Gymnasts Celebrate a Remarkable Season as Rings are Awarded
9/25/2002 12:00:00 AM | Gymnastics
The following is from the Sept. 21 Alabama-Southern Mississippi Football Game Program:
Tonight, for the fourth time since 1988, members of the Alabama gymnastics team will gather at mid-field here at Bryant-Denny Stadium to receive rings that symbolize a National Championship.
With the 2002 NCAA Gymnastics Championships, the University of Alabama now lays claim to 16 athletic national team titles. The 2002, 1996, 1991 and 1988 gymnastics championships join the Tide’s 12 national football titles.
Alabama rose to its fourth national gymnastics championship through teamwork, hard work and nerves of steel. The path to title No. 4 wasn’t smooth though. When practice started in the fall, five of 16 gymnasts were rehabbing injuries, including Alabama’s all-everything senior Andree’ Pickens.
But as the season progressed and the Tide started to return athletes to its lineup and those in the lineup started adding more and more difficulty to their routines, fans of the program began to see the possibilities. This team could be good, they could be very good.
Still, going into the last weekend of the season, with the 12 best teams in the nation gathered in Tuscaloosa, the Tide was not considered the favorite for the top spot. That was just fine with Sarah Patterson and company though. The Tide had never been the most talented team on the floor of the national championships, but they found ways to win.
Such was the case in 2002. Three times, starting with the NCAA Regional Championships and continuing through the NCAA Super Six team finals, the Crimson Tide ended competition on the balance beam, the event on which championship dreams are as often dashed as realized. But this group of Alabama ladies was not deterred. Three meets in a row they went out and were brilliant, putting together an amazing string of 72 routines without a fall to win it all.
In fact, the Tide won its 18th NCAA Regional Championship by a wide margin, carried in large part by an NCAA balance beam record of 49.725.
To win their fourth NCAA Championship though, Alabama had to not only rock the beam, they had to do it on the last rotation and do it while the team that was sitting in second going into the final round, Georgia, was on the floor exercise - a traditional strength for the Bulldogs.
Alabama never blinked, scoring a 49.375 punctuated by Pickens’ 9.950 in the sixth and final spot. At these championships there was only one balance beam score better and that was Alabama’s preliminary mark of 49.450.
When Pickens threw her arms in the air after her dismount, the Coleman Coliseum crowd knew what happened, they knew the Bama-16 had again, as the Tide fight song said, “Writ her name in crimson flame...” and brought a fourth national title to Tuscaloosa. They roared their approval, stomping, clapping and screaming, much like the pandemonium that had broken out on the floor amongst the Tide athletes, coaches and staff.
The night after the Super Six team finals, Pickens closed out her Crimson Tide career by winning the NCAA Uneven Bars title. It marked the second individual NCAA Championship of her career. She won the NCAA balance beam title as a freshman in 1999.
Six members of the 2002 squad earned 14 All-American honors, the most of any team at the championships. Pickens and fellow senior Natalie Barrington along with junior Kristin Sterner, sophomore Jeana Rice and freshmen Alexis Brion and Shannon Hrozek all earned All-American.
Pickens ended her storied career as a two-time NCAA Champion, 14-time All-American, three-time SEC Gymnast of the Year, four-time NCAA Regional Gymnast of the Year, SEC Gymnast of the Year as a senior, the NCAA Woman of the Year for the State of Alabama and the Honda Award winner for gymnastics, which denotes the nations top gymnast.
Alabama carried out its golden year while earning a team grade point average of 3.6. Thirteen gymnasts earned Scholastic All-American honors – Pickens, Sterner, Hrozek, Barrington, Stephanie Kite, Tiffany Byrd, Alexa Martinez, Krista Gole, Whitney Morgan, Michelle Reeser, Erin Holdefer, Lauren Holdefer and Helen Burgin.
"These ladies all came to Alabama because they wanted a great education, they wanted to be part of a family environment and they all wanted to win a national championship,” Sarah Patterson said. “They were able to accomplish all that they set out to and more. It is a wonderful and very special accomplishment and one I hope they never forget.”
Also on hand here tonight are the eight freshmen of 2003, the largest class in Alabama gymnastics history. And as Mari Bayer, Rachael Delahoussaye, Dana Filetti, Ashley Miles, Dana Pierce, Lauren Pruitt, Larissa Stewart and Katie Wiley watch, they will be hoping that next year finds them standing where this mix of upperclassmen and alumni are now, waving to Alabama fans and holding championship rings tight.
