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.
January 27, 2003
The fourth week of our competition season threw us a bit of a curve. However, we came out of it wiser and stronger. Starting to feel the little nagging injuries of the season, we did not compete all of our first-string this last meet at Oregon State. And, for the second time this season, I was unable to make the trip with our team.
(A dear family member is seriously ill, and my brother and I chose to go to Northern California to spend time with her.)
My coaching staff and I felt comfortable with the line-up we chose to compete at Oregon State, feeling that we could continue our win streak. Due to uncharacteristic falls on balance beam, we lost the meet by a small margin. From everything our team and coaches have told me, Oregon State did a great job and deserved to win the competition.
What has been most interesting is the overview by some of our student-athletes who called me after the meet. Every one of them is simply "mad" - they are feeling that they could have won with the line-up we had and continued the streak. Every one of them said, "We learned a lot about our team" and elaborated on different dynamics of the meet and their teammates.
A few of the common comments from fellow teammates were: "Kate (Richardson) is amazing." "Jeanette Antolin is a competitive animal. We can ALWAYS count on her." "It was great to see Holly (Murdock) compete on bars and beam. Even though she fell on beam, you could tell she was totally into the competition, and her falls were a fluke." "Malia (Jones) rocked beam after the teammate before her fell twice." "We are so mad Miss Val - this is only going to make us stronger."
Well, alrighty then. Just what a coach likes to hear. No excuses. No wondering "why". It's as simple as not letting it happen again.
We're hoping to get Jamie Dantzscher and Onnie Willis back in the all-around line-up this weekend for our next home competition. Both are nursing ankle injuries. We are also hoping to compete Holly Murdock for the first time in Pauley Pavilion. Not only is she a great competitor, but her family is coming from Northern Ireland this week. (Holly is still getting back into gymnastics competitive shape from her knee injury this past summer.)
Some GREAT news: We have already sold 85% of the tickets in Pauley Pavilion for PAC-10's - Saturday, March 29th @ 6:00pm. If you haven't purchased your tickets yet - PLEASE DO! I'm not sure how many reserved seats are available, considering we have to hold 100 for each of the seven teams attending.
For our staff and team ... it will be a week of debriefing, re-grouping and re-charging. I just need to make sure that I don't keep a permanent Jon Gruden face on - that would be bad for all of the wrinkle-free face cream I use.
Go Bruins - grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Until next week,
miss val