Troester GymInfo has released the Preseason Coaches' poll and to no one's surprise, Florida tops the rankings. Alabama, Oklahoma, UCLA and LSU round out the top five. Florida received 21 first place votes. #2 Bama received none, but #3 OU received 7. UCLA received one and Utah two.
SUU, USU, Boise State, Denver and BYU have announced the formation of a new five team gymnastics conference.
Do your part to help save Temple Men's Gymnastics, which is proposed to be cut after this season by their administration. They have less than 2,700 signatures left to their goal of 10,000.
Temple has announced its intent to drop Men's Gymnastics as one of seven programs to be eliminated at the end of the year. The loss of yet another Men's program will be felt throughout the NCAA. Temple also is setting the elimination of baseball, men's crew, Men's indoor and outdoor track, Women's crew and softball. The elimination of the two women's sports is somewhat unusual in that many schools use similar high roster count sports to achieve Title IX compliance. The women's gymnastics team was not cut.
In total, 150 athletes (208 roster positions) and 9 full time coaches were impacted by today's announcement. According to Philly.com, the school has said the savings will help improve funding of the other sports, including more scholarships for women's sports (in general). Lack of adequate facilities played a role in the elimination of baseball, softball, track and crew. The school also claims that the training facility for gymnastics is inadequate to hold both the men's and women's team.
Title IX is being cited as the motivation for the change, but reportedly has helped spare the Women's team. Temple claims that with these changes, they will correct a Title IX imbalance. Currently, the school is 51% female but only 42% of the scholarships go to the women's programs.
In 1994, the baseball and gymnastics teams were proposed for elimination but were saved.
We'll keep you updated on the efforts to save the Men's program, and how you can help.
Link: Temple Release
Link: Philly.com
Ball State has named Justin Wolford as an assistant. Wolford has spent the last three years as Head Coach at Flights. He was also an assistant at CMU in 2007.
Link: Ball State Release
Many recruitable profiles are now entered in the 2017 database. (A big THANK YOU to GymDivas for doing the hard work of sorting out graduation years.) If you are a 2017 recruitable, but your name isn't in the databank, please add it. The 2018 database is also available for those who would like to enter their profiles now.
To enter a profile, click on th Submit Recruitable link on the front page (left side under User Menu).
If you are a registered member of this site, make sure log in before submitting the profile so you will have access to edit the profile in the future. You may submit a profile as a "guest," but you will not have edit access. Of course, you can contact me via email with your future edits.
Michigan tops the Men's College Gymnastics Association Preseason Poll. Michigan was the unanimous #1 choice.
Gymnasts with ties to the NCAA did well at the event Finals at the World Championships this past weekend. The participants include:
Men's
FX: Jake Dalton (former OU), Silver
FX: Steve Legendre (former OU), 7th(t)
R: Brandon Wynn (former Ohio State), Bronze
VT: Steve Legendre (former OU), Silver
PB: Brandon Wynn (former Ohio State), 7th
HB: Sam Mikulak (Michigan), 4th
Link: USA Gymnastics
Michigan's Sam Mikulak placed 6th in the AA at the finals of the 2013 World Championships, in Antwerp, Belgium. Japan's Kohei Uchimura won his fourth straight world title, a new record, and easily outdistanced the field. Mikulak challenged for a medal, and stood in third heading into high bar, his final event. A slip on his ful Takamoto dropped him to sixth.
Link: USA Gymnastics Release
On September 11th, 2001 the newly minted Head Coach of UC Santa Barbara's gymnastics team boarded a plane to head out to meet her new team. Find out more about this remarkable woman and the dream that was cut short by the events of 9/11:
Michigan has announced Brooke Parker's transfer from Alabama: Announcement
Randi Lau's name now appears on the PSU roster.
She has coached at WVU and she has been a volunteer coach at Ball State.
Garrett Griffeth has been named an assistant at TWU. He spent one season as a graduate assistant at UGA, and has been coaching Level 8, 9 and 10 at the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy. His wife is Courtney McCool Griffeth.
Link: TWU Release
Maggie Germaine Ethier has been named volunteer head co-coach at ASU.