Maile O’Keefe paused for a brief moment, took a significant breath, and then the words came out.
Each one was measured and said with purpose.
Words like “hectic” and “crazy” plus the phrase “emotional turmoil.”
“Something about this year feels like really different. It’s really special. I can get goosebumps talking about it.” — Utah gymnast Jaedyn Rucker
That was how O’Keefe, the reigning NCAA all-around champion and one of, if not the face of the 2023-24 Red Rocks, described the last few months inside the University of Utah’s women’s gymnastics program.
Fellow fifth-year senior Abby Paulson described the time from late summer to early December as “a roller coaster of emotions.”
“A lot of ups and downs, a lot of unknowns,” she said. “Pretty much the entire time we never knew what was gonna happen.”
Or, as Jaedyn Rucker, the third of Utah’s fifth-year seniors put it, “It’s been pretty hard, as you could imagine.”
Beginning in July, when the University of Utah commissioned the law firm Husch Blackwell to review its gymnastics program after allegations of verbal and emotional abuse were made by former gymnasts and parents against head coach Tom Farden — as first reported by the Deseret News — uncertainty has been the prevailing theme for Utah’s gymnasts.
Uncertainty about what would happen if or when Farden was no longer a part of the program — and uncertainty regarding what the team would look like once the 2024 NCAA gymnastics season rolled around.
Most, if not all of those questions have now been answered.
After Utah and Farden mutually agreed to part ways in late November, associate head coach Carly Dockendorf was named the interim head coach of the program.
Dockendorf has since had the interim tag removed and signed a four-year deal to lead the Red Rocks.
The roster has been finalized, too, with 14 gymnasts in total. It is a team that is ranked No. 4 in the country in the WCGA preseason poll and viewed, as usual, as a genuine threat to contend for a national title.
None of that made the last few months any easier, though.
The allegations of abuse by Farden caught O’Keefe by surprise.
“Just because I feel like I’ve been with him for awhile,” O’Keefe noted. “And that’s how I feel. So yeah.”
Paulson said that losing the only head coach she’d had at Utah a month before the start of the season was a significant challenge, even though the university retained Dockendorf and assistant coaches Jimmy Pratt and Myia Hambrick.
“It was a difficult situation no matter what happened,” she said. “Losing your head coach a month before the season is a difficult transition.”
Rucker echoed Paulson’s sentiments and added to them, noting that Farden’s departure was “really, really hard.”
“It was shocking,” she said. “A month before (the season). We were like, ‘What are we going to do?’”
Both O’Keefe and Rucker noted they have relied on some words imparted by Farden to get through the difficult time.
“We’ve kind of gone through is just like thinking, ‘What would Tom want us to do?’ He always had this saying, ‘The sun will rise each day,’ meaning life will continue to move on whether he’s here or not or whatever happened the day prior. So I think that’s kind of the way we’ve gotten through it best, just like thinking about what Tom (would) want us to do. And Tom would want us to put our best foot forward every day.”
Paulson made sure to add that the current Utah gymnasts weren’t silenced when it comes to public discourse about the allegations made against Farden. They simply made a decision to refrain from public comment.
“No one’s silencing us, per se,” she said. “We’ve just kind of collectively decided that we’re going to stay together as a team. Stay in our inner circle and keep anything that you have to yourself. Everyone on the team might be feeling something different and you can’t say one thing that can cover what anybody else is feeling.”
O’Keefe noted that the Red Rocks can’t really change the outside perception of the program, even if they wanted to.
“I think there’s no way to ever repair perception,” she said. “People are going to perceive things the way they want to perceive them. Whether they believe true or they believe false, or whatever. So I think all we’re really doing is trying to stick together as a team, leaning into our coaches and trusting them and trusting each other.”
The decision to come together as a team, all three gymnasts explained, is how they’ve ultimately gotten through the last few months. And in each of their estimations, this year’s team is closer and more united than ever. They hope to their benefit.
“We’re moving together. We’re bonding,” Paulson said. “We’re hoping to use that to our benefit as a team this year.”
Paulson believes the Red Rocks have finally found the missing piece, after finishing third at the national championships the last three years.
“We’ve been super close this year. We’ve gone through a lot together,” she said. “I feel like that’s a big bonding point. Our theme this year is that we had a missing piece. And I think that one (missing) thing is that we weren’t as connected. Truly connected. And this year we’ve had something that we all had to rally around. We’ve bonded through work towards a common goal. That’s something that I think will bring us to the top.”
Rucker took it even further, calling the latest iteration of the Red Rocks “really special.”
“We just bonded over something that was so like, unfortunate for us,” she said. “And it’s just like built our resilience up as a team. Something about this year feels like really different. It’s really special. I can get goosebumps talking about it.”
Dockendorf has noticed the bond as well, albeit at a different level as a coach.
“I think you can see it, with some of their dynamics, though obviously not to the same level as them,” she said. “But you absolutely can see it. You can just see them, their support and their encouragement.”
She added: “It has been such a distracting fall, and for them to still have their gymnastics in the same spot as they would any other year just speaks volumes of how strong they are. I think that they’re ready to showcase their gymnastics. It has been stressful, but now they get to go do what they love and go out and perform in front of 15,000 fans. That’s why they came here, was to do that.”
And compete for championships.
“Despite everything we’re still a really strong team,” Rucker said. “And we’re still coming for that title.”
