Weekly diary by Valorie Kondos Field, head coach for UCLA's women's gymnastics team.
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Note: With three NCAA titles in six years, UCLA head coach Valorie Kondos Field has positioned her Bruins as the premier program in collegiate gymnastics. Not only has she consistently recruited the top talent in the world, but she has produced the results. In the past seven years alone, Kondos Field has led UCLA to three NCAA titles and one runner-up finish, six Regional titles and four Pac-10 championships.
Feb. 18, 2003
It was nice to be able to put up a first-string line-up away from home and see how we fare. (We haven't been able to do this since Utah, due to nagging ankle issues with Jamie Dantzscher, Yvonne Tousek and Onnie Willis).
When I got to my hotel room in Arizona, I turned on the television and SportsCenter was on. The first thing I heard was, "The mark of a good team is one that can play well on the road." For a moment I thought SportsCenter was talking about the UCLA Gymnastics upcoming meet in Arizona. Of course, it was a comment about a basketball team, but still, it hit home.
It's hard to find that synergetic spark on the road that most teams feel automatically when competing at home. It's not something that a team can "hope" will be there but something a team has to "create". What I have to keep reminding myself about our team is that just because they aren't hooting and hollering (or "hootin' and hollerin' " as my husband would say) that doesn't mean they aren't focused and ready to get the job done. On a whole, we are more of a "Quiet Storm" type of team - less outward physical shows of enthusiasm and more of an "O.K. we nailed that event, now let's move on to the next." I greatly respect the fact that our athletes, for the most part, are able to maintain a steady emotional trek through an entire competitive event, rather than allowing the highs and lows of performances to dictate their composure.
Are far as getting back to training this week, we feel great that we went into Arizona State, hit all of our sets, 26 for 26 routines (counting exhibitions) and continued to make small improvements on routines. What's equally exciting is that we feel we still haven't peaked. We have some choreography changes that we are hoping will make some skills more aesthetic and offer less chance for deduction, we're hoping to get Doni Thompson into the bar line up soon, and, after this coming home meet on Sunday, we will have a much-needed weekend off before we head to Michigan.
Until next week,
miss val