- Oct 23, 2017
- 2,407
- 5,295
Two things.
I can’t help but feel like this team wasn’t up to task psychologically and was overwhelmed by the event. Quite the opposite of the mental state of the Rhonda Faehn teams.
What the he!! Has happened to SEC gymnastics? Just a few years ago the final 6 would have included at least 4 SEC schools but now there is only UF in the final four and I believe only 2, or maybe 3 in the semifinals.
Rhonda's teams had a bad habit of fading in the latter part of the season, while we watched Bama, UCLA, Georgia, and others excelled late in the season. In Rhonda's first 10 years, her teams failed to even make the Super Six 3 times, In the other 7 years, her team finished 4th 4 times, 5th once, 3rd once, and 2nd once (the year before winning her first NC).
In 2013, 2014, and 2015, Rhonda's team won consecutive NCs, though shared the 2014 title, amazingly after having to count a fall. There was a common factor in all 3 of those NC years - Bridget Sloan. Bridget had a combination of intensity, confidence, and "looseness" that was infectious. In the biggest meets, you would often see her and other gymnasts relaxing by dancing and laughing on the sidelines.
All coaches rely on their team leaders, and Bridget made a huge difference. This year it was usually Alyssa Baumann who was providing last-minute pep talks to gymnasts getting ready to perform, and I often wondered, based on the body language, if she was perhaps TOO intense and made some teammates tighter going into their events, rather than looser. But that is completely based on speculation from what I could observe remotely, and I could be way off base.
With that said, the head coach definitely has to be in tune with her team and know how to get the best from each of them, as individuals, given the individual performance nature of the sport. Jenny SEEMS to know her team, but we're still awaiting champion-level results, and we seem to have digressed some as the gymnasts who were freshman and sophomores from those NC teams moved on.
I believe Jenny needs to bring an assistant in who knows how to win, and who knows how to instill the right mental aspect into the gymnast to get them through the challenges of the regular and post-season. When Utah brought in Garrett Griffith as their assistant coach, they also got a great volunteer assistant coach in Courtney McCool, who was a Georgia gymnast in 2008, 2009, and 2010, three years when UGA won NC's, mostly on the strength of Courtney Kupets. I don't know if Bridget could bring anything similar to the Gators as an assistant, but I'd certainly try as Bridget is still very much a Gator.