Stanford landed yet again a strong recruiting class, and for the third straight year, the defending champs will own the NCAA's top list of signees. Junior National Team standouts Colt Walker and Jeremy Bischoff sit at the top of that list, along with Brandon Nguyen. Walker swept the trifecta of major Junior titles in 2019, winning the U.S. Championships, JO Nationals (JE) and Winter Cup. He will be joining [...more]
The NCAA's recent decision to start the process to enhance name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities was a response to overwhelming calls for change. Having been a big college sports fan my whole life, this news is both alarming and acceptable. This process will not be easy, and will require much thought and vetting to avoid unintended consequences. The amount of money generated over the past few decades has already dramatically changed [...more]
After having 48 hours to fully digest a great two-day competition, a glaring term came to mind, which became the overarching theme -- Team Building. Sure, Sam Mikulak won by over 5 points. So what? It wasn't vintage Sam, it was neo vintage Sam. He's now performing at a higher level than he ever has, and that has a lot to do with his good health and highly palpable confidence level. The Team needs that. However, fans need to be reminded that the top 5 gymnasts [...more]
Sam Mikulak won his 6th U.S. Men's Gymnastics title in grand fashion. His 12-for-12 performance catapulted him to some of the highest all-around scores in the world this year. Mikulak (86.75/87.40) was dominant with 5 top-4 scores, including the top prizes on FX, PH, PB and HB). He is the U.S. program's undisputed leader, and is at the top of his game doing the best gymnastics of his [...more]
Sam Mikulak looked clean, crisp and confident in practically running away from a strong field in Day 1 of the U.S. Championships. Mikulak posted the top scores on FX (14.65), PB (15.35) and HB (14.20) en route to the day's highest AA score (86.75). He had five top-4 scores in all, including the 2nd highest tally on PH (14.75). Behind him is a virtual logjam for the next four spots. Yul Moldauer (84.00) put up three top-4 scores on FX, PB and HB for a [...more]
The 2019 Men's JO Nationals concluded with Sunday's Level 8 (JO) and Level 10 (JO) competition. Five new national all-around champions were crowned -- One from the single-day level 8 contest, and four from the two-day level 10 competition. It was a great four days of gymnastics, and it punctuated the outstanding state of our [...more]
JO Nationals Day 3 featured all of the JE Division finals (technical sequences). The level 10 competition featured several NCAA Men's Gymnastics signees, and was a qualifier for the U.S. Championships in August. Two Texans, Colt Walker and Asher Hong, ended the day with the top scores of all the age divisions. Hong, the 2018 Winter Cup Junior champ, earned the first of what will likely be many appearances he will be making at the U.S. Championships. It was his third JE national title. As for Walker, [...more]
When I was first asked to write this post, I thought it would be pretty easy. Still on a second-hand high from the competition Saturday night, I tried putting pen to paper. I started and deleted several times. Drafted several different approaches. I even restarted watching the stream of the competition to try and get back into that state of mind. It gets really easy to try and finesse a narrative that puts a bow on the entire season, ties up all loose ends. And going into this meet, it seemed like it was going to be relatively open and shut, even saying that as a Stanford alum. However, the beauty of sports is that nothing is ever as it seems, [...more]
Stanford was down 4.4 points going into the final rotation, but they plowed ahead and posted their highest team SR score of the season (71.131) to win their first NCAA Men's Gymnastics title since 2011. Oklahoma seemed to have a comfortable margin going into their HB rotation. After all, they are the top-ranked team on that event. But things didn't go their way, as they ended up about 3 points below their season average (66.065). That is all Stanford needed to pull off the incredible feat. "The Streak" of four straight NCAA team titles is [...more]
Oklahoma exceeded their season scoring average by over a point, posting team scores of 70-plus on four events to run away with the evening qualifying session. The Sooners (419.191) romped over host Illinois (410.324), Penn State (404.287), Iowa (400.39), Ohio State (399.754) and Army (383.855) to easily become the day's top qualifying team. It was quite a feat to top their season average in the post season, especially with Yul Moldauer competing on only three events. No doubt Coach Mark Williams would likely be happy with a team score of [...more]
