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NU gymnastics faces mortality
GYMNASTICS from page 1
including Nebraska’s, remain.
“And I’d say realistically there is
only 10 teams year in and year out
that have a chance to win anything,”
Allen said. “There just isn’t enough
resources and support anymore in
college athletics for men’s gymnas
tics.”
For proof of the sport’s potential
death, one needs only to consider the
fate of Brigham Young University,
one of the top six programs in the
country. /✓ —--—
The team is one
of six contending
for the national
title this weekend,
and is having what
BYU 13-year
Coach Mako
Sakamoto calls
arguably its finest
season. It is a pro
gram on the rise.
On April Fool’s
Day this year, the
team was practic
ing in the middle of
the day, gearing up
for the NCAA
West Regional, which they would be
hosting in Provo, Utah, in nine days.
Into the gym walked BYU
Athletic Director Rondo Fehlberg,
along with his assistants and the vice
president of the university.
“We got really excited,” said
BYU All-American Guard Young,
one of the nation’s top gymnasts.
“We thought they were coming to
congratulate us on our season and
wish us luck for the regional.
“They told us they were dropping
the program after next season. They
didn’t give us any solid answers.”
“It was just a shock,” Sakamoto
said. “We had a strong program
*-• going. Financially, the school isn’t
suffering. We just couldn’t figure out
why. We still can’t.”
Unfortunately, it was no April
Fool’s joke.
“You look at the whole scope of
things, and they were right in the
thick of it,” Allen said. “They were
moving up from the sixth best team
in the country to the fifth best to
fourth, and so on. It’s a crime what
happened to them.”
Somebody has to go
It is a trend that doesn’t seem to
stop, and the answers why aren’t hard
to find.
“I think Title IX has a lot to do
with (the decline),” Allen said.
Title IX is a piece of federal leg
islation enacted in 1972 requiring
gender equity within athletic depart
The reason why this is
such a great sport and
great event is that
pound for pound,
gymnasts are the best
athletes we have.”
Bill Byrne
NU athletic director
ments. Essentially, it demands more
scholarships for female athletic pro
grams and more female sports,
meaning some male scholarships,
and inevitably teams, must be
dropped.
As a result, many of the 100
men’s gymnastic programs that
existed in the late 1970s have been
cut.
Somebody has to go on the chop
ping blocks for athletic departments
to make ends meet financially,
because most can’t
- support the 24
men’s and women’s
sports teams like
NU can. That
“somebody” has
primarily been
wrestling and
men’s gymnastics.
Penn State has
been a powerhouse,
winning nine
national champi
onships in the
sport. Head Coach
Randy Jepson
knows all about
being at the short
end of the stick.
Before he came to Penn State, he
coached at the University of
Oregon’s program. It was discontin
ued in 1981 because of Title IX.
“What was intended and what we
have seen is more parity in college
athletics at the expense of men’s pro
grams,” Jepson said.
“We have a lot of dedicated ath
letes in the sport who deserve the
same opportunities as the bigger
sports do,” said Stanford Head
Coach Sado Hamara, who has seen it
all in his 27 years of coaching.
“A 5-foot-1 gymnast should get
just as much opportunity to perform
as a 7-foot-1 basketball player. I felt
kind of sad when I heard about
(BYU). When you read the NCAA
manual, one of the first things it talks
about is the equal opportunity it
gives all athletes of both genders in
all sports to compete. I’m not sure if
it’s doing that for everybody. The
minor sports are hurting.”
Nebraska Athletic Director Bill
Byrne finds this situation to be a
tragedy. Much like his predecessor
Bob Devaney, Byrne Has been a
staunch supporter of gymnastics, as
evidenced by his commitment to
bringing the NCAAs back to
Lincoln.
“The reason why this is such a
great sport and great event is that
pound for pound, gymnasts are the
best athletes we have,” Byrne said.
“Gymnasts best exemplify what
the word student-athlete is all about.
They always have the best academic
record and always work just as hard
as the other programs. We need to
support gymnastics and hold the
meet here because we’re not going to
let the sport die.”
Not letting go
United States Olympic
Committee Executive Director Dick
Schultz, who was the keynote speak
er at Wednesday’s NCAA Nissen
Awards banquet, which honored the
top gymnasts and coaches in the
nation, remembered when the sport
almost hit rock bottom.
It was 1997. The sport was about
to take a fatal blow because of a 1994
NCAA rule that required a sport to
have a minimum of 40 member insti
tutions in order to hold an NCAA
Championship.
Men s gym
nastics was well
below that number.
It was at about 27
said Schultz. “The
USOC created an
$8 million fund
that would go to the
athletic confer
ences over a four
year period. It was
a lever to lobby col
lege presidents to
pass legislation to
guarantee that col
lege gymnastics
would be saved.”
It worked. The
NCAA adopted at
its 1997 convention an Olympic
exception,” which exempted
Olympic sports, such as gymnastics,
from meeting the minimum institu
tional requirement.
But although the sport was saved,
not all of its programs were. BYU is
evidence of that. So is the University
of New Mexico, which recently
announced it will drop its program
after this season.
Allen believes only the “biggies,”
whose athletic department’s pockets
are deep enough to fund the sport,
will ever get a chance to compete in
the event that has converged in
Lincoln.
“We’ve gone around and talked,
to some of the more powerful
schools about what they’re going to
do,” Allen said. “Schools like NU,
Oklahoma and Ohio State are going
to fight to the bitter end to save this
sport.”
Survival of the fittest
So what keeps the schools that
are still going strong, the lucky few,
from falling off the deep end? Byrne,
44
Schools like NU,
Oklahoma and
Ohio State are going
to fight to the
bitter end to save
this sport ”
Francis Allen
NU gymnastics
who knows very well the economics
of college athletic departments, had a
very direct answer.
“They fill football stadiums,”
Byrne said. “Look at the six teams
here: Nebraska, Michigan, Penn
State, Ohio State, Stanford, BYU. All
top football teams. They’re able to
benefit from their football teams’
profits. It’s all they can do.”
One of those schools, Ohio State,
has remained strong, ranking No. 2
in the nation this season and winning
the title in 1996.
It’s hard to imagine that athletes
in a “minor” sport could “amaze”
someone like Archie Griffin, the
only man ever to win college foot
ball’s Heisman Trophy twice - in
1974 and 1975.
But that’s exactly what OSU’s
gymnasts have always done for
Griffin - since he
played football
there, himself, and
especially when he
became the
Associate Athletic
Director for mar
keting and fund
raising in 1987.
Griffin is now
the associate ath
letic director at
OSU, overlooking
17 sports - includ
ing men’s gymnas
tics - and serves as
a member of the
NCAA Men’s
Gymnastics
r nmmittpp
“We are not in the mode of drop
ping sports at Ohio State,” Griffin
said. “We think adding these minor
sports is healthy. It’s a big university.
We feel we should have big pro
grams.
“(Gymnastics) is a sport that
we’re proud of. Gymnasts are proto
type student-athletes. They do things
I’d never attempt to do out there.
You’re watching outstanding, well
tuned athletes.”
- And in the end, if programs such
as Ohio State and Nebraska fail to
fight off extinction, it’s those ath
letes, the ones who dedicate their
lives to their sport whp will lose the
most. ■ *
“You look at what happened in
Colorado the last couple days and
wonder where those kids would be if
they had opportunities that being a
student-athlete can provide,” Jepson
said.
“These gymnasts are future hus
bands, fathers, leaders of this nation.
The more opportunities we lose for
people like them, the more things
like that will happen in this country.”
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