updated 4:14 p.m. ET Aug. 18, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - It happens five, six, sometimes 10 times a day at restaurants, supermarkets, the mall — pretty much anywhere she goes outside of her house.

Twenty years later, the fans still come up to Mary Lou Retton to let her know where they were, or what they did, or what impact she had on the day she became the first American to win a gold medal in the Olympic all-around.

“Very humbling,” Retton says of fame that has followed her over the past two decades. “It’s an honor to have that kind of impact.”

Her coach, Bela Karolyi, says Retton’s feat at the Los Angeles Olympics — closing the meet with two perfect-10 vaults to edge Ecaterina Szabo of Romania for first place — was the biggest event in the sport in the United States, helping to double enrollment in gymnastics classes nationwide.

And indeed, it’s no stretch to say that Retton did more than win a gold medal on Aug. 3, 1984. She changed a sport, energized a country and turned the Olympics into must-see TV. Even now, with the women’s all-around in Athens set for Thursday night, she remains the only American to capture gold in gymnastics’ premier event.

“She didn’t just take it to another level, she revolutionized it,” Karolyi said. “She turned the whole idea of gymnastics upside down. People didn’t think that could be done in this country.”

Today, the American gymnastics team is among the best in the world. The girls won silver in the team finals Tuesday night. Along with the success comes high expectations. Along with that also comes the question that bombards the six gymnasts on the 2004 team almost daily — the same question that’s dogged every U.S. gymnast over the last two decades.

“Who will be the next Mary Lou?”

“I think everybody wants that,” said American gymnast Terin Humphrey, who was born two years after Retton won the gold. “It’s always been my dream.”

Retton, 36, is a believer in the theory that fame doesn’t change the person, but rather, it changes the people around you. And while everything changed for her the day after she won the medal, she claims she never deviated much, always remaining the down-to-earth, wholesome All-American kid who captured hearts in Los Angeles.

“I’m still a West Virginia hillbilly,” she says. Indeed, nothing about her comes off as aloof, unapproachable or intimidating.

Married for 14 years to former Texas football player Shannon Kelly, Retton has four daughters. All are involved in gymnastics, “just because it’s a great sport for kids, a great sport to build on,” Retton said.

But the former champion lets the coaches coach her daughters — “To them, I’m not Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic champion, I’m just Mommy.” — and has reservations about her kids getting too deeply involved in the sport.

“I think it would be a terrible burden having to go around, trying to succeed in gymnastics when you’re known as Mary Lou Retton’s daughter,” she said, briefly suspending her disarming modesty to acknowledge her place in history.

Growing up, Retton got turned on to gymnastics by watching Nadia Comaneci, whose seven perfect 10s at the Montreal Games took the sport to a new level.

“I remember how powerful the feelings were of being inspired,” Retton said. “I was enthralled with Nadia. She planted the seeds.”

Retton did the same to the generation of girls who followed her. That’s why, unlike many high-profile athletes who try to avoid the spotlight outside the arena, Retton doesn’t shy from her fame. In a poll taken in 1993, nearly a full decade after her victory, she was voted the most popular athlete in America.

“I’m a real person, an approachable person,” she said. “I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, ’I started gymnastics because of you,’ ’I went to college on a scholarship because of you.’ To hear that is humbling and it’s an honor.”

There were many lessons to learn from that performance in Los Angeles — about perseverance, mental toughness, the love of sport. She was only six weeks removed from a knee injury when the Olympics rolled around. At the time of the injury, doctors told her she wouldn’t be well enough to compete.

But she never gave up. Karoyli found a doctor who could perform arthroscopic surgery on the right knee, a relatively new procedure at the time, then Retton rushed her rehab and didn’t let her Olympic dream die.

On the vault, the last event of the day, she nailed a perfect jump to overcome Szabo. Retton could have quit there, but with the option to take another vault, she went for it. She scored a 10 there, too — a thrilling encore that was anything but meaningless.

Suddenly, America had its gymnastics champion after years of believing that only Europeans like Comaneci and Olga Korbut could grab attention.

Does it seem like 20 years ago?

“On the one hand, no, because the memories are so clear and vivid to me,” she said. “On the other hand, yes, because I’ve got such a different life — married 14 years, with four daughters.”

Karolyi had already built his reputation by coaching Comaneci. But he said Retton’s moment remains the sweetest of his career.

He wasn’t credentialed as a coach for the 1984 Games, and only made it into the arena with a pass as an equipment mover. He didn’t move much equipment that day, though. All through the meet, he stood behind the barrier between the stands and the floor, following Retton — scolding, prodding, motivating.

“Now or never,” he told Mary Lou when the decisive vault approached.

She did it, and Karoyi scaled over a barricade to scoop her up, a 4-foot-9, 94-pound sprite engulfed in the beefy arms of the bearlike Romanian coach.

That image. The Wheaties box. The beaming smile. All are part of the legacy Mary Lou left. Nobody has supplanted her.

At least not yet.

“It was the way she related to everyone, energized everyone around her,” Karolyi said. “It became one of the loveliest and most exciting moments because of the personality of Mary Lou.”

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