University of North Carolina Athletics
Galvin Takes An All-Around Approach
March 8, 2017 | Women's Gymnastics
By Sean Cavanaugh
UNC gymnastics coach Derek Galvin strides into the gym with a bounce in his sandals. He eventually ditches his footwear and goes through practice barefoot.
An inflatable alligator pool toy is stored on one wall. Another wall holds up a chart that tracks success and progress with big, printout emojis. To Galvin, gymnastics is fun.
Warm-ups begin and every gymnast dons a smile that matches Galvin's. Pop hits from the charts of the late 2000's blast throughout the gym. There is an ease, not a stress flowing from the beam, to the floor exercise and everywhere in between.
And it starts with Galvin or as his gymnasts simply call him, “Derek.”
During practice Galvin has an eye on all parts of the gym. He compliments his athletes even if they are yards away at a different apparatus.
But something is missing. Where is the shout of a coach getting frustrated when his gymnasts do not execute? Where are the demands of sprints? Where are the echoes of a piercing whistle?
“I think he's yelled like three times ever in my four years. And when he did, I thought it was so weird. No offense to Derek, but no one really believed it. It's just not who he is,” says senior gymnast Christina Pheil
“I have a hard time tearing into people. And because I have a hard time doing that, when I do it, it doesn't work. It's not genuine,” says Galvin with a smile.
Galvin may not be a proponent of tough love, but he is full of love anyway.
Talk to anyone who experienced a part of his gymnastics career and the coach scores high with the judges.
“There is no finer person in the world,” says his old college teammate at UNC, Ben Edkins. “He is a very close friend but there is no person closer to being a saint.”
“Derek has the most genuine soul I have ever met,” Pheil says. “He cares so deeply for not just the sport, but every single person that comes through the gym. He just wants them to have the best experience they can have.”
His passion for the sport burns so deep it's contagious.
“I want to love my job as much as he loves his job,” says Nettles. “He comes into the gym everyday and says 'It's time to play gymnastics' and you think 'Yeah this is supposed to be fun.'”
It is this motto of “playing” gymnastics that allows Galvin to make the grueling sport fun for the student-athletes and lets him shape lives.
“Everyday I walk in and think 'How am I going to help them get better today,'” he says.
Edkins keeps in touch with his former teammate and knows Galvin possess a gift for connecting with people.
“He has worked with so many kids, and I think almost all of them think of him as a father figure,” says Edkins. “I know he has been to so many weddings of his former gymnasts and they loyally come back to reunions and things.”
Coaches as a father figure may seem cliché, but just listen to one of his upperclassmen.
“This whole process – school, gym, my career – almost all of it is for him. He takes so much pride in us, he's kind of like your dad, you want to make him proud,” says Nettles, with a joy so pure, you cannot help but smile just listening to her beam about her coach.
Confidence To Stick It
Gymnastics can crush confidence quick. A judge's opinion on your body movements create high-pressure situations. And college-aged women certainly do not need any extra forces trying to shackle their self-confidence.
Galvin knows this and uses his program to help his gymnasts build themselves up.
“He creates this environment of boosting your confidence all the time,” says Nettles.
To create this atmosphere of admiration, Pheil says he just knows how to take the best part of you and make it flourish further than you thought possible.
Why focus so much on boosting confidence when he gets paid to win competitions?
Look back at a picture of 10-year old Galvin, a native of Ireland, who had just immigrated to California via Canada, and you find your answer. But be careful, you may overlook it.
“I was small for my age, and you can't tell looking at me now but I had thick curly hair.. But I was small with thick, curly hair and a funny accent so I tried to talk differently,” recalls Galvin.
He came to the U.S. as a fourth-grader who did not meet the minimum weight to play youth league football. But that was ok because he did not understand American sports anyway. He had to play something else.
“My mother had been a runner, she was a racer. That's what she called it. She was a racer not a runner. And my Dad had been somewhat athletic as well. So it wasn't a question of whether we would be involved in sports growing up, it was what sport,” Galvin says with a laugh.
His mother found a tumbling class and the 10-year-old with an Irish accent found a home that he's never left.
“It was a big part of what helped me adjust to the move, to a new country, to a new culture,” says Galvin.
The boy too small to tackle a running back figured out his stature was an advantage in gymnastics. It gave him a leg up and Galvin started to draw some attention. Except this time it was not because he sounded Irish.
“Instead of being the quirky, little kid with the funny accent I was the quirky kid who was really good at tumbling skills and then the apparatuses,” says Galvin. “I think that positive attention, being a sort of odd kid, was kind of good.”
The people dishing out the positive attention were not the only ones to notice that he was getting pretty good. Galvin picked up on it too.
“I was at some level aware of the fact I was better at it than some of the other kids and it gave me some confidence,” he says. “That's one of the great things about sports. It develops that self-confidence.”
In ninth grade he broke out of his shell and went from an introvert to a “blabbermouth” and you couldn't shut him up. It was at this time that Galvin also realized his gymnastics potential.
He was good, but there was an opportunity to be better. “I wasn't the best but I was good enough to be among them. That was my motivation, because I wanted to be as good as those kids that were the best,” says Galvin.
That motivation landed him a spot on the UNC gymnastics team in 1971. His career ended when the university dropped the team just three years later. But his coach offered him a coaching job at the only private gym in the state.
“I said absolutely. He offered me a full-time job with a huge salary. And I say that with sarcasm,” says Galvin with a laugh.
There was no hesitation and Galvin vaulted at the opportunity. He was hooked on coaching and was soon tracking down bootleg film of Russians training and getting books in Japanese translated to learn their skills.
He loved it, but learning the Tsukahara vault did not pay the bills to raise a family. So he took a consulting job in Washington, D.C.
Two years later and the home in his heart called him back.
“I was making good money but it wasn't as fulfilling,” says Galvin.
As soon as he heard of the opening for the women's gymnastics job at Carolina he called assistant athletic director Francis Hogan and expressed his interest.
Vault 36 years forward and he still sits in the UNC gymnastics coach's office with the same passion and excitement. The only thing missing is the thick, curly hair.
A Gold Medal Inspiration
A man like Galvin with his spirit, relentless work ethic, and sincerity makes it easy to believe he thought up how to coach this well all by himself.
Pheil certainly does not know where he gets it from and said, “I think it's just him. Derek Galvin is Derek Galvin.”
But it turns out there was a Derek Galvin before this one, and his name was Jesse Meeks.
As soon as Galvin mentions the name of his old coach, he pauses. His eyes begin to water before he goes on about how his high school coach was the reason he started it all.
Meeks has since passed away but his legacy lives on through Galvin.
“If I was going to turn my passion for this sport into a career, I was going to do it the way he did it. I think that was the turning point, his influence and seeing the kind of impact he had on, not just me, but my teammates,” said Galvin. “I thought, man, it would be awesome to play that role in someone's life.”
In his early years of coaching Galvin modeled his philosophy around how Meeks treated him and his teammates.
“He was a man I had a tremendous amount of respect for. Not just because of his technical knowledge of the sport but the way that he treated us,” said Galvin. “He was tough, but he was fair. It wasn't just gymnastics that he cared about, he cared about us as, at times, confused young teenagers.”
Galvin has that gift to make his players feel loved and inspired to be their best. Meeks may have indirectly given that gift to him.
“It was obvious that he loved gymnastics, but it was obvious that he really cared and fair to say he loved his gymnasts too,” said Galvin. “I get a little emotional talking about it. He was as much, I mean my parents were great, but he was like another father.”
And that environment of boosting his gymnasts' confidence? Meeks may deserve a few royalties for that idea too.
“Jesse never made me feel bad about who I was. At times I felt guilty that I wasn't meeting his expectation but he never made me feel bad about myself,” said Galvin with glistening eyes.
It was through Meeks that Galvin learned one of the most important reasons to coach, “You have to get them to believe that they are capable of more than they thought they could do.”
UNC basketball coach Roy Williams has talked a lot about how much he took from Dean Smith. How he learned the game, how to teach, how to influence young people's lives, and make them the best versions of themselves.
With a smile Galvin said, “Jesse Meeks was my Dean Smith.”
A Youthful Sport
Practice gets into gear and Galvin pushes massive mats and apparatuses around the gym floor.
The 63-year-old coach is the first person to push the mats around, moving the pads into place as fast as possible to get practice started on time. He also hovers under the uneven bars spotting the girls, always ready to catch them if they fall.
It comes as no surprise to anyone that knows him.
“He would build our pits and he would always go in on the weekends and rebuild floors. He was always in good shape,” said Anne Weber. Weber was a freshman in Galvin's first year at UNC.
Pheil is a little more worried when she watches her coach spot double back flips and wonders in amazement, “How are you not falling apart?”
This past summer Galvin spent countless hours rehabbing his back, previously torn rotator cuff, and keeping his body fit enough to spot his gymnasts.
Galvin's regimen involved swimming a mile day, yoga, handstand push-ups, and 80 normal push ups a day. Not to mention he rides his bike five miles to work and back every day.
“Some days I'll do more on the weekends and stuff,” said Galvin nonchalantly.
However he does admit he is human, “My body is starting to feel it a little bit more,” said Galvin. “Of all the coaches in college gymnastics, I'm probably one of the oldest.”
With all that talk of old age, thoughts of retirement must begin to creep in. But Galvin can do more push-ups than most college kids, so he can easily push them back.
“Right now I feel really good but if it gets to the point where I cannot safely spot my gymnasts… Then that's when I will, hopefully I'll have the awareness to say 'Okay it's time for someone younger,” said Galvin. “But the thought of not doing this is really scary.”
Besides Galvin cannot ponder retirement because warm-ups are over and “It's time to play gymnastics.”
Players Mentioned
