North Carolina State University Athletics
Gymnastics Summer Wrap-up
8/17/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
Aug. 17, 2010
GoPack.com: Colleen Johnson returns to the NC State coaching staff this season. Her first stint with the Wolfpack lasted from 2000 to 2004. What does it mean to have her back on staff for the upcoming season?
Head Coach Mark Stevenson: I didn’t want her to go in the first place. The last year she was here we were 14th in the country on beam, and that’s really good. I have ten years left of coaching, if I’m lucky, so I’d like to have the next few years before I stop to be very successful. The last two years we should have been at NCAA Championships. We just weren’t because we missed one event both times, and that was beam. Colleen, as a person and as a coach, she understands getting inside kids heads and making everything work. I watched her take a kid that I never thought would be successful on beam, Kelly Brown, who was a great athlete for us. She found a way to keep Kelly on the beam, and I never thought she’d do beam for us. Those are the things that we need to have happen for us if we want to take that next step.
Assistant Coach Colleen Johnson: I’m really excited to be back, I feel like I’m back home and with a little more experience under my belt. You just learn, at this level, it’s about getting inside their heads, especially on beam, which seems to be the most mental event of the four. They can be prepared to the nines, but if they don’t have the confidence to perform under pressure, that’s when trouble happens. I just hope to bring something to each kid; give them that confidence in themselves so that they can compete under pressure the way they perform in practice. We have a really strong team, from what I was looking at earlier today. I just really hope to be able to assist with Mark and his needs. Getting the girls out into the community is one of my big passions and goals, trying to create a buzz about town.
What do you mean by creating buzz around town?
CJ: Things like bringing the girls to speak to kids, doing demonstrations at special needs schools, or in lower-income areas. Anywhere that gives the girls an opportunity to speak to kids. The kids seem to really like it and it hopefully creates some awareness for NC State. That’s one of the things I hope to be able to bring to the table.
Recently, NC State held it’s annual summer gymnastics camp. What was that experience like this year, and how did the current team get involved?
MS: About half the team worked camp for us during the four one-week sections that we did. The campers ranged from six to 18 years old, coming from all over the country and as far away as Japan. Our girls either coached or counseled. Taylor [Seaman] was the dance instructor. Colleen worked week two, and we brought in two or three college coaches at the camp working with kids. A lot of kids learned a lot of stuff, which was positive. Our kids did a great job this summer. This is our fifth year of camp and the best summer we’ve had for our kids. They were jumping in, participating, being extremely proactive toward helping the kids. They did a phenomenal job.
CJ: It was a very well run camp, when you have a six-year old learning gymnastics all the way up to a 17 year old looking for a college scholarship you have to go from teaching a cartwheel to coaching a really high-element skill. It’s great for the girls on the team to have that experience, coaching so many different levels. For the campers, they really look up to these girls. Now they have a relationship with our team, and that’s the real positive.
MS: They stayed over night in the dorms, had their skit night. The spa night is the one they like the most, because our kids paint their fingernails, put makeup on them, do all that stuff.
CJ: And the funny hair day, the girls on the team really got into it.
What are your expectations heading into the 2010-11 season?
MS: One of our goals is certainly to make NCAAs, we want to be in the top-12 of the country consistently. That’s what we’ve been working for, and the change with Colleen coming in really gave us an opportunity to try to be better in that situation. If we would have stayed on beam, I think we were right on the edge of being there last year. I feel very comfortable walking into the season with Colleen at the helm and doing the choreography.
CJ: This morning I was sitting with Todd [Henry] and looking at some footage of the team from last year. There are some really talented freshmen coming in. I think there’s a lot of potential. When I’ve talked to the girls on the current team, they’re all extremely motivated, they have a lot of heart, and there’s certainly potential there.
MS: I think the staff’s in place for us to be very good now. Todd does a great job recruiting, and Colleen will be helping with that too. She has what it takes on beam. Todd’s proven, on the events that he coaches, that his kids continue to do well under pressure. I really feel strongly that we’re in good shape and moving ahead in the way that we’re supposed to.
You’ve said one of your goals for this season is to increase attendance at NC State meets, have you made any plans on encouraging that growth?
MS: We’re going to do a one-day Christmas camp before our intra-squad meet, so hopefully we’ll get 50 or 60 kids there for camp and then watching the meet so that we have a little bit more of a fan base and some pressure going into that competition. That will be at the last intra-squad in December.
CJ: I think with gymnastics, especially college gymnastics, if you can get them once, you can get them for life. It’s getting them in the stands once, and they say “Oh my gosh! This wasn’t what I thought it was.”
MS: One of the neat things about being in the stands for it, because our stands are so close, is that they actually hear the kids hit. They hear them miss, too, and sometimes that’s the thing that brings people back.
