Bama Gymnasts Win National Title

In a sport I admire but don’t understand, and on a day where football (as usual) took center stage, the Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics team quietly won their fifth national crown at the NCAA Championships in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Tide edged UCLA by .325, and blew out Michigan by 1.225. See, I told you I don’t understand it.

Bama was voted preseason number two, though Sarah Patterson thought that ranking too lofty.

“When I saw it, I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?'” said Patterson, who completed her 33rd season as Alabama’s head coach. “That is what people expect us to do, that by the end of the season, somehow, some way with 13 new routines, eight freshmen, people who haven’t competed before, that we would find a way to be competitive.”

Patterson just completed her 33rd season as a head coach, and with her fifth national title has attained Pat Summitt-like status.

Summitt has led the Lady Volunteers basketball team 37 years and has won it all 8 times.

The difference is, Patterson is feminine, and she doesn’t look like she’s about to kill you. Plus she leads a pack of girls each year that you wouldn’t be afraid to bring home to momma…or would be relatively certain wouldn’t beat up your momma. Some how that just seems harder to me.

Look, I’ve been to gymnastics meets, and they are entertaining. And I’m not going to pretend to understand the peculiar scoring that makes Dancing With The Stars scores look rational.

I just know whatever Sarah Patterson is doing, she is doing at the top of her game, and we’re lucky to have her leadership at the University of Alabama.

Congratulations to Patterson and the University of Alabama Gymnastics Team…thank you for representing the Crimson Tide well.

The final scoring was as follows:

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP
SUPER SIX FINALS
Saturday at Cleveland

1. Alabama 197.650
2. UCLA 197.325
3. Oklahoma 197.250
4. Nebraska 196.725
5. Utah 196.500
6. Michigan 196.425

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