Monday, 6/2/97 Lack of financial support dooms team M. GYM:
Olympic glory, club championship can’t make up for lost funding
By Rachel Kelley Daily Bruin Contributor Last April, the UCLA
men’s gymnastics team brought home its third and final USA
Gymnastics collegiate club national championship. After being
dropped from the NCAA program in 1994, the reigning national club
champions no longer have the essential ingredient necessary to
recruit top athletes to their program. They may have
state-of-the-art facilities, an internationally renowned coaching
staff and some of the most talented athletes in the nation. What
they don’t have is financial support. For the past three years, the
men’s gymnastics program has been relying on limited funds from the
athletic department to remain functioning as a team. The $2,000
budget it received in 1996-97 only partially covered the cost of
supplies and meet fees. It left no money for scholarships or
traveling expenses, and therefore the team had little success
recruiting top gymnasts to replace this year’s graduating seniors.
The ’97 seniors are the last class to have been recruited to UCLA
on gymnastics scholarships. "It’s really unfortunate, but I don’t
think people are too enthusiastic about having a (men’s gymnastics)
program here anymore," said assistant coach Doug Macey. Beginning
Fall 1997, the athletic department’s contribution to the program
will amount to zero. "It makes it really tough to continue when
there’s no money," Macey said. Despite the lack of finances,
current team members are not ready to give up training gymnastics
at UCLA altogether. "We still have one of the best gyms and
gymnasts in the country. We have a great school and a training
environment that allows you to work on every part of your life,"
Macey said. Steve McCain, currently ranked as the No. 1 gymnast in
the U.S., agrees that, despite having its NCAA status revoked, UCLA
still has one of the premier gymnastics programs in the nation. "A
gymnast training at UCLA is kind of equivalent to a basketball
player training with Michael Jordan," McCain said. "UCLA offers the
complete package. It has a great gym and it’s a great university,
academically." The men’s gymnastics team can be proud of their
school and of the third consecutive win they brought back to
Westwood, but their pride is not felt without a twinge of
resentment looming in the background. "It’s hard to come in here
(Yates Gym) and work out day after day when you know that
regardless of the outcome, you aren’t going to have a 1997 men’s
gymnastics national champions banner like everyone else gets after
winning a national championship," UCLA gymnast Spencer Slaton said.
McCain, too, feels frustrated with the repercussions of Title IX,
which mandated gender equity in opportunities for scholarship
athletes and was the primary reason the men’s gymnastics program
was cut from NCAA participation. "In the last three Olympics, UCLA
has had at least one and as many as four guys on the team. But it
doesn’t matter because on paper, it’s just gymnastics," McCain
said. But according to Slaton, the athletic department had its
choice of programs to cut in order to comply with Title IX, and it
didn’t have to be men’s gymnastics. "There were other men’s sports
that didn’t have the reputation, which cost just as much to be
here, yet didn’t get dropped," Slaton said. Resentment is not the
only reaction which continues to linger three years after the fact.
Disbelief most accurately characterizes at least one gymnast’s
strongest emotion. "Out of any school I could ever imagine, I
didn’t think UCLA would do it (drop the men’s gymnastics program),"
McCain said. For many of these athletes, competing in gymnastics at
UCLA is the fulfillment of a lifetime dream. Knowing that this past
championship may have been their last team title made the moment
all the more special. "There was a time during the meet when I was
sitting there thinking that I had wanted to go to UCLA ever since I
was 10 years old, and here I was sitting with a UCLA jersey on,
sharing in the excitement with all the other guys on the team,"
Slaton said. Other gymnasts cited team chemistry as one of the best
aspects of their final collegiate club nationals. "We really
supported one another," UCLA gymnast Evan Gates said. "When you are
up on the apparatus, you want to do really well for yourself, but
it’s primarily for the team." Because there are few chances left
for most of these gymnasts to compete on behalf of each other and
their school, many are turning to the opportunities presented by
the entertainment industry and the professional world of
gymnastics, according to UCLA gymnast Jim Foody. These two arenas
have the potential of generating large sums of money for
high-profile gymnasts and would give them the chance to make
careers out of the sport they love. The NCAA prohibits its athletes
to accept promotions. The four top male UCLA gymnasts in particular
plan to take advantage of these opportunities, which are not
contingent upon USA Gymnastics or NCAA eligibility status, while
continuing to train for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia,
said Foody. Although they will not be able to compete in any
collegiate club team competitions, Gregory Umphrey (a ’96
graduate), Slaton, McCain and Foody will train together and
participate in invitational meets through the 21st century in
preparation for Sydney, said UCLA head coach Art Shurlock. "After
that (the year 2000), men’s gymnastics at UCLA will be history,"
Shurlock added.