2023 coaching changes and athlete transfer portal

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GLeigh said:
From what this person is saying, everyone else’s best guess is that they needed her scholarship for a 5th year so they were either backed out of the NLI on the basis of injury or told her that once she got there they were going to medically retire her.
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Weird. I wonder who has decided to do a 5th year. Stevens and Brusch are both accounted for scholarships already. Schumaker, Smith, and Crow are all transfers in from Brockport, Kentucky, and Georgia but all three are not on scholarship.

Auburn only have ten on scholarship at the moment so they technically have 3 open.
So I highly doubt that it is a scholarship issue for a 5th year since Brusch and Stevens are accounted for.

I bet that Saltness didn’t get cleared by the Auburn doctors is more likely the case, and instead of medically retiring she chose to transfer and Illinois took her.

This is a similar situation to Bailey Ferrar. She was not medically cleared by LSU, chose to transfer to Auburn and then the Auburn doctors did not medically clear her and she had to medically retire.

One thing that is clear about Auburn is that they are very strict about medical clearance. We know that Suni wasn’t cleared to train due to her kidney issues, despite her doctors okaying it and Suni wanting to train, Auburn medical team said no way.

So it makes me wonder if this was a medical clearance rather than scholarship.
 
Definitely possible. The person with “inside info” made it seem like this had been in the works for a while and I don’t know when they would’ve assessed her. If it wasn’t this, the only thing I could think of would be if they promised Gabby McLaughlin a scholarship. She contributed quite a lot this year and did a lot (if not all, I’m not sure) of their choreo. She’s someone who probably easily could’ve transferred somewhere that would give her a scholarship. CGN has them at 11/12 for next year without counting both Lyden and Gabby.
 
McLaughlin has never been on scholarship though, so even if they did give her one, I would assume it would be the one Suni vacated, wouldn’t you?
It is very possible they decided to give her a one year scholarship given all she has done, but she went 4 years without athletic scholarship.
I am not saying it is impossible, but why pull a scholarship from Saltness who is an incoming freshman for a 5th year that is leaving after one more year. It doesn’t make sense, but we have seen some nonsense stuff happen before so it isn’t impossible.
 
Auburn picks up another transfer: Anna Hill from Temple. She has two years of eligibility left.

 
Dallas Becerra was removed from the Arizona coaches roster. 🧐
 
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Do we know if he’s going somewhere else or if this was expected?
 
That’s kinda weird, right? She was never going to have a nirmal college experience with her dad as coach, but i side eye parents who move to the town their kid’s college is in, actually getting a job at the college feels like a helicopter too far.
 
He’s there to coach her for the olympics rather than him trying to oversee her college life so it’s not a normal situation.

It could be disruptive for the other gymnasts having an assistant coaches whose number 1 priority doesn’t necessarily align with what’s overall best for the team but if they can navigate that, it could be great for them overall.
 
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I do wonder how they’re going to balance everything. Hopefully she doesn’t have any regrets next September with her plan.
 
The Brian situation is odd, but they do have the 3rd assistant coach slot available.
I am sure the pay check will go towards a temporary apartment.

Things could get tricky though, and they (OSU) need to navigate carefully with NCAA eligibility and criteria.
NCAA athletes cannot train more than 4 hours a day and no more than 20 hours a week.
Having Brian on staff now means that Jade cannot train more than the 20 hours a week/ 4 hours a day.

Brian training Jade will count toward the NCAA restriction.
Jade will not be able to train more than the 20 hours, whereas she could if Brian was not an OSU coach, I believe, as it would not be considered NCAA training.

But I am sure that this has already been discussed with the athletic department and Tanya Chaplin.

I can see Jade doing the entire 20 hours a week with Brian and he helps out other athletes when she isn’t directly training under him or at other times when graduate athletes might need to work out at different times other than the team training time (Bailey Lovett of Arkansas who was in law school).
 
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I believe the coach who left was also a vault coach, so they’re getting a pretty solid replacement there, as long as they handle things carefully and he isn’t just “Jade’s dad coaches her and the other coaches coach the rest of the team.” Aren’t there family connections to OSU that influenced Jade to go there? If there’s family nearby, that would be another reason Brian might want to stay in the area long term.

It could work out really well. He’s a great vault coach with experience working with ‘older’ high level athletes, managing loads so they aren’t injured and can peak at the right time. We saw McCusker’s improvement under him. But there’s a difference between coaching two athletes and an entire team, and being their head coach and an assistant coach.

I feel like I’d have to know a lot more about the people involved and the arrangements to even hazard a guess if this is a great thing or a terrible one.
 
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QuietColours said:
I believe the coach who left was also a vault coach, so they’re getting a pretty solid replacement there, as long as they handle things carefully and he isn’t just “Jade’s dad coaches her and the other coaches coach the rest of the team.”
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There is also the added benefit for recruiting purposes that OSU has an Olympic coach on roster.
 
Doesn’t Brian run a gym in another state? I guess they are paying someone else to coach at his gym for a year?
 
I think that’s a reasonable assumption, but I’m not so sure that this is going to be a problem that you point out. First of all the NCAA is a complete joke when it comes to enforcement, but given that I am sure no one wants to completely thumb their nose at the rules, there are also scenarios in which he is not a full-time employee and can train her during the time that he is not acting in university capacity. I have seen some crazy contracts in academic institutions. I’m just saying its not outside the realm of possibilities that they can work some employment contracts that does not violate NCAA rules about training hours.
 
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