.

“You can’t take it as a joke. If you take it as a joke, the judges take you as a joke. You had to zone in for about two minutes and become an animal.”