For those who were unable to make the trek to Rapid City, don’t worry. NBC plans to broadcast the event on Sunday, January 18 at 2:00 p.m.

By Gary D’Amato of the Journal Sentinel, November 12, 2008

Paul Hamm is approaching the end of his gymnastics career with mixed emotions.

He’s sad that it’s almost over but excited about the future. He’s disappointed he didn’t get a chance to defend his Olympic all-around medal in Beijing but satisfied with what he accomplished in the sport.

“I know my life as an athlete is coming to an end and that’s hard to deal with,” Hamm said. “It’s my identity. It’s what I’ve done my whole life and it’s hard to give that up. But it’s also exciting to take on new challenges in life.”

– SNIP –

As for the future, Paul, who has an accounting degree from Ohio State, has accepted a job with Breakwater Capital LLC of Chicago and will start sometime around Jan. 1.

Morgan earned his degree in exercise science from OSU and plans to start a chiropractic school in Chicago. He also is getting married in May.

[excerpted from Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel article]

Horton’s inspiring Beijing performance has positioned him to be Team USA’s leader and one of the world’s leading all-around medal contenders leading into the 2012 Olympics.  He’s not bashful about it, nor is he arrogant.  He’s going to go about business with the same attitude that he took with his Beijing high bar gamble.  “No fear, no regrets.”

StickItMedia is not about to be political this early…Obama is 75 days away from being sworn in. It’s better to get off on the right foot, as Saving Sports says. Obama is a big sports fan. He loves to play basketball and he recently voiced his advocacy for a playoff system for college football. Since he’s such a big sports fan, perhaps he should take a serious look at a premier Olympic sport like men’s gymnastics. Title IX’s effects on men’s gymnastics is huge. The number of men’s Division I programs continues to dwindle.

Obama’s hometown, Chicago, is angling for the 2016 Olympics. We should all assume that he will be the biggest hometown homer for delivering the games to Chi-town. We wish him much success. We should also wish that his administration will take a serious look at helping to prop up men’s gymnastics to maintain our nation’s world competitiveness.

Obama’s backyard is home to some of America’s best gymnasts. You would think that he would bend over backwards to help keep our gymnasts world competitive. He should be asked whether or not he would support Title IX waivers to help out men’s gymnastics. We need more collegiate opportunities for male gymnasts.

Men’s gymnastics is not a "minor sport." It is always granted prime-time Olympic television coverage every four years. Chicago is one of America’s hotbeds for gymnastics. Barack Obama should jump on the bandwagon, especially since he will be America’s number one advocate for hosting the 2016 Olympics.

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2009 is going to be a great year for the men. We’ve got some great clubbers and incoming college freshmen who are going to make some serious waves. 2008 J.O. Nationals all-around champions Danell Leyva and Glen Ishino will challenge the nation’s best next year at the U.S. Championships. Incoming Cal freshman, Ishino, will also compete for the all-around championship at the 2009 NCAA championships.

As for our Olympians, Sasha Artemev is blossoming into one of the world’s top all-arounders. Joey Hagerty, aka the hardest working man in gymnastics, has plans to be in London in 2012. Justin Spring, likewise, has 2012 aspirations. Raj Bhavsar is giving no indications of hanging up his grips just yet.

Will David Sender defend his VISA all-around title? Nobody knows for certain. Sender came so close to making the ‘08 Olympic team that it would be a major disappointment for gym fans if he were to retire. He has many good years left if he decides to come back. Meanwhile, the college ranks are burgeoning with talent. Stanford’s Sho Nakamori is back, along with the Bunthuwong brothers from Cal. Oklahoma’s super soph, Steven Legendre, will be back to defend his floor and vault titles.

2009 will likely be a benchmark year that will provide great insight into who will end up being America’s best going into 2012. America has a great pipeline of club talent. Don’t be surprised if at least two current club gymnasts end up being among the six athletes who will make the trip to London.

It’s time for a national discussion on a strategy to help prop up high profile Olympic sports. For all the good Title IX has done for women’s sports, it has also screwed things up. Title IX is being used as a crutch by universities to justify shutting down programs. Schools have taken the easy way out instead of thinking things through. Part of the problem is that colleges have taken a parochial approach to dealing with Olympic sports, when instead there should be more of a national strategy. What is the NCAA for, anyway?

Universities should be treating the above sports in the same prime time manner that network television treats them every four years. Obviously not all Division I schools can do this, but we need more of them to do it. Colleges must create more scholarship opportunities to maintain world competitiveness. There is a way to do this, but unfortunately we doubt that the idea of maintaining Olympic competitiveness is ever taken into account by the schools.

Too many people believe that Title IX is fine just the way it is. This mindset needs to disappear. We believe that the one of the keys to reforming Title IX is to address Olympic competitiveness and to open up new scholarship opportunities for athletes who will foster that competitiveness. Perhaps once we start fine tuning Title IX by emphasizing the top Olympic sports, it will lead to additional meaningful reform.

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Ishino won the 2008 J.O. Nationals (16-18) and 2008 VISA (16-18) all-around championships, while Leyva won the 2008 J.O. Nationals (14-15) all-around title and finished tied for 11th in the senior division at VISAs. These two were the best and brightest club competitors for the past few years. Ishino’s exploits earned him a full ride to Cal, where he will compete for the Bears this upcoming season.

Steven Legendre and Guillermo Alvarez were selected to compete in the Toyota Cup November 13-16 at Toyota City, Japan. Alvarez is a long-time U.S. Senior Team member, while Legendre was recently picked to be on the Senior Team. StickItMedia will be keeping close tabs on these two meets.

Gymblog also goes on to say that "men’s gymnastics is more like football — in both sports the NCAA is a breeding ground for the big time — the Olympics in the case of the former, and the pros for the latter." Very true.  Because men’s bodies mature later than women’s, men’s Division I programs are more important for Olympic development.  NCAA programs for women are actually post-Olympics or on the separate "college track," rather than the elite track that goes international when the best female gymnasts are still in their teens.  For this reason alone, it just might be important to consider Title IX waivers to be granted to schools that choose to have men’s gymnastics programs.  Funding might not be a problem if donors knew that schools could be free to establish or re-establish men’s programs without Title IX constraints.  Corporate sponsorships should also be part of the equation.  Funding shouldn’t be an issue for a prime-time Olympic sport.  We need more opportunities for men, and the more men we have competing at the Division I level, the better it is for the sport and for the athletes.  We’re not talking about football and basketball here.  Gymnasts have higher graduation rates than football and basketball players.  It’s a win-win situation.

Gymblog also asks, "So why is the fan base so small?" Again, we think it’s a marketing problem.  The NCAA should strive to include club competition at their meets.  Why not hold more of the meets on the weekends so the clubs can also compete?  Attendance would swell with the influx of parents, friends and relatives of club athletes.  The number of Division I programs is dwindling and the sport of men’s gymnastics is in dire need of a new paradigm.

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Related posts:

Title IX Reform: Saving Men’s Gymnastics

Attention NCAA: Quit Screwing with Men’s Gymnastics

So true. What’s aggravating is that men’s gymnastics is always given prime-time network exposure every four years at the Olympics. Not to mention the fact the ratings for that coverage are always very high. The fact that the NCAA doesn’t bend over backwards to champion more collegiate opportunities for male gymnasts is maddening. Men’s gymnastics is a PREMIER Olympic sport.

Case in point. California, especially Southern California, is a hotbed for gymnastics talent…arguably the largest hotbed in the country. Yet California is home to only two NCAA Division I men’s gymnastics programs…Cal and Stanford. Southern California has no Division I men’s program! This means that Southern California is a net exporter of male gymnasts to the rest of the country. Simply abominable!

The NCAA should put political correctness aside and prioritize Olympic sports, gender be damned. Waivers should be granted to institutions that strive to offer more opportunities for Olympic-caliber athletes. There should be a bare minimum of two Division I men’s gymnastics programs in Southern California alone. UCLA has produced some of our nation’s finest Olympic gymnasts, such as Mitch Gaylord, Peter Vidmar and Tim Daggett. Incredibly, UCLA dropped the sport in 1994. Thankfully, the sport has been revived recently in club form.

Schools like USC, Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton are all located within thirty miles of some of the nation’s best men’s club gymnasts. These schools would have ready access to a tremendous talent pool. Current Long Beach State Athletic Director, Vic Cegles, has prior experience working with a Division I men’s gymnastics program when he was at Temple University. We wonder if Cegles understands how great a program he could build at Long Beach State, in a relatively short period of time.

Sorry to be so California-centric, but similar scenarios also exist in Texas and Florida. Both states export their club gymnasts. In fact, there are no men’s Division I programs in the entire Southeast. The state of Texas has exported Jonathan Horton and Steven Legendre to Oklahoma University. Mary Lou Retton’s offers to fund men’s Division I programs for various schools in Texas have fallen on deaf ears. What’s up with that?

Let’s put this into perspective. The vast majority of U.S. men’s Olympic gymnastics medalists over the past 40 years have competed at the Division I level. The number of Division I men’s gymnastics programs continues to dwindle. We’re now down to less than 20 programs. Even that number is composed of a handful of dominant programs. Oklahoma University has won the majority of NCAA team championships over the past ten years. This is representative of an existing relative oligarchy that controls the sport. We’re certainly not knocking the level of competition, but it would be nice to see more schools and athletes in the mix.

How many gymnasts “retire” after their club careers due to lack of opportunities? It’s amazing how many club gymnasts blossom once they start competing at the Division I level. The potential for many others to blossom is being lost because they have nowhere to go. This needs to stop! Men’s gymnastics deserves the same prime-time attention from the NCAA that the television networks offer every four years.

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Related Posts:

Title IX Reform: Saving Men’s Gymnastics

Attention NCAA: Quit Screwing with Men’s Gymnastics

Justin Spring

Sasha Artemev

Joey Hagerty

Raj Bhavsar

Kevin Tan

Jonathan Horton

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