We arrived at Coleman about an hour before the meet. The teams were already well into their warm-ups. If you have never come early enough to see the warm-up session, you have really missed a treat! The gymnasts are a lot more relaxed and animated than they are during the meet. You also get a chance to see some of the 'gamesmanship' that goes on between the coaches and teams. Now hold on, I'm not talking about 'trash-talking' or anything like that! No, just the way the gymnasts and coaches 'check each other out' and such. Also, it's amazing how true the axiom is that you 'play like you practice'. Some of the things you see in warm-ups, good and bad, have a way of showing up in the meet.

I liked our rotation (bars, beam, bye, floor, vault, bye). Unless I'm wrong, I believe that was our rotation for the Super Six in our last National Championship. I'm quite sure the gymnasts hate it, tho, because you're on the side during the last rotation. They get a chance to see what we go thru having to sit there, helpless, and watch!Just as in the Championship, we had a little adversity on the bars. But this is team gymnastics and those things happen. Bama showed the right way to handle it. If you fall off, all you do is get right back up there and leave the judges nothing but that .5 to take off, then let your teammates pick you up. Bama's bar routines looked in mid-season form, for the most part, altho I'm sure they will add more difficulty as the season progresses.

Our balance beam turned into a bit of an adventure, but I thought we 'toughed it out' fairly well. Since we sit on the balance beam side of the coliseum, we get a birds-eye view of the routines. How the gymnasts can block out the chaos around them and concentrate on that little board I'll never understand!

I liked our music for the next rotation, the floor. Speaking of music, I'm not going to name names, but a couple of the other teams had music that ranged from annoying to awful! (PS: one of them should lose the dying cat sound effect, too.) All the teams appeared to take it a little easy on the floor, even us. Bama, Georgia, and surprising Stanford appeared to be in the best shape. I noticed some' longish' pauses at the end of some tumbling passes, for us and some of the other teams' gymnasts. I took this to mean that in some instances slightly different skills would be inserted later on. I've long thought that Bama and Georgia were two of the best at 'interpreting' the music during their floor routines, and this meet was no exception. Again, an unnamed team seemed to be a member of the 'tumbling with background music' club-always jarring when you're used to better.

This brings me to the vault. I believe that something had to be done about the way the vault was being scored in NCAA gymnastics. In the past, it seemed that some teams were getting too much 'bang for their bucks' with the vault. Also, the skills required for a 10.0 start value have gotten more and more difficult-and dangerous. While this is true for all of the events, it seems to be even more apparent on the vault. Going to just one vault does seem to address these problems, in the sense that you are less likely to try more a difficult vault if you only get one shot at it. And, of course, if you only do one vault, you only have one chance to get hurt! Having said all that, let me go to say that I HATE this rule change. It puts way, way too much importance on the vault in determining the outcome of a meet. Consider that we won this meet by a fraction of a tenth of a point over Stanford, a fraction a tenth of a point that one of the vault judges had only a fraction of a second to decide we deserved. Even the balance beam is more forgiving than that!

Speaking of the balance beam, Salsa (my wife and chief number cruncher) had calculated that Georgia needed a 9.85 from the redoubtable 'Baby Lichey' to tie our total score and the meet. After her dismount, I said, "That looked like a 9.90 to me". Luckily, only one of the judges agreed! I was a little dubious about the 9.8 from the other judge until Salsa reminded me that Lichey, like some of the other Georgia gymnasts, had 'watered down' her routine. In her case, she took out her front-tuck mount in favor of an easier one. I guess that this, along with a tiny bobble here and a teeny wobble there was enough in that judge's mind to be worth 2 tenths discount, thank goodness! Let me hasten to add I have nothing but the utmost admiration for Baby Lichey for her skill and cool under fire. What a performance under pressure!

All in all, a great meet, especially for the first time out. I thought the crowd and the atmosphere was great. Even the gymnasts seemed to be having a good time, under the circumstances. I missed the band not being there, but I'm sure that was NCAA mandated. The YMCA gymdads get an 'A' for effort (and some liniment for their aching muscles today, I hope)! (Loved the head-dress)

Bring on Auburn! Roll Tide!!!