Sept. 10, 2010
UnIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Head coach Jeff Thompson and his wife and associate head coach Rachelle Thompson arrived in State College in late July to take over the Penn State women's gymnastics program. Jeff is the ninth head coach in program history. Get to know the Thompsons through the below Q&A.
Q: How does it feel to be at Penn State?
Jeff: Awesome! We're learning our way around; finding more buildings now than just the White Building and BJC. If we get lost, we find the football stadium and then find our way back to where we need to be.
Rachelle: We literally find something new that we love about the university everyday. With recruits coming in and walking around, going to places to eat, everyday we go home and say, "We love it here, we're so excited." You know, everyday we just love it more and more.
Q: Do you feel that you are settled in?
Jeff: Yeah, I think so. We're settled into our rent house and we figured out which directions the fans need to blow during the day and where they need to blow at night, so we don't freeze. We have basically everything set up in our offices.
Rachelle: Yeah, we're settled. We are waiting for the team to get back Monday; we're going to be building a house here soon, and hopefully selling our house in Alabama. We are as settled as we can be in the four short weeks we've been here.
Q: What was it about Penn State that attracted you here?
Jeff: Well, first the main thing was the ability to recruit high-level athletes and to achieve our personal goals of winning a national championship. Then we sat down with Tim Curley and saw how amazing he is, as well as everyone else we met. We also saw how great the town was. It was very similar to where we left, the rural setting with a world class university right in the middle, a great school system for the kids, great recreational opportunities and all of that. We didn't feel that we were leaving anything behind because we were getting equal or better in every area.
Rachelle: You know a lot of schools talk about their family and their traditions and integrity, but we felt that Penn State really had all of that and it wasn't just words. That was a huge draw for me.
Jeff: At one point, we talked about recruiting and getting the program to the highest level. We asked them what they wanted us to do and they said, "You are going to honor the commitments of the 2011 graduates. Penn State's going to honor those and then you can start recruiting." Other schools would have said, "Go get the best kids that you can get." That summed up in a nutshell the integrity of the athletic department. It isn't just about winning and victories. That really impressed us.
Q: What are you looking forward to most in your first year?
Jeff: Our first meet. We open with Alabama and our last two seasons at Auburn, we opened the season with Auburn's archrival, the University of Alabama. At the end of the interview process, they handed us a few papers, including the budget and the schedule and I looked at Rachelle and said, `This is how you know God has a sense of humor, look at who our first meet is against." The beginning of the season is going to be a test with Alabama, Michigan, and then we go to Florida. Three of the first four meets are against teams that are consistently in the super six. It'll be a good test to see where we are and a good measure of where we need to be.
Rachelle: I'm looking forward to winter, because being a Southern girl, I'm not really used to the winters. But I love Penn State so much, that it's going to be okay. I'm really excited to start building relationships with the girls on the team. The whole process of getting to know the team, building our family and getting to the level that we want to be at is going to be wonderful.
Q: What are some of your short-term and long-term goals for the program?
Rachelle: Our long-term goals include, not just winning a national championship, but just to win. Our short-term goals are to get the team on the same page. We want to build the relationships and a foundation based on respect, communication, and a shared vision. We want to take care of each individual athlete, so the goal can be met of winning a national championship. We have a lot of work in front of us, but we have goals of winning Big Ten Championships and getting to nationals. We want to be part of super six this year and I think it is something that can be done.
Jeff: I'm looking forward to dancing in a lot of Penn State weddings. That's a long-term goal of mine. If you build a strong relationship with the lady while she's here, then you are going to be invited to the wedding and you're going to get to dance with her. So I'm looking forward to that.
Q: What are some of the challenges that you have as coaches at a Division I institution?
Jeff: Recruiting is the biggest challenge and the main reason we changed schools. Recruiting happens very early now; gymnasts are visiting schools between their sophmore and beginning of their junior year in high school. They're making decisions when they are 15 and 16 years old on where they're going to go to college. These gymnasts have already decided before you can write to them. The challenge becomes to find a way for them to be interested by the end of their sophomore year. Everyone in the Northeast always has Penn State as their top choice. People want to be part of a winning program. Going to nationals is a big attraction.
Rachelle: We are going to market our program in a way that reaches out all over the Northeast and makes kids want to come here.
The Thompsons |
Q: What made you both want to become gymnastics coaches?
Rachelle: For me, it was being a college gymnast and a gymnast my whole life. After getting married, I wanted to get back into coaching. When I started, I realized every day you're faced with this amazing opportunity to change kids' lives, to mentor them and help them become the people they are supposed to become. I've become more and more passionate and totally in love with the sport. I kind of fell in and wanted to do it again. Over the years I've become more obsessed with it. I want to get better and better and want to get a team and a group of girls to that ultimate title.
Jeff: When the boys were young, she couldn't really coach. She was working with the club program and doing some choreography. She'd be with the boys all day and then she'd be with the club all night. I'd be with the boys all night. When they finally got to an age they could go to school, she decided it would be a good time for her to start as a full-time coach.
For me, even though I was never a gymnast, I've always loved gymnastics. My high school ring is sitting in a little box on my dresser and it has gymnastics on the side of it, even though we didn't have it at our high school. I just enjoyed working with the gymnasts.
Q: What are some of the benefits of being a husband and wife coach?
Jeff: Well, we get along really well. We never fight. We see eye-to-eye on everything.
Rachelle: We're always on the same page. There are no questions with our team girls of `who do I listen to?' We say the same thing, we believe in the same thing, we stand for the same thing, we have the same goals, we have the same passions, and our team ladies know that. The girls always know where we're going and who we are and what we stand for and it's easy for them to follow through.
Jeff: We've been doing it for a while now so we have it figured out. We used to leave our assistant coach out of things all the time because we would talk about it at night. Of course we knew what we were doing and then the assistant coach would have no idea, because we decided in the middle of the night what we were doing. We've gotten better at keeping that person in the loop. We've already apologized to Randy and let him know there are going to be days that he has no idea simply because we forgot to tell him.
Q: Despite having done this for quite a while, are there any remaining challenges?
Rachelle: Definitely. He's been doing it longer than me, so when he goes home at night, he's ready to be home and hang out with the boys, our two children. When I go home, I'm still working with my girls. I'm not interested in soccer and boy stuff as much. So when we go home, I still talk about, "I want to do this and this and that and wouldn't this be so cool? and Jeff is like, "Really? I left the office two hours ago." As we have gone through the process, I've done a better job of not leaving work at work.
Jeff: Or she just tries not to drag me into it, if I'm having guy time with the boys, she lets me have that time.
Rachelle: I let him have guy time and I have girl time. I know there's always someone on the team that I can call for ideas. It frustrates me because he isn't `gym, gym, gym' and he has extra hobbies. He tells me I need to get a hobby and I tell him that I have 14 hobbies named "Whitney, Sharaya, etc.," It's my hobby and my job to make them better.
Q: What are some of the things that you want to stress to the girls as coaches and mentors?
Rachelle: The whole foundation of our philosophy is giving each kid what they need to succeed in life. Not just in the gym, but in their personal life and academics. We want everyone on our staff and our team to feel they have a voice. Everyone needs to speak and be able to communicate. What we want to teach them is that there are so many lessons in gymnastics that will help them in life. When they have a voice and know where they're going. They're going to learn to respect one another regardless of their differences. We are all different and you have to find something good in everybody. They need to communicate, whether they agree or disagree. They are going to find their own voice and formulate opinions, and learn they will not always agree with one another and that's okay.
Jeff: You need to be able to express how you feel, because it's not wrong or right, it's simply how you feel. I might change the way you think about things by giving you a different perspective, but I can't and won't try to change the way you feel. We also want to stress the importance of focusing on the process; the process of competing, the process of your routine. We don't want to be outcome-oriented. The sports world is very outcome-oriented. We don't want the girls worrying about what they score because it is out of their control. We stress focusing on the things that we can control.
We have a very cooperative style of coaching too, where the team feels they have a say and that they have input. They know there are going to be times when we say, "No, we're not going to do that, this is what we decided." Its not a dictatorship, it's a democracy. By making them feel they have some ownership of the program, then its easier to get them to do what they need to do to be successful.
Q: What are you expectations for Big Ten competition, coming from the SEC?
Jeff: When you go to Florida, Alabama, or Georgia, it's 14,000 people for a dual meet. We know in the Big Ten, there aren't any teams that draw like that. We're expecting the crowds to be less intimidating than where we were before. Hopefully, that doesn't make the meets less exciting than where we were before. I know its level across the Big Ten and that anyone can beat anyone on a given day. It's not like Georgia, who didn't lose for two seasons. Teams in the Big Ten don't go through the season undefeated. On any given night we know it's going to be based on the team's performance, not on a reputation. It's really exciting for us.
Q: What do you feel like you bring to the program and the Penn State family as a whole?
Jeff: Enthusiasm and passion for the sport and a lot of experience. I was an assistant at a lot of different places. I worked for a lot of people. I learned a lot from them. We have a very strong belief in our foundation and know that it is successful and that the kids are going to buy into it. Once they buy into it 100%, we will have a team that is happy and competes well. Over time, we will have one of the best teams in the country.
Rachelle: I think I bring excitement and passion. I think we bring a high level of energy. Any time there is a coaching change, there is a new energy. As a family ourselves, we're excited to be a part of the Penn State family and all of its traditions.
Q: Is there anything you would like to add?
Jeff: Both the men's and women's programs have a strong tradition and history. We're looking forward to meeting all of the alumni and welcoming them back to campus. We are going to try to find ways to have them help out and find ways for them to be in touch. We want them to learn about our team and our team to learn about them. One of the things that we are going to teach the team here, is how important the alumni are. They will all be a part of that group one day.
Rachelle: We want to know where our alumni are and what they're doing. It's exciting when you hear about your alumni getting married and starting families and then having them come back to visit. You know you've done your part, because they're coming back to the university.
Jeff: We're also looking forward to getting out into the community and doing community service. We are looking to build our home attendance through serving the community. We want to provide a fun, family entertainment event that has the same result every time.