Georgia Gym Dogs Post 197.825 to Claim Fifth Straight National Title for Suzanne Yoculan
by T Kyle King on Apr 17, 2009 9:49 PM EDT
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PrintCheesy, campy sports movies always conclude with heartrending, sappy storybook endings. Why do they do that? Because that’s how athletic events often wind up in reality, my friends.
So it was with the final meet of Suzanne Yoculan’s storied coaching career and Courtney Kupets’s stellar collegiate career.
In the 2009 N.C.A.A. Women’s Gymnastics Championships on Friday night, the top three performers in the vault were Gym Dogs, as were the top two gymnasts on the uneven parallel bars and the top two scorers on the balance beam. The Red and Black garnered six of the top ten individual marks in the floor exercise.
Courtney Kupets carded 9.95s on the beam and on the floor, as well as perfect 10s on the bars and in the vault.
As a team, Georgia earned a 49.2 on the beam. Of the "Super Six" teams competing for the national title (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana State, and Utah were the other five), only the Crimson Tide (49.325) surpassed the Gym Dogs’ mark in the event, although the Gators matched it.
The Red and Black’s 49.425 on the bars was the best tally chalked by any participating squad. The Bulldog gymnasts posted a 49.575 on the floor, surpassing all other scores in that quadrant of the competition. Georgia put up a 49.625 in the vault, for which the next-best score was the Utes’ 49.525.
In the end, despite some early struggles for the Gym Dogs, it was a runaway victory for Coach Yoculan’s final Red and Black team. Georgia came away with a 197.825 score to outpace second-place Alabama (197.575), third-place Utah (197.425), and fellow participants Florida (196.725), Arkansas (196.475), and L.S.U. (196.375).
The congratulations of a grateful Bulldog Nation go out to Suzanne Yoculan, Courtney Kupets, and the Gym Dogs on a glorious run that culminated this evening in the Red and Black’s fifth consecutive national gymnastics championship.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Guess they needed a little more than I said. Glad they rose to the challenge.
Congrats to Coach Yoculan and the Gym Dogs!
Guess the strategy of making T-shirts in advance doesn't work...
And here I was planning to make “Georgia Bulldogs 2009 SEC/National Champs” shirts to win us a football title. Must be more to it than that. Go Gym Dogs!!
A well-deserved final stanza
Congratulations to Coach Yoculan and the incredibly talented Gym Dogs on another dominant season. I can think of no better way for Georgia’s most successful atheletics coach in any sport (if you’re counting national championships) to go out than with a string of 5 straight national championships.
I remember back in the mid ’90’s, when I was in college, there were editorials being written about how Coach Yoculan was too “edgy.” She “pushed the envelope” too much, and she had a personality that wasn’t “genial” enough. She was repeatedly compared unfavorably to Sarah Patterson at Alabama, who purportedly “did it the right way.”
No one is making those unfavorable comparisons now… winning 7 national championships since that time (and, obviously, 10 overall) will tend to shut your critics up.
Congratulations, Coach Yoculan… enjoy your well-deserved retirement.
One other point about "doing it the right way"
Suzanne Yoculan’s gymnasts remain loyal to her. If I am not mistaken, no gymnast of hers has ever transferred out of the program.
Furthermore, in a sport in which competition begins at a very young age for most of the participants, there is a great deal of psychological pressure applied to these girls, many of whom adopt very unhealthy dietary habits in pursuit of a physical appearance which simply is not natural.
Coach Yoculan was praised in a book-length expose of women’s gymnastics which excoriated some well-known coaches but credited our gymnastics coach for creating a healthy environment for the women she coached. Take a look at the Georgia gymnasts . . . while many of them are petite, they look like what they are, healthy college-aged women.
Yes, Coach Yoculan spoke her mind, much as Steve Spurrier has always done. However, Coach Yoculan (much like the Evil Genius) may say things that are impolite, but she never says anything that isn’t true . . . and, unlike Darth Visor, she backed it up at least as well late in her career as she did at the beginning.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Apr 19, 2009 12:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Congrats to Coach Yoculan and the Gym Dogs
It really wasn’t much of a competition this season, as UGA was head and shoulders above everyone else in the nation. Coach Y was smarter than Spurrier in that she knew when to retire….she is losing her 3 time all-around national champion (Kupets) – who isn’t a 4-time individual national champion only because she was injured one season.
It will be interesting to see if the rest of the field can catch up to UGA next season…remember that the sport has only been around since 1982 and only 4 schools have won all the national titles to date.
That's a good point
The other noteworthy datum is that the balance of power has shifted eastward and southward. There was a time when Utah was the dominant power in the sport and U.C.L.A. wasn’t far behind. Now, U.C.L.A. and Utah are marginal entrants at the elite level; the two teams tied for third place in the second preliminary session, and had to go to a tiebreaker to decide which of them would advance to the Super Six.
The other five teams in the Super Six were S.E.C. squads, including longtime powers Georgia and Alabama, as well as emerging programs Florida and Arkansas. The S.E.C. is by far the toughest league in the land in women’s gymnastics—-even this supremely talented and well-coached Gym Dog squad couldn’t make it through unscathed—-and there is no reason to believe that will change anytime soon, no matter how many premature T-shirt purchases they make out in Salt Lake City. Georgia may take a step back next season, but there’s no particular reason to believe the N.C.A.A. championship trophy won’t remain in a warm climate a year from now.
Go 'Dawgs!
I agree....plus
to see just how dominant the SEC is in the sport, consider that only 7 SEC schools field gymnastics teams. Of those 7, five of them made the Super 6. That’s remarkable. Alabama is one of the nation’s premier programs, yet finished 2-4 in SEC competition during the regular season!
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