Women Spin Off - Encouraging Gymnastics in Underrepresented States and Regions

[txgymfan]

I am starting this because it seems like a natural spin off from the discussion about Nationals needing to representing the entire US vs the best gymnasts in the US.

What should we or someone do to encourage gymnastics in the underrepresented states and regions? Coaching development? More USAG support?

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[skschlag]

From a more underrepresented state....

We would love more coaches...and better coaches...but the money is in the bigger states, with the gyms taht are already winning. It is hard for the smaller gyms to pay coaches, and coaches don't want to come. We have been trying to find a coach for over a year. nothing

 

[profmom]

Teams are expensive, so I think for many gyms they really are a labor of love, not a moneymaker. This is even more true on the boys' side where there just isn't as much interest from potential participants and it's hard to find the kind of expertise you need to train upper level skills even if you're able to pay what that expertise is worth. I honestly don't know what we would do if DS's gym ever eliminated their program, because I don't think there is another strong program with optional gymnasts within a two hour drive. And we are not exactly in the middle of nowhere!

What do gym owners get out of having a team? If we had a sense of the answer to that question, then incentives could be developed.

 

[htimcj]

In my case it is simply a matter needing people period The whole state only has a bit more than 1 million people in it and where I live we have 60,000. That't it for MILES. People just don't really want to live here. Which is really to bad because it is beautiful here with lots of outdoor things to do but people just don't think to move here. I am still really surprised we have/had (one quit recently) two really high quality coaches at our gym both from Russia. How they ended up in our little town is still a mystery

 

[kandkfunk]

I am good friends with the owners of our gym, in an underrepresented state in region 2. I don't want to speak for the owners, but here is my own perspective after being around them for many years (our daughters started pre-team together at a different gym before they owned one).

They love the sport. They want to make gymnastics different in our area, meaning more inclusive (they started an Xcel program), better coached, more competitive and fun. The coaching part is a real struggle. There is definitely a lack of qualified coaches and you get the same set of coaches hopping between gyms. It's really hard to get new coaching blood into the sport in our area. Bars is an especially weak event in our state.

Our old coach and co-owner would never acknowledge that she needed more training or there was anything more for her to learn, even though she had never successfully coached an athlete higher than level 7. Attempts to bring in other coaches as mentors or consultants did not work and she ultimately left.

Our new coaches are very young and inexperienced, but they have a couple of very experienced coaches serving as mentors and they are willing and eager to learn. It's just that they have a lot to learn, so the growth and development of the program will be slow. The owners have a lot of time and money invested in the program and I think they will eventually get to the point where they will be competitive in region 2. But, I don't know how competitive they'll ever be outside of region 2.

It seems like the entire area needs a complete shake-up in how things are done and taught, which means gyms have to entice and attract the highly qualified coaches we need or training opportunities need to be vastly increased so the coaches we have can learn new things. Once a year trainings at Congress just don't seem like enough.

 

[my4buffaloes]

In our area it is very difficult to get coaches. If you had more coaches you could have a bigger team. But honestly - most of the people I know outside of gym are not willing to sink the type of money needed to have a kid on a competitive gymnastics team into 1 sport for their kids. Too big of a commitment and too much money. I would say 100% of the people I know outside of gym think we are insane to have our girls in this sport and to pay the money we pay.