After the 1992 gymnastics season, when Utah State was pretty good but had an awful outing on beam at the NCAA Midwest Regional to cut the Aggie postseason short, coach Ray Corn did something he later wished he hadn't.
Oddly, it is paying dividends now.With his Spring 1992 recruiting class, "I took a gamble I would probably never do again," says Corn. He signed four members of the Australian Olympic team. Only one of them ever made it to USU, Jane Warrilow, a fine gymnast but one whose body was too weary to remain long in the sport. The others never left Australia due to injury and coaching and medical-school opportunities.
The benefit came in the 1994 recruiting class.
Corn had all those Aussie scholarships available again and picked up Deanna Palmer, Shannon Passe, Beth Neilson and Jennifer Crawford. "By recruiting those four individuals, the rebuilding process began," Corn says. Now, as seniors, those four are the core of a record-setting 1997 team that is undoubtedly USU's best in its 20 years of gymnastics, all under Corn.
As they await Saturday's 1997 NCAA Midwest Regional at Utah that determines who goes to mid-April's NCAA Championships at Florida, the Aggies hold the NCAA's No. 11 ranking and fourth region seed, behind second-ranked Utah, No. 7 Arizona State and No. 8 Nebraska and ahead of No. 13 BYU and No. 17 Denver.
USU has ranked as high as ninth. On March 1, the Aggies scored a school-record 197.225, in an away meet, that puts them in select company - only seven other teams have hit 197 in '97.
For the last two seasons, Corn had potentially his best team. In '97, "We lived up to the billing of best-ever, most-exciting, but we've been inconsistent. It's a very young team," he says.
In January, Corn saw a "spunk" that he hadn't seen since 1991, when USU made its only NCAA finals appearance, finishing 12th. "The most important thing is have a group of young ladies so committed they won't say no." They're uncommonly devoted to every detail: scholastics, running, weight-lifting, aerobic workouts - "The things that (usually) make my year a little trying," Corn says.
Not this year. Those four seniors see to that.
They were the start.
The '95 recruiting class contributed Emily Swank and Melisa Torres to the current team, and the '96 and '97 classes brought in quality athletes like Amber Jamison, Jessica Porter and freshman Christy Denson. (Porter, 39.175 best, is out for the season; she had surgery Thursday for torn posterior cruciate ligaments in both knees from a March 6 accident in practice.)
Corn credits boosters for the '96/'97 recruits. "A very strong booster organization allowed me to go out with more money to recruit Jamison, Porter and Denson," he says. "We were able to get better kids."
USU started the season with six freshmen and five sophomores, so there have been trying moments. It flopped at Utah after pushing the Utes for three events in Logan, and it didn't do well against BYU or at last weekend's Big West championships (second). But it scored 196.025 at home against Southern Utah and 195.550 in losing at Michigan, both without Porter.
"We can do it at home and on the road," Corn says. "We just have to stay on the equipment. That's where youth and inexperience show. When we're comfortable in an arena, we can do it, but the littlest thing throws us off-kilter."
That means there's no way to know how USU should do in the regional. Only the five region winners automatically advance to the NCAA finals. The rest of the 12-team field is determined solely by the seven next-highest regional scores.
"We're going to have to strut our stuff," Corn says. "My team is going to have to be relaxed, focused and determined to execute." He doesn't fret that USU had falls at Utah earlier or that it didn't win the Big West last week. The Ags have followed off meets with good ones.
"We've been led all year by our seniors," he says. "They've done a great job of commandeering and taking control of this team. On the floor in competition, they're instructing, they're coaching, they're calming, they're psyching up."
Young all-arounders Jamison and Denson also lead. With Porter hurt, Swank and Torres and freshman Marla Loews stepped up. "There are a lot of little stories like that that have proven to be the strength of this program," Corn says.
In other words, it really is a team, and soon Corn will know if it's a team of Aggie destiny.