Interview: Jay Clark

Only six teams have won an NCAA Championships in the history of collegiate gymnastics. Since Jay Clark's arrival in 2012, the LSU Tigers have been inching closer and closer to adding their name to that list. Prior to LSU, Clark served as the assistant coach/associate head coach at the University of Georgia for 20 seasons. After their legendary coach Suzanne Yoculan announced her retirement following the 2009 season, Clark stepped in as the head coach and remained there for four seasons. Now in his fourth season at LSU, Clark is helping the Tigers do big things, including breaking numerous school records. In 2011, Clark was voted as the #9 recruiter in all of women's college sports. This season LSU brought in the top ranked freshman class in the country with big names such as Lexie Priessman, Sarah Finnegan, and McKenna Kelley.

In our interview, Jay talks about how his coaching career began, his thoughts on this season so far and he shares his opinion on the trend of early recruiting.

PC: Emily Brauner

How did your coaching career begin?

My coaching career started in an unconventional way. With the exception of having taken gymnastics classes when I was younger, my background was in every other sport and not extensive in Gymnastics. I had always wanted to be involved in UGA athletics since I was a youngster. My parents and entire family are UGA Grads, as am I, so while I was an undergrad I became good friends with several of the gymnasts: Heather Stepp, Sandy Rowlette, Jen Carbone and others. Through that friendship and sort of hanging around the gym, I began to help with equipment, camps, etc... 

Doug McAvinn tore his bicep tendon, and Suzanne needed a guy to help with spotting duties and such in the gym. Thus began my unlikely career, and in the fall of 1990 I was officially on the payroll at UGA as a greenhorn coach.

Doug took me under his wing and taught me a great deal about techniques and spotting in the gym. We watched hours upon hours of VHS tape where he would break skills down for me. I was eager to learn as much as possible, so I also began to work other people’s camps. I worked at Alabama’s camp as well as coaching at a local gym. Then I met Stormy Eaton who had a camp in Arizona called Super Camp. Suzanne had let me recruit by this time, and I thought a great way to go get Kim Arnold would be to have Stormy let me work his camp for free! He told me that "If I could find it, then I could work it". Well, I found it on my own dime, and that started another mentoring relationship that was hugely influential on me. In the process we also were able to sign Kim, which is one of my most memorable and exciting recruiting moments ever. Kids from that gym had always gone to Utah, so it was big to be able to go get her.

Suzanne began to give me more and more autonomy and responsibility even though my experience didn't really warrant it. For those many opportunities to grow, I will always be grateful to her. She saw my enthusiasm and allowed me to mature and make mistakes.

So from there it just continued to grow and grow. At one point I owned a private gym. We had kids make JO National Teams and go into college and continue their careers. That gym was successful primarily because of my wife Julie and my business partner Grant Coulter. They made that place go and we had about 9 awesome years together in that.

All the while I was continuing my career at UGA and loving every minute of coaching at my alma mater. Of course, we went on to win so many championships both Nationally and at the conference level, and it was an amazing time full of memories that I will never forget.

As they say, all good things come to an end and my career there was no different. That is a subject we could go on for hours about, but suffice to say it was one of the most painful periods of my life in many ways…which led me to LSU, and the absolute joy that I have found in being here with D-D and Bob and everyone here. This place is incredible, the people are incredible, and we are doing fantastic things here in Baton Rouge. Attendance has been as high at 13,000-plus and is averaging around 10,000. New facilities, great recruits and relationships here have rehabbed my confidence and enthusiasm for what it's all about.

PC: LSU Gymnastics

You are known for being a top recruiter in college sports. (Voted #9 in ESPN Magazine in 2011) What do you look for when recruiting athletes?

Well obviously in recruiting you are looking for the best talent available, but that doesn't always mean they are a fit. I also want to try and ascertain personality traits, work ethic, values from a standpoint of how they relate to their parents, coaches and teammates. Also, does their gymnastics complement areas where we are already strong and improve us where we may be weak? I like a team that has variety of skills, experience level and personality. Culture matters immensely, and we try to make that clear to recruits up front.

How would you describe your coaching style?

My coaching style is fun loving, consistency and efficiency oriented, easy going so long as the production is high. I like to tell the girls I am a mirror reflection of what you give. I like to know each gymnast on a personal level so that I can extend to them exactly what they need. I also believe in what one of my mentors taught me. "You can't respect someone you don't know." You can respect the position, but not the person. For that reason I think they also need to know us as human beings and not just coaches barking out orders. If they, as 18-22 year old young women, are to respect us, then we need to take the time to know each other and the how’s and why’s of each other. That’s very important to me. 

What are your thoughts on the trend of early recruiting and commitments? 

On the early recruiting, I despise it! It is no good for all parties concerned, and I have written and proposed legislation on it for 4 years now only to have it tabled. Our coaches association is in agreement that all unofficial visits (i.e. on or off campus contact) should not begin until September of the 11th grade year. However, until the NCAA changes it, the genie is out of the bottle, and we all have to play the game we are presented with. This is a subject you could do an entire blog on, and I could provide you a litany of reasons that it needs to change.

What are your thoughts on the yurchenko full being devalued? 

I agree with the changes on vault. I think what we saw from Bugs last week is a great example of why. That DTY would have never been seen if not for the rule change. Our sport is progressive by nature, and we had become stagnant on that event to a compulsory level. I think it was the right decision and hopefully will encourage variety as well as difficulty.

What are some of the highlights of your coaching career so far? 

I have had so many highlights in my career and am thankful for each one of them and the people involved. If I had to pick one, I would pick two! The 2005 National Championship was amazing because of the way it happened. It was a freshman-dependent team that went through real growing pains with four losses in a row and barely making nationals as the 12 seed. But those kids were special and were invested in one another. They actually are very similar to this team here at LSU this year!

The second would be last year, and we sold out the PMAC here at LSU. 13,179 people attended our meet versus Minnesota a week after 12,000+ had attended our home meet victory against Florida. It is so fun to see this happen here at LSU after seeing it happen at UGA 20 years ago. It's an exciting time to be at LSU!!

LSU had an amazing new training facility built, do you think that makes a difference in training?

We actually just got into the facility last month. We are just now making the adjustments to the new equipment, but the facility is fantastic. Facilities don't win championships by themselves, but they don't hurt! This is beyond a doubt the most spectacular facility in the nation. We are very fortunate and grateful, and every recruit in the world should come check it out just to see if LSU might be a possibility. It’s unbelievable!

PC: LSU Gymnastics

What are your thoughts on how the team is doing so far this season?

This season has been exactly as we thought it might: Amazing performance coupled with a few hiccups. We have 5 freshmen, upperclassmen in new roles, and have had some untimely injuries to start the season. However, I have rarely been more excited about a team over the last 26 years. If culture and love for one another won championships alone...we are already there, but we also have an enormous amount of talent and variety on this team that is rivaled by few. I think we are on the cusp of breaking out over the next few weeks and seeing things explode in a positive way. We love coaching this team!

LSU has improved tremendously over the last few years, do you think this year will finally be LSU's year to win a National Championship?

You are correct when you describe the growth here at LSU over the last several years. We have seen growth in our performance, our media exposure, our crowds, our overall footprint, and buzz about this program has increased exponentially! A lot of people have worked hard and gotten on board with our vision for this program. D-D is an iconic figure here in Baton Rouge, and I am enjoying seeing all her years of work come to fruition! She deserves it, and this program deserves it. As for winning a championship this year…I can tell you this: There are so many things that must fall into place for that to happen. It is something that we work for but cannot force, so I don't make predictions. I believe we have more than enough talent to do it. I believe in the culture of this team immensely. I believe in their heart and their desire, and I believe we are doing the right things so far. Will we win this year? Who knows? Why not us? But I know this! We are going to win one here at LSU at some point. That is what we are about, and that is what we want our recruits to desire when they come here. It's a special place full of special people all pulling in the same direction! When you have that great things are going to happen!