Flying High Falcons  

Volume 1—Summer 2010    

Letter From Coach Simons This season was the most fulfilling season I’ve had in my five years here at the Air Force Academy. The coaching staff con-sisting of Brett McClure, Lt. Col. Chuck Schweiss and myself started the season with four clear-cut goals. Have a winning dual meet season, win USA Gymnastics Championships, qual-ify the team to NCAA Championships (top 12) and win the All Academy Championships. I knew accomplishing all four goals would be a tough challenge considering the talent we lost. Sen-ior co-captain Josiah Loeser graduated, along with Nissen Award finalist Jacob Schonig. Our 2009 MVP, Jacob Houder, also missed the 2010 season due to season ending elbow sur-gery. To the rescue came my deepest recruiting class ever pre-pared to help us achieve our goals: Tory Brown, James Oka-moto, Travis Langham, Nick Owen, Thomas Wilkinson and Alex Jessop.

From the first practice on August 4th, I knew we had a special

group of guys who were ready to buy into the program. We trained harder skills and perfected basic skills throughout the fall. Quickly our season was upon us. We opened our season with a strong performance at the Rocky Mountain Open, and followed up with another strong performance on the road at the University of Minnesota. Three of our top athletes, Joel Uptmor, Nash Mills and Tory Brown, competed in the US Winter Cup Champion-ships in Las Vegas, Nevada. All three did a bang-up job. Air Force was the only Academy represented at this event! Next up: All Academy Championships. Unfortunately the competition was cancelled because Navy couldn’t field a strong enough team (scared), and Army was snowed in. Due to some injuries, we hit a dry spell throughout the month of February, but quickly got things turned around for the month of March. We split wins with the University of Illinois-Chicago at home (a team I have never beat). We then hit the road to bring home three Ws: a win at West Point (always a good win), and two wins at Springfield (William and Mary-another team I had not beaten). Approach-ing the end of March, we hosted the USA Gymnastics Nationals and won the event for the first time in the 23 year history of the meet.

 

2009‐10 Team Members 

Letter (continued)

Brett McClure and Chuck Schweiss received Assistant Coach of the Year awards at this event while I was awarded the Head Coach of the Year. Our post season began with us ranked 12th going into our Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) conference meet. The team was confident that a solid perform-ance would retain our 12th place ranking, and qualify us as a team to the NCAA Championships. We had our best hit per-centage of the year at 83%, but because of inconsistent scoring at the conference meets across the country (conference score counts 40% of qualifying score to NCAAs), Temple bumped us to 13th, and we lost our chance to go to NCAAs as a team. We ended up qualifying nine individual athletes to NCAAs, and had a strong showing. At the NCAA banquet, Brett McClure and I went home with another set of “Coach of the Year” awards. We wrapped up the season with our end-of -the-year nine hole golf scramble and banquet at the Eisenhower Golf Course. We had a great round followed up by an hour long awards and video presentation. Junior Nash Mills received the Most Valu-able Gymnast award and was also named the 2011 Team Cap-tain by the coaching staff and his peers. Freshman Alex Jessop received the Hardest Worker Award, James Okamoto received the Freshman of the Year Award and junior Matt Thorne took home the Most Improved Gymnast Award. In the end, we accomplished three of our four season goals. We finished with a winning dual meet season, won the USAG Championships, and technically the All Academy Champion-ships (we beat both teams during the season). The inconsistent judging at all conference meets caused us to come up just short on our final goal.

The following are highlights from our 2010 season: We welcomed Mr. Mark Peters as our new athletic trainer We welcomed our new Officer Representative, Lt Col Chris Brooks Devin Menefee sticking a handspring double front to win the USAG Vault title Nine USAG All Americans Nash Mills stepping up meet after meet hitting sets con sistently Nash Mills, Tory Brown and Joel Uptmor competing at Winter Cup Beating UIC and William & Mary for the first time as head coach

Not giving up at the conference championship even though we knew by the second event the tough scoring would keep us out of going to NCAAs as a team Dan Klimkowski finishing the season without a season ending injury F-16 rides for Aaron Zaiser, James Okamoto, Dan Klim-kowski and Nash Mills F-16 ride for Coach McClure (the ride of his life!) C-130 airlift support for several meets Go Cart races in New York

Looking ahead to 2011, the program will continue to move for-ward. We graduate our two senior co-captains Garrett Canter and Brennan Wolford. Both contributed tremendously to the growth of our program over their four-year careers and will be greatly missed. Garrett is off to Holloman Air Force Base to begin his AF career in Logistics, and Brennan is off to Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, to begin his flying training. We again bring in six strong freshmen with the class of 2014: Colton Wulf from Wheat Ridge, CO, Ben Zaiser from Mars, PA, Kyle Baker from Union, KY, Mac Ritchie from Concord, NC, Tyler Huebner from San Antonio, TX and Patrick Duffy from Albuquerque, NM. We also have three gymnasts attending the prep school class of 2011: Corbin Palmer of Frisco, TX, Riley Kerr of Knoxville, TN and Greg Chaput of Worcester, MA. These gymnasts will enter with the Academy class of 2015.

James Okomoto—So.

Year-in and year-out we have amazing success stories, and I look forward to passing them along to you. I also look forward to get-ting to know each of you, and encourage you to follow your program through Facebook (Air Force Men’s Gymnastics) and goair-forcefalcons.com. We’re hosting the 55 Years of Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics reunion at USAFA on the weekend of the 22nd of January, 2011. I encourage you to come support USAFA gymnastics, watch a great dual meet against Army and share stories of the good ole days with your past teammates, coaches and friends. Please feel free to contact me anytime at kip.simons@usafa.edu. Again, it is so important that you pass along this message to anyone involved with USAFA Men’s Gymnastics in any capacity over the past 55 years. I drastically want to increase our fan base. My ultimate goal is to assemble a network we call “Friends of USAFA Men’s Gymnastics.” I look forward to building the “Friends of USAFA Men’s Gymnastics” network, making our already strong program one of the best in the country.

Devin Menefee—Jr. Nash Mills—Sr.

Upcoming Team Captain

To Follow Air Force Men’s Gymnastics, go to: www.goairforcefalcons.com

To learn how to make a difference in Men’s Gymnastics, please visit: www.goairforcefalcons.com/falcon-pride/

“Captain’s Corner” Coming off of a great season, I know everyone on the team is fired up to try and do even better. Since I arrived here 3 years ago the team has been improving every year, and I believe that this next year will be one of our best. We have an outstanding group of freshman coming in this year who will help push our team to the next level. I am proud to be a part of this team, and can’t wait to see what the future holds for Air Force Gymnastics.

-Nash Mills