The End of a Sarah

So, Sarah Patterson retired. That happened today. Everyone wear a houndstooth blouse and talk about how winning the SEC title is harder than winning the national title as a tribute.

I was completely caught off guard by this one, and it comes with more of a sour note and less of a celebratory one than we'd usually have for the retirement of a member of the coaching Mount Olympus because it's clear she's not retiring of her own choice. As outlined in the announcement, a series of knee replacement surgeries will take her out of action for the next year, so she has decided to give herself a medical retirement rather than redshirt the season.

We know her health issues must be serious and urgent for her to make this kind of immediate and dramatic decision. When I first saw the headline about Sarah's retirement, I assumed she was announcing a retirement plan, like she would leave at the end of the 2015 season so she could do a whole farewell tour where all the other coaches give her flowers and say nice things about her and create tribute videos. Obviously, that would have happened if she were leaving on chosen terms.

The head coaching legends are abandoning us. We do have Marsden now and forever, and D-D Breaux signed a new contract, so they're still flying the flag for the 3-decade team. You know D-D will be coaching until she's 295 years old, just to prove a point. She'll be nothing but a brain in a jar off to the side of the gym, yet no one will doubt who's in charge. But with neither Suzanne nor Sarah around anymore, there's a major void on the acidic rivalry, dramatic personality, and controversial gossip fronts. Let this be a memo to all our Rhondas, KJs, and Dannas to pick it up. Yes, you're all very pleasant and professional and good at your jobs. Snore.

It's helpful that ESPN made the Sarah and Suzanne documentary recently because that effectively covers the legacy portion of Sarah's career. Even if I've never been rah-rah Sarah or rah-rah Alabama, the sport would be so much weaker without her and David's work at Alabama. College gymnastics wouldn't be remotely as healthy or interesting. 

And now we have so much more to talk about when it comes to Alabama and 2015. All eyes on the Tide.

Various

Another week, another batch of developments. I'll keep these weekly updates going in the off-season as long as there are things to say. Otherwise, I'll start delving into numbers. Comparing 2014 NCAA scoring to previous years seems like it will need to happen at some point.

• First and foremost, it was confirmed today that Rene Lyst will be packing up her meet wardrobe and marching those heels over to Arizona State to take over as head coach following John Spini's retirement. Rene at Arizona State–it makes sense. It seemed like only a matter of time before she extracted herself from that "awkward alert!" co-coaching situation with Mark at Arkansas, but it will be fascinating to see how things play out for her as an independent head coach for the first time. Arkansas has been a very successful team since its inception, but Mark Cook often receives the majority of the credit for that. This is a chance for Rene to establish her own coaching identity in a program that has been screaming for a major shakeup for years. They need to start working beam with the same attitude that Rene uses to shop for clothes, if that makes any sense. 

• Last week, ESPNU profiled the Alabama/Georgia gymnastics rivalry in "Sarah & Suzanne: Into Darkness." 

• For those unfamiliar with the history of that time Sarah was pissed that Georgia used the wrong bars, it was a helpful, basic overview of the evolutions of the Alabama and Georgia programs into actual things with actual fans, unearthing the eyeroll-inducing "sweet" Sarah vs. "nasty" Suzanne narrative from back in the day. Maybe that's why I've always liked Suzanne so much. Even during the interviews in this . . . (are we calling it a documentary? That seems like a stretch . . . featurette?) she still looks like she's holding a shiv just out of shot. I respect that. 

• It didn't tell us anything new or juicy (it was never going to), but it was a perfectly reasonable commercial for the programs and the borderline-terrifying grand dames that built them. Plus, we got to see Kupets again and also how amazing Ashley Miles looks. You know Ashley Miles just wanted to be part of this so that she could be like, "Check this out. Am I a model? Probably." Also, could all those the goobers from the Athens Bee and the Tuscaloosa Aw, Shucks Times or whatever have been any bigger stereotypes of themselves? It was awesome.

• But really, the clothes. The primary motif and thematic journey of "Sarah and Suzanne" concerns the leotard and fashion choices. Who told any of you that any of this was a good idea? You might try to explain it away by saying that it was a different era, but no. This wasn't just some Kerri Strugg's mom (a.k.a. the state bird of the year 1996) action. No one EVER wore clothes like this. 

• Tone it down, Betty Crocker. 

• There were all kinds of strange moments in "Sarah & Suzanne," like when we were treated to a discussion of the perils of Georgia's difficulty while seeing them fall on a layout stepout on beam and a giant on bars. THE DIFFICULTY! Or how much Georgia footage there was of Shayla Worley, Sarah Persinger, and Noel Couch, none of whom ever competed under Suzanne. But for a full guided tour through the trauma, check out Spanny Tampson's breakdown. I mean that in the sense that she broke down the action from the featurette, not like she had a mental breakdown while watching this thing. But you never know. Al Trautwig did make an appearance, and it's always hard to keep going emotionally after that. The biggest problem with Al is that in the last 20 years, he has never gotten past the fact that gymnastics is hard. Yeah, it's hard. Now let's progress from there.  

Notes on Things and Stuff and Things

A week. We've already had a week to recover from the non-stop binge of Yurchenko fulls and 9.950s that is the NCAA season. Just, what, eight months to go until next season? But of course, there will be much elite action to satiate us in the intervening period. For now, a few random thoughts on what has been happening.

• Elizabeth Price is off to Stanford for the 2014-2015 year. Kristen Smyth should put out a press release saying, "Boom. Nailed it. The end. Your move, Marsden." Price is the exact definition of what Stanford was missing this season, and I'm giddy for their team next year.  Price? Hong? Vaculik? Shapiro? McNair x 2? Rice? Daum? That's a killer roster, but with great talent comes great responsibility. No one is settling for 9th place next year for a team with that much potential. If they can't win with this roster, when can they win?

• Price's decision to forgo elite possibilities in favor of NCAA in the middle of an Olympic quad is a rare and exciting choice. We don't usually see someone who is right in the conversation as one of the top AAers in the world and at the peak of her talents decide to go to NCAA, but that's just what she has done, which is great for NCAA and great for gymnastics in general. People often talk about shifting the rhetoric of gymnastic dreams away from the Olympics and toward the college scholarship, which is the true and attainable pot of gold at the end of a gymnastics career. That Elizabeth Price has elected to go to Stanford instead of going for Worlds (or beyond) sends a great message that it's not all about the Olympics. The Olympics are not the be all, end all of everything. There are other worthy aspirations.

• I had the pleasure of chatting with all-time gems of the world Jessica and Uncle Tim for this week's episode of Gymcastic, breaking down all the action from the NCAA Championships. If you haven't listened to the episode yet, then get on that. Where have you been?

•  On Wednesday, ESPNU will be showing the delayed broadcast of Super Six, which usually contains several important routines that were missed during the live broadcast, so that should be worth checking out. But, to make sure we tune in, the competition will be preceded by "Sarah & Suzanne" an hour-long SEC Storied documentary highlighting the rivalry between Sarah and Suzanne (hence the name). I'm sure I'll have upwards of six thoughts about it.