Gym Dogs Finish in Fourth-Place Tie at Nationals in What Ought to be Jay Clark's Last Meet at Georgia
by T Kyle King on Apr 15, 2011 4:30 PM EDT
in Georgia Bulldogs Gymnastics
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PrintWe had trained so well since Regionals and had a great day in here yesterday. It was a bad day to have a bad day. We started out a little lackluster on bars, then went to beam and sort of surfboarded our way through it. At that point we still weren’t out of it, but we struggled on floor. It hurts, but I’m proud of the way they persevered this year. They endured a lot throughout the season.
Jay Clark (April 15, 2011)
I know I claimed there would be no recaps before Sunday, but the opening round of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships warranted coverage. The short of it is this: Suzanne Yoculan never failed to make a Super Six after that format was introduced; Jay Clark has never taken his gymnasts to a Super Six.
Last year, Georgia failed to make it out of the regional round. This year, after a second-place finish in a regional meet held in Stegeman Coliseum, the Red and Black advanced to nationals, where the Gym Dogs finished tied for fourth---that is, tied for next to last---with a cumulative 195.45 score.
Georgia carded a 49.25 in the vault, thanks to marks of 9.85 from Cassidy McComb, 9.875 from Noel Couch, and 9.9 from Lindsey Cheek. On the bars, the Bulldogs managed an overall 49.075, due to McComb’s 9.85 and Kat Ding’s 9.9. However, the Red and Black had no scores above a 9.8 on the beam, stranding the Gym Dogs at 48.7 in the event, and McComb’s 9.9 in the floor exercise could not make up for scores of 9.325, 9.425, and 9.55, leaving the Athenians at 48.425 for that rotation.
The Oklahoma Sooners, coached by K.J. Kindler with the assistance of Tom Haley, finished first with a 196.775 score. The Michigan Wolverines, to whom the Gym Dogs lost on March 12, came in second at 196.7, trailed by the third-place UCLA Bruins, who carded a 196.5. With the aid of their assistant head coach, Chris Waller, the Bruins defeated Georgia in Athens on April 2 to avenge a March 6 loss to the Red and Black in Los Angeles. The Arkansas Razorbacks, to whom the Gym Dogs lost on February 4, tied the Georgia Bulldogs with a 195.45 team tally.
Some may say the expectations for the gymnastics program in Athens are unrealistic. I would tell those people to check out the trophy case in Stegeman Coliseum and shut their mouths; expectations are only unrealistic if they don’t reflect reality, and the reality is that Jay Clark took over a program that had won five straight national championships and drove it straight into the ditch.
No, I didn’t expect him to win five straight national championships, but I certainly expected him to win regionals and make Super Six appearances. When Coach Yoculan left, Georgia was, without a doubt, the finest collegiate women’s gymnastics program in the country; today, under Coach Clark’s stewardship, it is no better than tied for third-best in the conference.
Now is the time for Greg McGarity to apply the lesson he learned from Jeremy Foley: "That which must be done eventually must be done immediately." Does anyone believe that Coach Clark has what it takes to get this program back among the nation’s elite? If no one believes any such thing---and I defy anyone to cite me evidence for the proposition that such a belief is justified---then there is no use in delaying the inevitable.
Jay Clark should be fired. He should be fired now. I don’t mean he should be fired when he gets back to Athens; I mean he should be fired before he gets on the plane in Cleveland. While we wish him well, we need him gone. Today.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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I do sincerely wish Coach Clark the best of luck in the future...
… but he needs to be gone, as you say, today.
Gymnastics scoring...
Just an observation: why bother with high scores, when the final tallies are so close? UGA lost by a whopping 1.325 points, and that’s a disappointment?
Admittedly, I’ve never been a huge gymastics fan, so I don’t fully understand the intricacies of the scoring, but why have scores between 1-10 when a score of a 2 is exremely rare?
I can look at a 48-10 football score, a 78-42 basketball score, or a 9-1 baseball score and know that one team dominated the other, but not in gymnastics. 1.325 points? Is there ever a score like 195 – 89? If not, why not lower the scores?
Since the scores are so incredibly close, isn’t the sport highly subjective? One judge can literally decide the winner from 4th place by one bad decision.
Sure, in football, there can be a bad call, but largely, a 48-10 beatdown was earned. It seems that gymastics (and other sports decided by judges) takes too much power OUT of the athletes and gives it to the judges.
I am bi-winning. I win not only here but also there.
Ha.
I haven’t seen that one. It’s right afer “Bring It On” in my Netflix queue. I suppose a gymast could get a 0, but can a gymanst get a 4.6 or a 7.1? If not, that doesn’t make any sense. Why jump from 0 to the 9s?
I don’t have a problem with judges per se, I only think there needs to be more variance in scoring. For example, I can’t tell that a 9.9 is that much better than a 9.3, but that is a huge, monumental gap in gymnastics.
Why not have a 9.9 and a 3.5 to accomplish the same task? That way I can see a score of 197-189 and know the competition was fiercely close, but a score of 198-79 would be an epic beatdown. From an outside perspective, there is no marked difference between a 196.775 and 195.45. The scores are too similar.
I am bi-winning. I win not only here but also there.
For perspective...
… I’d say you could probably approximate 1 full point in gymnastics to be like 10 points on the football field. So, basically, the Gym Dogs’ deficit would be akin to almost a two-touchdown deficit in football. And that’s just in the first round to see who gets to compete for the national championship tomorrow.
It’s also worth noting that national championship scores are not usually in the 196 range that Oklahoma posted. You usually champions’ scores in the mid-to-upper 197 range, and even 198 on occasion. I would expect that some scores from the second session would reach that range, especially since you’ve got Alabama, Florida, and Utah all competing then. So Georgia’s shortfall when compared to a national championship score would be more like the 3 touchdown range.
(It’s also worth noting that the top 6 scores advance regardless of the session in which you were competing, so even if Georgia had finished third in the session, they might still not have advanced.)
by vineyarddawg on Apr 15, 2011 5:48 PM EDT up reply actions
That's a good analogy, vineyarddawg.
Jman781, you make a good point, but vineyarddawg is right that it’s relative. If you lose a football game by a 13-6 margin, you lost a tight defensive struggle; if you lose a baseball game by the same 13-6 margin, you were beaten pretty soundly.
Because the range of scores in gymnastics generally is from 9.0 to 10.0, the difference between 9.5 and 9.9 is enormous. Reasonable people may differ over the reasonableness of the scoring system, but, given the fairly tight range, decimal places matter immensely.
Go 'Dawgs!
When I was in Atlanta -
I caught a show on Sat afternoon that covered Bulldog Sports. All of them – horses as well. Chuck Dowell talked to our AD about Coach Fox – and it seems he is pleased and new contract renewals are under way. As far as Jay Clarke – it was more nebulous, he said he expectations (I am very loosely remembering now) were so high and the competition now was so much more what it used to be. It gave me the feeling McGarity may keep Jay Clarke around another year. But that was before this last meet. Me thinks our AD does expect more from the program, but me thinks he also has a long view, and hasn’t made a decision yet. Afterall – coach shopping isnt easy.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
Thanks, tankertoad.
That’s some valuable perspective. I don’t expect Greg McGarity to do anything rash, but he spent more of his career studying under Jeremy Foley (who wasted no time pulling the rip cord on Ron Zook) than he did under Vince Dooley (who kept Ray Goff on at least one season too long, and probably two). As for finding a new head coach, anyone who was Foley’s right-hand man throughout a phenomenally successful run of first-rate coaching hires across multiple sports at Florida likely has developed an eye for talent.
Go 'Dawgs!
If you think about it, it is a strange position with our Gym Team:
They won everything for ever. Now we had two bad seasons. Where is the bar to be set at reasonably? Considering the team was loaded, it looks like Jay Clark hasn’t come through. Considering UGA’s gym squad just destroyed the universe forever and now has had a bad year or two, well, it had to happen sometime. I would have no idea who to pick for a gym coach – it certainly has to be very hard.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
Lord knows Tank
UF fans have been the lucky recipients of decisions made by Master Foley and crew. The same crew has hired an unproven HC and a known basket case as an OC. I’m as nervous as a gerbil in a San Francisco pet shop but dammit it’ll be interesting. Every new hire is like handing a monkey a pistol, it’s exciting but…..DUCK!
The same crew has hired an unproven HC and a known basket case as an OC.
Thats awesome. Does that mean we get to win this year?
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
HA HA! You're funny!
Ah, tankertoad. What a funny guy.
by vineyarddawg on Apr 16, 2011 2:43 AM EDT up reply actions
A Dawg win?
Roll your own bones on that one Kemosabe. Right now I’m just not feeling all that wise and perky.
The talent isn’t there. Suzanne knew that. That’s why she left. And she left the program barren. Whether or not she stayed, UGA was set to go through a few rough years.
Injuries plagued the team and they still made it back to regionals. This team has a third of the talent Suzanne’s teams had and they made nationals. Instead of firing Jay, start revoking scholarships. Tanella? Gone. Breazeal? Goodbye. Hell, I’d get rid of Shayla. Girls a headcase. This team has one girl with any legitamate talent. And you can’t expect Kat Ding to cover up the rest of the mess.
Bottom line, you don’t fire Jay after two years. You give him 4 minimum. Unless they miss nationals next year.
I don't know why we have to keep reiterating the following points...
… but apparently we do.
- Coach Yoculan, in every single year of her tenure, managed to take the program to a top-6 finish at the NCAA championships. Surely the talent level in at least one of her 25 years at the helm was equivalent to the talent level we’ve had for the past 2 years?
- If the talent level has truly sunk so low that our current group of girls are the least-talented group we’ve ever had, then the person to blame for that shortfall is Jay Clark. Coach Clark was the recruiting coordinator for the final 11 years of Yoculan’s tenure. If the scouting and/or recruiting skill at Georgia has declined so precipitously that it is now barely in the top half of the SEC, then we can not only label Jay Clark a failure as head coach, but a failure in his final 3 or 4 years as an assistant, too.
I hold no personal malice towards Coach Clark, and I wish for him a speedy job search and great success wherever he coaches next… but he cannot be allowed to keep dragging the Georgia gymnastics program down to the levels at which it is now mired.
by vineyarddawg on Apr 16, 2011 3:01 AM EDT up reply actions
Precisely.
I understand your point, SuppaDuppa, but vineyarddawg is right: Jay Clark recruited every single one of these players. If you’re right, he’s a poor recruiter and a poor head coach; I think he’s just a poor head coach, but, if he can’t land talent and can’t coach the talent he has, he certainly needs to go.
Personally, I suspect Coach Clark will be given another year. It was clear by the fifth game of the 1993 season that Ray Goff didn’t have what it took to be a head coach in the SEC; he got two more years before being fired. Ron Zook got two years before being fired in his third. I put Jay Clark in that category, and I think he (regrettably) gets a third year.
Go 'Dawgs!
As we discussed -
the AD gave me the gut feeling Jay Clark gets another year as well.
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
As the WWE says when they fire someone...
“We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Know thy enemy...
Want to point out an error in one of the above comments...
The top six teams overall do not advance; it IS the top three from each session.
Oh, whoops... my bad.
I apologize for the confusion. Those responsible for this error have been sacked.
by vineyarddawg on Apr 16, 2011 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions
When do you blame the coach as opposed to the athletes?
All the coach can do is recruit top gymnasts and put them in a position to win a championship. The coach is then only a cheerleader or a fan like the rest of us. The Gators were even more disappointing than UGA this season. We were ranked #1 virtually the entire season. We then failed to win the SEC title, barely squeaked out 2nd in the regional and then fell on our faces in the NCAAs. So we had a team talented enough to win our first sanctioned national title, yet won absolutely nothing
Do I think we need to fire Rhonda Faehn? Absolutely not. Coach Faehn just signed the top gymnast in the nation (who will defer until 2012 to concentrate on making the US Olympic Team to compete in London). Our team is stacked with plenty of talen to win a national title, yet can’t seem to get over the hump. They staged in intrasquad meet before the NCAAs and every girl was sticking every routine. Then when it counted, we fell off the beam left and right and were out of it after the first rotation. I think our time will come.
Several coaches said the same thing – that the sport has so much talent and paity now that it takes more than a chmpionship effort now to win it. More than one of the coaches said you needed some magic as well (or stars to align, etc.). Coach Yoculan was apparently a magician in this regard because her teams always captured the magic at the right time. You may never capture that again – maybe something to consider before you start ripping through multiple coaches trying to pull the next rabbit out of the hat….
whatever -
UGA should win every national title every year forever.
(I now sound like either a UF fan or Bama fan).
"One thing I will never do as long as I’m at Georgia is lose to Florida." - Herschel Walker
by tankertoad on Apr 17, 2011 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I appreciate what you're saying, skigator93, but you have to look at these things in context.
Barry Switzer liked to brag that he had a higher winning percentage than Jimmy Johnson as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, but Coach Johnson inherited a franchise on the skids and Coach Switzer was handed the keys to the most successful team in the NFL. Rhonda Faehn clearly has taken Florida gymnastics to a level well above that it had occupied prior to her arrival; Ron Zook, by contrast, was no worse than an average Gator football coach, and was more successful than most, but he took over from Steve Spurrier, who had made the program in Gainesville the most dominant in the conference. The drop-off from Suzanne Yoculan was at least as immediate and stark as the plummet from Coach Spurrier to Coach Zook. Was Jeremy Foley too quick on the trigger in that instance?
I’m not talking about trying to restore Coach Yoculan’s level of dominance; I’m talking about being in the hunt. Alabama, Florida, UCLA, and Utah are in the mix every year; Arkansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma aren’t far behind. Two years ago, Georgia was at the head of the class; now, Georgia lags behind and cannot compete with the top squads in the country. No one’s talking about firing a head coach every two years until we win five straight national titles again; we’re talking about being at the level of teams that are in contention as a matter of course. The Gators are working hard to get to the level we occupied two years ago; don’t begrudge us our willingness to fire our gymnastics version of Ron Zook in an effort to get it back.
Go 'Dawgs!
Hear hear.
And for the record, I think Florida should fire Rhonda Faehn. Not that I have any rooting interest in that statement at all. No. Of course not.
by vineyarddawg on Apr 18, 2011 10:32 AM EDT up reply actions
Jay must stay!
A few weeks ago at a charity auction for my daughters’ school, I purchased a Gymdogs VIP package incuding 6 tickets to a meet next season, pre-meet dinner & speaker, plus a bunch of other assorted items. I am concerned that a firing may nullify my purchase!!
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