LOS ANGELES — By now, it’s clear from a number of investigations that women’s gymnastics in the United States has been tarnished by administrators who overvalued winning and coaches who did not know where the line existed between developing gymnasts and abusing them.

And yet while much of the gymnastics world has been spinning out of control, rocked by sensational courtroom testimony and other revelations, there has been a seeming oasis tucked into the campus of U.C.L.A. Many outside the sport learned that last month when Katelyn Ohashi stunned millions of YouTube viewers with her strength, sassiness and thrilling tumbling.

To those in the know, there was little surprise that Ohashi, once not far from an Olympic berth, rediscovered her joy of gymnastics at U.C.L.A., under a coach who cannot do a single pull-up.

Valorie Kondos Field, known as Miss Val to basically everyone, is the first to admit she is not a perfect coach. She is her own sort of taskmaster, and she has a number of rules for her student-athletes. No chewing gum. No hair-ties on the wrists. But she has long presented an alternative to the often joyless training environment that has become associated with the elite levels of the sport.