At NCAAs with Women's Gymnastics: Thursday
4/26/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics
Competition day began like all the rest -- with the hotel breakfast buffet. More athletes slept in this time around, but a few headed down to the hotel restaurant to enjoy the fare. Reports of senior Carol McNamara using the Ryan Duey sausage-as-barrier technique were unverified.
With no solid plans until lunch at a popular local place called Toasters., the team once again busied themselves with a variety of low-impact tasks. More trashy daytime TV, a few strolls outside and lots of general hanging out. A few of the support staff were spotted at the nearby outdoor mall and one (Mr. Duey) ran smack into a vice presidential motorcade roaring through downtown Salt Lake City with Vice President Dick Cheney in one of a number of black motorcars (the Veep was in the area to give the commencement speech at BYU).
After lunch the clock dragged until the 3:45 p.m. departure time. A number of Wolverines visited trainer Lisa Hass in her room for some stretching, tape work and performance enhancing Nibs. A few on the team logged on to the web and tracked the ongoing results from the afternoon session which was in full swing. The Maize and Blue hurried up and waited.
Michigan parents do a tremendous job of making the team feel as close to rock stars as possible. They line the lobbies of hotels, bring banners and pompoms, video cameras and still cameras with telescopic lenses. They roar their approval when a U-M gymnast, coach or support staff member step off the elevator and they fill the hotel with shouts of "Go Blue". Nationals is where the parents step it up a notch, making the banners bigger, the cheers louder and the cameras telescopicier. The team walked through their adoring throng, loaded into the Quest armada with head coach Bev Plocki's silver flagship at the fore and the squad pulled out of the drive with flashbulbs popping and cheering voices behind.
As the team entered the Huntsman Center, the awards ceremony for the afternoon session was just wrapping up. News of No. 3 Alabama's fall to a fifth place finish swept quickly through the crowd as the underdog Nebraska Cornhuskers claimed the third spot behind Florida and Georgia, each punching their tickets to the Super Six. Alabama athletes milled around the floor with shocked looks on their faces as Nebraska gymnasts bounced around excitedly with the possibility of a national championship still in the cards.
Michigan warmed up with the five other squads on the competition floor while, outside, the Coca Cola Spirit of Champions Experience was raging. This fair-like set-up featured a number of NCAA-sport related games, including football, basketball, baseball and the NCAA sport where a person in a striped referee shirt locks you in a giant replica of a Coca Cola bottle and flips a switch that makes paper fly all about a frightened child's body. They say Drexel University claimed this particular national crown in 2006.
Midway through warm-ups, a piercing alarm interrupted a Sir Mix-A-Lot jam on the floor exercise and the lights in the arena flashed on and off, followed by a rumbling voice over the loudspeaker informing the assembled that a fire alarm had been triggered. Apparently a cotton candy machine in the concourse set off the alarm in the Huntsman Center, forcing fans and gymnasts to evacuate the premises. After a short period outside, everyone was let back onto the premises and warm-ups continued. The wolverines were loose and the Michigan crowd vocal and visible in the stands. With the Wolverines warming up on the uneven bars, four shirtless males with the word "BLUE" spelled out in individual letters on their torsos stood at the top of the concourse and performed the "Go Blue" chant with a cowbell. The foursome, U-M men's gymnasts, had driven from Ann Arbor to cheer on their counterparts. The stands continued to fill in and anticipation grew for the big march-in.
The post-meet release handles the ins and outs of what happened on the competition floor during the meet. What follows are some of the things that don't show up in the post-meet stories.
At least three Michigan non-gymnasts wore the exact same outfits that they had at the Big Ten Championships. Good luck, you know.
Utah brought along a 20-member band which played its horns high above the competition floor during warm-ups and changeovers.
Utah employed an individual to dress up in what looked like an eagle outfit, wearing a silver spacesuit top and athletic shorts with the back cut out to show the fowl's bare bottom. And we thought Utah was supposed to be a conservative town. In the interest of full disclosure, early in the meet the eagle spaceman hybrid shed the spacesuit top and changed into a No. 96 basketball jersey with the name "Swoop" stitched in the back. He walked through the crowd and tossed into the air what looked like little paper coupons.
To begin floor exercise routines, some schools employ a sound effect before the music kicks in. Missouri and Penn State use a Tiger roar and West Virginia uses a gunshot (to signify the Mountaineer, one supposes). LSU finishes with a tiger roar, throwing the whole convention on its head.
Utah's Beth Rizzo had so much glitter in her hair at the start of the meet that when she left the mat at the end of her first routine of the night on the floor exercise, all four corners of the carpet were covered in sparkly red bits. After six rotations, there was still some glitter on the media side of the floor carpet. That stuff is sticky.
Utah's concessions stands served Dippin' Dots -- the ice cream of the future. Much like the skewed version of the future from the designers of the walkway leading to Terminal B, this is an epicurean future in which the populous yearns for multi-colored freeze-dried confectionaries that taste vaguely of yarn.
After the meet, Michigan headed back to its locker room to gather their things, ice up and head back to the hotel. One lucky Wolverine -- Becky Bernard -- was selected for a random drug test along with a pair of UCLA Bruins and a Stanford Cardinal. While all but trainer Lisa Hass and this faithful scribe headed back to the Hilton for the post-meet feast, the clock struck 11 p.m. at the Huntsman Center. Thirty minutes later (the story of Becky's test will have to remain unpublished) the blue Quest headed back to the Hilton with a trio of Bruins and Lisa Hass riding shotgun. Waiting in the hotel restaurant was Bev Plocki and manager extraordinaire Kate Karpinski, who was kind enough to wait for the entire group to return. Kate, Lisa and this hungry scribe ate a late dinner and then headed back to the rooms for a well deserved rest.
Players Mentioned
