NCAA Rutgers and Fisk with acting head coaches

[Regionals]

How are these programs doing better under inexperienced acting head coaches?

Rutgers has been stuck in the 40's during Salim-Beasley's entire time before her being placed on administrative leave in January.

Now, the team is pulling out multiple 196's, including its all-time highest Big-10 championship score, makes regionals, and is guaranteed their highest finish since 2014. It's even feasible for them to finish ranked in the 20's should they win their play-in.

It's a Big 10 program, so I'm sure there are a lot of additional duties in addition to coaching that the head coach would need to fulfill. But the core priority- team performance- has drastically improved under an acting head coach.

Fisk goes ahead and smashes their program record by almost a point (set earlier in the season) the weekend after Tarver announces her departure and have had strong meets since. Jada Reese even throws the first Fisk double layout on floor at Oregon State.

I wonder if it's like there was a release of bottled-up pressure under a previously unhealthy environment, and now the gymnasts are performing more freely and confidently.

 

[irichluck21]

It's funny how toxic coaches can impact a team's results and progress.

Both head coaches were excuse of verbal abuse and harassments of athletes. It's almost like the athletes are right?

 

[Regionals]

I agree- that seems to be the only explanation.

Fisk getting into the 194’s was their obvious next goal. And given how their lineups have more inconsistent routines outside the top 3 or 4 in each event, the stars could always align in a particular meet for the 5 counting scores to be great hits. It’s just amazing it came the weekend after the head coach leaves.

Rutgers is the even more “What is happening?” narrative to me. By sustaining these 6 consecutive meets the way they did, they built a whole new NQS and outperformed every Rutgers squad ranking-wise across 2 different head coaches back to 2014.

Could it be possible that NCAA gymnastics teams could perform well without an actual head coach? Could a team of assistant coaches be enough to get the best out of their gymnasts? It would never happen in reality, but this is just a wonder. We all put so much weight toward the head coach when praising or criticizing a program.

 

[irichluck21]

Or maybe it is more along the lines of some people are naturals to be a head coach and others are not.

Granted coaches got away with a lot more in the 80s, 90s, 00s. Especially if you were a winning coach.