Sports pundits here love to talk about dynasties. The Patriots are a dynasty. The UConn women’s basketball team is a dynasty.
And there is another dynasty on display at the Garden this weekend — the University of Oklahoma men’s gymnastics team.
And it might be one of the biggest dynasties of them all.
The Sooners have won 12 NCAA championships, including the last four. Their trophy case isn’t just packed with NCAA accomplishments, but in the elite gymnastics world as well. Ten current and former Oklahoma gymnasts are competing at this weekend’s U.S. Gymnastics Championships with three in the top 10 heading into today’s senior men’s finals.
Their dominance is led by coach Mark Williams, one of the friendliest and most open personalities in all of gymnastics. Since 2000, Williams has led Oklahoma to nine NCAA titles.
Williams doesn’t have the ego that could come from all that success. On Wednesday at the Garden, he jumped up to press row to chat with journalists who arrived early. He and his assistant coaches, all alumni of his program, coach their own gymnasts while also pumping up other athletes, including Milton’s Matt Cormier, who was paired with Oklahoma’s junior gymnasts during their competition.
Williams is refreshing and honest.
“We have goals besides being college athletes and we want to take them as far as they can go in their sport,” Williams said on Wednesday. “This is just what we’ve done since I have been the head coach.”
Williams’ organizational abilities, which his gymnasts refer to as “the schedule,” provide them with the best chance to succeed.
“I have Mark with me, helping with the schedule,” said Yul Moldauer, the reigning national champion who is competing this weekend through a nagging back injury. “He does a great job with it.”
Williams guides his gymnasts through a season longer than most. The NCAA schedule runs January through April, and the elite gymnastics season runs July through October. It’s a long period of time to be at your peak. Williams’ support is especially crucial come competition time.
“When I compete, I try to close out the competition and focus on the team guys who are around me,” said Allan Bower, in third place after the first night of competition. “That helps.”
When your entire rotation at the national championships is filled with teammates, like it is at these championships, focusing on just their performances isn’t too hard to do.
“It was pretty much like an NCAA meet again,” said Bower. “During NCAA meets, there is more energy, and we tried to bring that energy here. We just stayed within ourselves and moved as a team.”
The energy makes it that, even when an individual struggles, they still find a positive outcome. After Moldauer’s poor performances Thursday night, he wasn’t as down as he could have been.
Instead, he was boasting about his teammates.
“Allan, he had a an amazing day. Tanner Justus, he had an amazing day. This is Genki Suzuki’s first championships. That was awesome. Gage (Dyer) and Alexi (Vernyi), they were awesome,” said Moldauer. “Obviously, Mark has a great plan, and we just have to trust it.”
With three gymnasts in striking distance of a national title today, it’s easy to trust Williams.
“We’re trying to put as many guys as we can in the national championships, and hopefully they can perform to be on the national teams,” said Williams. “Eventually, if we have enough talent and enough hard work, we’ll put guys on the world teams and the Olympic teams.”
