An uneven bar: Expectations flying high for gymnastics team

For the UK gymnastics team, the record doesn’t tell the story.

What fans may see as a losing record is what the gymnastics team has seen as continued success. In collegiate gymnastics, it doesn’t really matter whether you win or lose; it’s the score that the team posts in that match that gives the team its ranking. Those scores are then averaged out and the ranking is produced. Because gymnastics is done this way, it’s far too early to worry about what the ranking is.

Under head coach Hajile “Mo” Mitchell, the Cats have gone to the NCAA Regional four straight years. The goal for 2009 is simple — make it to the NCAA National for the first time in program history.

“Right now, we probably have the best team we’ve ever had at UK,” Mitchell said. “I really feel like anything short of going to nationals, we did not reach our potential.”

In order to accomplish what they’re looking for on the floor, the Cats will have to go through the best competition in the country week in and week out. All seven teams from the Southeastern Conference were ranked in the preseason top 25, and because of that, the Cats won’t face any cupcakes.

Some teams may become frustrated, but these Cats look at the task as an opportunity to get better. According to Mitchell: “If you want to be the best, you have to compete against the best.”

“I enjoy the challenge,” junior all-around performer Hillary Ferguson said. “For me, it just pushes me to do better because I want to be competitive in our conference. I know that to do that, I’m going to have to push myself every week.”

Ferguson has done just that so far this year. In the Cats’ first meet of the year on Jan. 10 against Utah State, Ferguson won four titles: vault, balance beam, floor exercise and the all-around. It was the most that Ferguson has won in a single meet in her entire career.

“For me, it’s more about proving something to myself than proving it to anybody else,” Ferguson said. “It’s a challenge. I set goals for myself, and it is the most amazing feeling when you set a goal for yourself and achieve it every week.”

While the expectations to reach nationals seem strong and the team mindset stays focused, performances on the floor aren’t the only things that the team is worried about. It’s what happens off the gymnastics floor that is first on the team’s to-do list.

Walking into Nutter Field House, the team’s training facility, a giant banner hangs from the wall listing items the team will do this season. The first bullet on the list is to maintain a team GPA of 3.45.

“Academics are the foremost important thing,” Mitchell said. “It’s emphasized greatly here. We’ll kick you out of workouts if you’re not getting to class and getting your work done. There are 10 kids in my family and nine of us graduated from college, so education has been an important thing to me for a long time.”

The Cats’ next meet is on Friday against Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The Cats will enter the match as underdogs, but that’s not something that Mitchell is too concerned about.

“Our mode is to go out there and do our stuff and to do it well,” Mitchell said. “We know that if we do that, we could possibly pull a win out of that.”

Alabama aside and the big picture in mind, Mitchell believes the season’s success or failure should be easily gauged.

“Success is this team going to nationals for the first time in UK history,” Mitchell said. “That would be a success, anything short of that would be an unsuccessful season.”