Aunt Joyce linked to this interview with the Head Coach of National Champions Alabama.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Over in Athens, Georgia, folks are not so happy:
Jay must go. Simple as that.
When Jay Clark became head gymnastics coach at the University of Georgia two years ago, he was handed the keys to a Rolls Royce. He proceeded to drive it right off a cliff. …
… read more by Denton Ashway Sports Columnist
In fact, both teams are great. On another day it could as easily have gone the other way.
But stakes in the SEC are high. If Jay has one more bad season, I would expect him to resign.
9 comments ↓
Are you serious? Expect him to *resign*? Since when does getting back to Nationals, having 8 All-Americans and a National Champion on bars mean someone is a terrible coach? I think Jay is finding his feet and I think he’s doing a great job. Nobody could sustain the momentum Suzanne had, not without a one-two punch like Kupets and Tolnay. Any transition would be tough, and esp. one that follows a dynasty like that. Let’s not fan the Insane Flames of Crazy over this.
People don’t acknowledge that UGA would’ve qualified to nationals in 2010 had they been at 2 other regionals, the one Michigan was at and the one Nebraska was at. They simply had a tough draw. They scored 196.275, that’s NOT bad. Had Kat Ding not gotten injured moments before the competition, they would have been there.
By the way, the only teams to better a 196.275 at 2010 NCAAs were the teams that made Super Six.
This year, they MADE nationals with a much less talented team filled with injured athletes. I’d say that’s progress. Next year, if they can keep gymnasts healthy enough to keep Shayla and Tanella on the bench, they’ll be fine.
I feel like Jay Clark had a huge legacy to live up to, which would definitely put pressure on him. Suzanne Yoculan was a fantastic coach and did amazing things for the University of Georgia, but Jay Clark is not Suzanne Yoculan. The program has only known Suzanne as the coach, so it was hard when Jay stepped in. Look at Alabama with Sarah Patterson, she has been there forever and has worked out a system that works immaculately well for her program. Valerie Kondos-Field has worked out a system that works for her team. Same with DD Breaux at LSU, Greg and Megan Marsden at Utah, Bev Plocki at Michigan. They have all been the leaders of their respective teams for ages and have put in systems that work incredibly well.
Jay came in after many years of the Yoculan school of NCAA coaching being the way, truth and light in Georgia. I don’t think he needs to quit or resign or be terminated, but he needs to be given more time to create a unique training environment for his team to become acclimated to.
According to the article the team didn’t make it to Nationals his first year and then didn’t make it to finals his second year. Frankly, if it was a football team that had that kind of drop in the results, the coach would’ve been sacked already. People just get cranky when there’s a drop in results even if, in general, the results are actually still good or decent.
Thank you Anna for speaking the truth here. Jay’s first season he was without Kupets and Tolnay, 8 routines likely to go 9.9+ on any given day. They were absolute rocks. He also inherited Grace Taylor with the first significant injury she’d ever had in NCAA, which reduced her usual 3 easy 9.9+ routines in both consistency and score-ability.
Next season, Jay will only have Ding, Nuccio, and Box who have known Suzanne as a coach. It is becoming his program. He DOES have to overcome Suzanne’s larger than life image somehow (poor Jay:), but he should be given time to do that.
PS. Suzanne thought Jay could do this job. Shouldn’t that count more than the opinions of a crackpot blogger and a journalist who reads said crackpot blogger?
Let’s also point out that results can drop significantly even under the same coach.
For example, Miss Val won 4 national titles from 2000-2004, then came 4th in 2005, and didn’t even make championships in 2006 (beat out by Arkansas). They then finished 4th in 2007, and failed to make Super Six in 2008 and 2009. It took her 6 years to get back to the top.
Then, there are the smaller teams, who’ve had coaches for so long yet haven’t even gotten to nationals before. Should their jobs be called into question, too? After all, it took Brice Biggin 20 years to get his team to NCAAs.
I also think UGA needs to hire another assistant coach. Suzanne retired and Jay stepped up in the head coach position, but no one was brought in to replace Jay. Julie is an asst., but let’s be honest she doesn’t have a huge impact on the team. Doug is great at what he does, but UGA didn’t bring anyone new in to the program to “replace” him.
Russell, their choreographer, helped this year as a volunteer assistant, but I still think UGA should bring in someone else — especially to help in recruiting. Jay used to be the bars coach and recruiting. He’s now still doing those jobs plus all head coach responsibilities. He needs help.
I think the team did well this year. They are improving and they’ll continue to get stronger. You don’t have a coaching change and lose what could arguably be the best 1-2 punch in NCAA gym. history and not expect a drop off. Much of the negative press has been written by columnists that don’t know much about college gym and just want to write an inflammatory and controversial story to garner hits on their article. He’s an easy target.
You don’t see people calling for Rhonda of UF or Kristen Smyth of Stanford to lose their jobs (not only did Stanford not qualify, but not a single gymnast qualified!) — yet their teams underperformed this year as well. No one expected Val to lose her job when UCLA failed to make nationals and the super six two years in a row.
People need to give Jay a break.
If his salary was not so high, I’d be a little more sympathetic.
But as you say, the line between zero and hero is very thin. They were close to Super 6 this year.
Two years isn’t long enough to distinguish the effects of blind luck from the effects of coaching ability.
Unfortunately, the SEC isn’t the place that may be willing to wait it out, especially if the coach is being paid big money.
Coaches in football and basketball get sacked all the time after a couple of losing seasons. It may not be fair or logical, but it happens.
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