University of North Carolina Athletics
Q&A: National Champion Courtney Bumpers And Gymnastics Head Coach Derek Galvin
April 22, 2004 | Women's Gymnastics
April 22, 2004
By Kim Conrad
UNC Athletic Communications
Head Coach Derek Galvin
TarHeelBlue: What were your expectations going into the NCAA Championships?
Derek Galvin: Based on the way that Courtney (Bumpers) performed at nationals last year, we knew that it was an environment she could thrive in. With the quality of the routines that she had done all year long on floor, my expectation was if she did the same type of routine she had been doing, she would make floor finals. And then of course, with her No. 1 ranking on floor, I was hoping that she would be among the top three, and I think she was too. Finishing anywhere in the top three is incredible. At the NCAA Championships, you've got former Olympians on the floor, and there were four of them there. Four former Olympians competed in that meet. And Courtney outscored all of them on floor. That's quite an accomplishment.
THB: How did the atmosphere affect Courtney?
DG: Courtney became the crowd favorite. I don't know if that would have happened if we had been there as a whole team to the extent that it did. Her floor exercise routine has the most difficult tumbling that any college gymnast has used this year, so that to people who are even just a little bit knowledgeable in gymnastics, that's exciting and impressive. In the preliminaries on Thursday night, when she finished her floor routine and got a standing ovation and had entire sections from other teams cheering for her and chanting "10, 10," to the judges - it was just awesome. And I think it just made the experience even more incredible for Courtney.
Then on Saturday, it doesn't matter whether you're an Alabama fan or a Florida fan or a UCLA fan - when you get to the event finals, people appreciate what they're seeing. These are the best gymnasts on those events in the country. But even then, on Saturday night, the loudest applause was for Courtney, out of all the competitors on all the events, even the UCLA girls, when the majority of the fans there were UCLA fans. Courtney's routine was so exceptional that the place, it erupted, and she got a standing ovation. I think Courtney's sentiment was the same - it was probably the greatest moment up to this point in her gymnastics career. And as a coach, it ranks among the top three for me.
THB: What impact do you think Courtney's successes could have on her own performance as well as the team performance next year?
DG: There's no question that people know who she is. Everybody in the gymnastics community and the collegiate gymnastics community knows who Courtney Bumpers is now. She did very well at NCAA's last year and placed fourth on beam, and I think that drew some attention. But what she did this year - it was an exclamation mark. This is Courtney Bumpers, and for the next two years, college gymnastics is going to be seeing a lot more of her.
The positive impact it has had on our team is her performance at nationals legitimized her ranking all season long, which also legitimized our team ranking. UCLA, the national champion team saw us at regionals, and we outscored them on floor. And by Courtney doing what she did at nationals, again it's like an exclamation mark. It's like okay, argument over. There's no question that this team is capable. And that recognition within the competitive part of the community - among the competitors and the coaches - hopefully will also filter into the judging community, and when we show up at a meet, I think if there's a doubt in a situation, the benefit of that doubt will go to the gymnast because the reputation is now established.
I'm not saying that we will get things we don't deserve, but there are times when we didn't get things we did deserve because the judges just didn't really know what to expect. And now, no one can argue with the fact that Courtney is the national champion on floor exercise and that this team outscored the national champion team on floor exercise at NCAA regionals.
THB: Do you feel you get any coaching fulfillment from having coached a national champion?
DG: I would be a liar if I said there was no benefit to it. In 1999, my dream was to have someone on our team win an event at the EAGL Championships. That year Brooke Wilson won the all-around and she won balance beam. After that, the next goal was to win an EAGL Championship as a team, which we did. Then we've got to get to regionals. There was a long absence of the University of North Carolina from NCAA regionals as a team, and that was something I really wanted for this team and for this program. And we did that; we've done that three years in a row. Courtney's performance last year at NCAA's was a highlight, certainly for me and for our program. At each step in that process I thought, "this is a high point for me in my career, and this is incredibly satisfying." With each of those, it has been a tremendous sense of satisfaction for me because I think every coach goes through that - there are certain thresholds they want to break through.
THB: Is coaching a national champion a step you expected you would eventually get to?
DG: Actually having a national champion is something I didn't know if I would ever get to experience as a coach. But last year at NCAA's, when Courtney finished fourth on beam, it became a lot more realistic to me that it could happen. I didn't know whether it would be Courtney or one of the other girls on the team because we have such a talented team, but I felt we had several gymnasts that were capable of making it. But you just never know what's going to happen. There were 87 competitors on floor. That means outscoring 86 of the best gymnasts on that event in the country. When it happened I thought, "Oh my gosh, if something should happen to me and I never get to coach again, my career will have ended with a tremendous sense of satisfaction over what the team achieved this year and what Courtney achieved as an individual." I guess from here on, I told my wife on the phone after the press conference, "The rest is icing on the cake."
Players Mentioned
