Kondos' Korner
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 five 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 six years alone, Kondos Field has led UCLA to three NCAA titles and one runner-up finish, five Regional titles and three Pac-10 championships.

March 18, 2002

As my brother so simply stated, "What kind of a sport is it when you lose to a team, but move ahead of them in the national rankings?" It's called collegiate gymnastics.

We had a great trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama this past weekend. Our goals were to:

• Come out of the meet as healthy as we went in.
• Give our student-athletes who aren't in our projected Championship meet starting line-up, an opportunity to compete one last time so that they can be fully prepared to replace someone if needed.
• Post a high score to help us move up in the national rankings. This will hopefully serve to keep us on the west coast for Regionals (the first round of Nationals).
• Compete with calm confidence, understanding that this is where we will be competing for the National Championship title in another five weeks.

Our goals were fully accomplished, including moving into the #1 spot in the national rankings. I did hear a lot of grumbling, though, from the Alabama fans who were sorry that they didn't get to see Onnie Willis and Jamie Dantzscher compete on floor. It was nice to go in without our strongest line-up and still score a 197 (as we did a few weeks ago up in Washington).

The highlight of the meet was seeing Kristin Parker come back and compete in the all-around for the first time in six weeks. She not only hit all four events, but she hit each routine to the best of her ability.

We've got a full week ahead of us. Our student-athletes are in finals this week, and we leave on Thursday for the Pac-10 Championships up at Stanford.

If any of you are on the fence about whether to make it to Pac-10's … I will not only guarantee you a GREAT competition, but our parents, families and die-hard fans have planned a root-tootin' gym-dandy of a time, starting with a tailgate barbeque a few hours before the meet.

Pac-10 Championship competition starts at 6:00 pm in Maples Pavilion.

As our team says, NO OUTS, NO DOUBTS, NO EXCUSES!

See you there!

- Miss Val