Dana Dobransky Duckworth
5/10/2002 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
Dana Dobransky Duckworth
Volunteer Assistant Coach
Sarah Patterson has always wanted her gymnasts to be positive role models to all the little girls they come into contact with. As for the gymnasts themselves, there isn’t a better role model than former Crimson Tide NCAA Champion Dana Dobransky Duckworth, now in her ninth season as a volunteer assistant coach for the Crimson Tide.
“Dana has achieved everything that I could wish for our athletes,” Patterson said. “She enjoyed a tremendous career here at Alabama, winning NCAA and SEC team titles as well as individual NCAA Championships. She excelled in the classroom and was active in the community. And beyond what she accomplished while she was at Alabama, she has gone on to a great career with a wonderful family. I can’t think of a better role model than Dana.”
Even the stories that Dana might rather forget serve the current generation of gymnasts well.
“As a freshman, in her first semester, Dana failed her first round of tests, in every class,” Patterson remembers. “I tell that story because by the end of the semester, she had all As. Dana worked hard to get things back on track and never gave up.”
Success is a Duckworth hallmark. She finished her career as a two-time NCAA Champion, winning the balance beam title in 1992 and 1993. She was also part of the 1991 NCAA Championship and 1990 Southeastern Conference teams.
Her life since graduation has been just as successful. She enjoys a highly successful career with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and she and her husband Joe, who married in 2000, have two children, Joseph Clemson, “Jace”, born in 2006, and Camryn Elizabeth who was born in 2004.
“Life changes so fast and priorities shift so quickly once you have children,” Duckworth said. “It’s been wonderful, extremely busy, but amazing time and I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for anything in the world.”
Balancing her family life, her profession and coaching is challenging, but well worth it, she said.
“My decision to volunteer with Alabama stems from the passion I have for the sport, the love I have for the University and the example I strive to set for our ladies in and out of the gym,” Duckworth said. “My goal is to bring an element of creativity and fun during our ladies’ quick four years here at the Capstone. It’s my way of giving back to a sport and a program that has given me so much.”
In addition to serving as a role model, Duckworth is also one of the nation’s premiere choreographers. Nothing could drive that point home quite like the success the athletes she has worked with have enjoyed.
Last season, when sophomore Morgan Dennis capped off her rookie season by winning the NCAA Floor Exercise Championship, it marked the fourth time that a routine that Duckworth choreographed won the NCAA floor title.
In what is believed to be a first, two of the athletes she worked with shared the NCAA floor exercise title in 2004 when Alabama’s Ashley Miles and North Carolina’s Courtney Bumpers tied for top honors. In 2005 Bumpers scored a 10.0 to win her second floor title, while Miles was right there in second with a 9.975.
That same year Miles also scored a 10.0 during the Super Six Team Final, leading Alabama to a second place finish. Miles closed out her storied Alabama career with a third place national finish on the floor exercise giving her four top-3 NCAA finishes.
With Duckworth’s help, Miles also won four consecutive Southeastern Conference and NCAA Regional floor exercise titles. She is the first gymnast in SEC history to win the same event all four years of her career.
“It’s such a wonderful experience to be able to help these athletes bring out their personality and perform routines that shine,” Duckworth said. “They work very hard and have certainly been very successful. It’s a lot of fun to watch them compete.”
Professionally, Duckworth has been just as successful. In her six and half years with Pfizer, she has already become a multiple Vice President Cabinet winner denoting the top representative in the Gulf Coast Region and earned the Circle of Excellence award which means she is in the top ten percent of the representatives in the Southeast Region. She was elected district captain for the Legislative Action Committee, which works with state and local Senators and Congressmen to address healthcare issues and the impact they have on constituents.
Duckworth’s pride in the Alabama gymnastics program also contributed to her decision to make a return engagement. Throughout her career, she witnessed the way in which the program changed her teammates, and, more importantly, how it impacted her own life.
“When I came aboard in 1989, I was just a 17-year-old girl. Over those four years, I really matured into a young woman with leadership skills,” Duckworth explained. “The opportunity to compete with Alabama completely structured my life in such a positive way - from winning championships to going to graduate school on postgraduate scholarships. Who could ask for anything more? I am so glad to have this opportunity to give back and watch the same thing happen to these young ladies.”
Duckworth has now seen both sides of a national team championship, having been a part of the Tide’s 1991 NCAA title as a sophomore and the 2002 NCAA Championship as a coach. She has also won a conference title as an athlete (1990) and as a coach (2003).
In addition to her team championships, Duckworth earned eight All-American accolades and finished her career in 1993 by winning her second consecutive NCAA Balance Beam title with a perfect 10.0. She was named NCAA Woman of the Year for the State of Alabama in 1993.
As a student, she soared to great heights, becoming a three-year Scholastic All-American and a two-time CoSIDA At-Large Academic All-American, an award the spans several sports. She was inducted in Mortar Board as an undergraduate and earned both an NCAA and Southeastern Conference Postgraduate Scholarship, using them to attend graduate school at Alabama and obtain her Master’s of Business Administration in 1999.
After graduating with her Bachelor’s degree, she moved up the corporate ladder quickly at AMX Corporation, a high tech firm out of Dallas. She finished her tenure there as manager of their training programs. After receiving her Master’s degree, she served as Director of Marketing of a Trussville based automotive company followed by a short stint as Vice President of Corporate Solutions for a Birmingham company before returning to Tuscaloosa to work for Pfizer.
