Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to judge the Spartan Open!  It was exciting for me for several reasons.  For one, this was a meet that I used to compete at when I was younger.  I think the last time I competed at that meet was when I was like 10 or 11.  I remember cranking for my high bar dismount and peeling right off…my dad (my coach then) was totally angry at me.  Luckily, that was just about the only bad memory I have of the meet.  Oh wait…I also remember messing up my floor pattern, and again, my dad was upset at me for that.  Other memories are a little more fond though!

But the more exciting thing about Spartan Open was that they haven’t had a men’s meet at San Jose State since 1996!  Hence, to see men’s equipment in that gym made me feel super nostalgic!

Judging the Spartan Open!

I can’t believe it’s been that long since San Jose State dropped their program.  Really sad to think that there are only two colleges left with gymnastics programs on the west side of the Rockies (just Stanford and Cal).  At least until the mid 90s, there were schools like UCSB, San Jose State, and New Mexico with gym programs. It’s really interesting for me to hear from older coaches about what it was like back in the day.  Almost every major college had a gymnastics program.  How much cooler will it be at conference and national championships with that many teams?

Word on the street though is some people are trying to get together to bring back the San Jose team, at least at the club level.  I know it’s easier said than done but if that happens, that would be awesome!