BOISE — Gymnastics coaches don't much like to talk about the opponents in public or to their teams, mainly because it's a sport in which nobody plays defense, so it doesn't matter so much what the others do, just what their team does.
But Georgia coach Suzanne Yoculan, whose team is two-time defending NCAA champion and went into this afternoon's team preliminaries looking for more hardware, says that since Georgia lost three times this season to Alabama, "if we could double-team Andree Pickens, we would."
Pickens is the fourth-ranked all-arounder in the country, a sophomore at Alabama.
As always, Yoculan was the life of the party at Wednesday's press conference that kicked off the 2000 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships, which began this afternoon at the Boise State University Pavilion.
Georgia, Alabama, Utah, BYU, Louisiana State and Oregon State competed in Thursday's 1 p.m. preliminaries. Competing in Session 2 of the prelims at 7 p.m. are UCLA, Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State, Iowa State and West Virginia. The top three teams from each session Thursday advance to Friday night's Super Six national championships. The individual event finals are Saturday night, though the individual all-around title will be decided by Thursday's sessions.
Yoculan annually tries to pin some pressure on Utah and coach Greg Marsden. Utah and Georgia are the two most successful teams ever, Utah winning 10 national championships, nine of them since the NCAA sanctioned the sport, and Georgia has won five titles, though UCLA and Michigan are favored in this championships.
Yoculan interrupted Ute senior Denise Jones, who was addressing the media, saying, "I think Utah is a team that can win it all because of the injuries," referencing Utah's three season-ending injuries and a season-ending illness that has left the Utes with little reserves. Georgia won the 1999 championship despite four season-ending injuries. Hence, Yoculan's comments.
"You saw that last year with Georgia," Yoculan continued.
"I'm not saying that as a joke," she quickly insisted. "What happened to Georgia last year is almost a mirror image of what's happened to Utah (this year), and it really does make a team compete at a higher level and so much stronger."
NEWCOMER: Meanwhile, the newest team to ever participate at the NCAAs, Iowa State, is wondering just what to expect. Coach Amy Pyle shuddered thinking about the regional meet two weeks ago at Alabama, where there was tremendous crowd noise while 'Bama was on bars and the Cyclones were on balance beam. "It was like, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't even think. How can my athletes think?' They didn't wobble at all, so maybe it's better being super loud."
Cyclone senior Kelli Moore, who's from Nebraska, was just impressed to see some of Idaho's varied terrain. "Anything without flat land, for me, is great."
LOVE-IN: Several of the coaches gushed praise on Boise. The Bronco team didn't qualify for nationals, making this the first totally neutral site since Minnesota in 1992 (when Utah won and Missy Marlowe took all-around, bars, beam and floor championships), which makes it nice for some coaches.
But UCLA coach Valorie Kondos went far beyond that, calling Boise State her "dream job."
"It's our most-favorite place to go," Kondos said, citing friendly townspeople, mountains and outdoors availability, plus ballet and other theater arts available here.
Noting the area's neutrality, Kondos added, "If Boise fans would like to adopt a team, we are open to that." The Idaho Statesman newspaper ran a story Wednesday talking about how Kondos offered to adopt Bruin senior Lena Degteva, a Russian whose family moved to Ontario, Canada. Degteva talked about how she didn't feel like she belonged anywhere and said Kondos tried to adopt her but found out people over age 18 can't be adopted.
On the Bruins, Kondos said, "It's my 18th season. It's my most rewarding season, and we haven't even competed (in the NCAAs) yet."
"I haven't been in college gymnastics for 18 years like Val," said UCLA senior Heidi Moneymaker, "but this is the best year of my four."