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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 24
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Champions, now and then
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Generally speaking, you’d figure any team’s chances of repeating as national champion in a sport would take a major hit when they lose their top performer, as UGA’s gymnasts did when Courtney Kupets, winner of two consecutive NCAA all-around titles, tore her right Achilles tendon midway through this season.
But the Gym Dogs aren’t just any team. As Georgia plays host to the NCAA National Championships in Athens beginning today, Suzanne Yoculan’s young women have notched another SEC championship and are seeded No. 1 as they go for a fourth straight national title.
What are their chances of pulling it off? I asked someone who’s observed the team closely this season: my brother Jonathan, who’s been around gymnastics for years, is the father of a talented rising gymnast, and is a longtime follower of the Gym Dogs. Jon said that “as long as they keep their heads in the meet and don’t get all caught up in the hype, there is not a team that can touch them.”
Now it’s up to Yoculan, a master motivator in her quarter century at UGA, and associate head coach Jay Clark, who’ll replace Yoculan after next season, to make sure the Gym Dogs keep their heads in the meet, as Jon said.
Smart money won’t be betting against them.
HERSCHEL WATCH: Speaking of national championships, my son was among those who stood in line last Friday at the UGA bookstore to get Herschel Walker’s autograph, and during the two and a half hours he waited he had time to read some of the book Herschel was there to sign. Most of it, of course, deals with his battle with dissociative identity disorder, but my son said the chapters about his time at UGA are somewhat interesting, although the 1980 season from post-Tennessee game to pre-Notre Dame is a paragraph. The most interesting stories are his first day on campus, the fact that he saw the movie “Time Bandits” on his first date (and describes it in detail), and his getting his shoulder popped back in during the Notre Dame game. … I caught most of the three late-night Sunday sports show interviews with Herschel (WXIA’s being the most extensive, as they devoted the entire half-hour program to him), and, as always, I was impressed with how he handled himself. It can’t be easy for a guy like Walker to talk about being “weak” and needing to seek help, and anyone who questions how genuine his story is or implies it’s all been cooked up as a ploy to sell books (with his ex-wife playing along? Come on!) is just being ridiculous.
