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With a tip of her imaginary hat and a couple sliding backward steps, Utah gymnast Baely Rowe draws huge cheers from Utah's crowds with her version of the 'moonwalk,' on the balance beam.

It's not a hard move, in fact it falls in the category that coach Megan Marsden calls "fluff," but it's a move that is endearing Rowe to fans and often bringing a smile to the usual stoic judges.

At 20 years of age, Rowe is too young to have seen when Michael Jackson made the moonwalk famous with his performance in 1983's "Billie Jean."

But she did see it on a show several years ago and was drawn to Jackson the showman, and what became one of his signature moves.

"I've always been into dance, throughout my club years and here, helping with my routine and others," she said. "Last year I thought, 'Let's try the moonwalk on the beam.' I did it and fell in love with it."

The element is an attention-getter, but in actuality it isn't worth anything, although Marsden noted others couldn't perform the move as well as Rowe.

"It looks risky, because you are walking backwards, but it isn't that hard for Baely," Marsden said. "But others would hit it only about 50 percent of the time. Baely likes the choreography and dance, and it's something sassy she can carry off."

Stepping forward on the beam, much less backwards, sounds challenging to most people. But Rowe didn't even bother trying it on the ground first. She hopped up on the beam and managed to find enough room on the 4-inch-wide apparatus for her 6.5-sized feet to slide next to one another on the beam.

Gymnasts are taught to shut out what is going on around them and focus on their routines, but Rowe admits she has come to anticipate the crowd's reaction to the move.

"For me, a lot of the gymnastics is showing the quality of the dance moves and getting the crowd involved," Rowe said. "I know the crowd loves it."

While the move isn't worth anything from a technical standpoint, Marsden said there is high value in anything that allows the gymnasts to relax and lighten the mood in otherwise pressure-packed situations.

"We talked to the girls at the last meet about where their power pose was in the beam routine," she said. "It's that pose where you are holding your body up and you are confident and not hunched over the shoulders and looking afraid."

Rowe seems to have found her pose, thanks to the luck of seeing Jackson on TV.

"I love his music," she said. "I remember the Jackson 5. I guess I'm old school at heart."

Twitter: @lyawodraska —

No. 6 Utah vs. Washington

P At the Huntsman Center

Saturday, 7 p.m.