Life wasn’t too different for Megan Marsden when she first joined the Utah gymnastics program in the 1980s. The surroundings may have been different — the team practiced in the West 106 room in the HPER building, she lived in the dorms that are now currently the parking lot next to the new Lassonde Building, and much of upper campus had yet to exist. Most notably, the Red Rocks used to only compete in the Special Events Center (where the Huntsman Center is located now) in front of only 1,000 people a couple times a year, whereas the team now typically performs in front of a sold-out crowd of 15,000 people at the Huntsman Center.
Other than those few things, life at the U has remained mostly the same. The former gymnast remembers balancing school and homework with her busy practice schedule. She remembers going on a week-long road trip through California during her freshman year at the U. Marsden remembers starting the legacy that is Utah gymnastics, but she didn’t exactly see the extent of that legacy until a few years after the fact — she had a few other concerns at the time.
“I was an 18-year-old college student on the gymnastics team and I don’t think we realized we were the beginning of quite a dynasty and kind of creating history,” Marsden said. “We were just young people doing our thing. We worried about the next test and we were worried about whether or not a boy liked us. We didn’t think of ourselves as anything extraordinary.”
From 1981-84, Marsden and the Red Rocks came away with four national championships. Each one felt different to Marsden — she was even awarded the all-around title in her junior and senior seasons at the U. Marsden has always had a team mentality, however, and she would never take full credit for those banners that now in hang in the Dumke Gymnastics Center.
Much of that success Marsden attributes to her then-head coach and now husband Greg Marsden.
“Greg really was an incredible young coach who was a visionary with a lot of ideas in his head and workaholic mentality towards this program,” Marsden said. “You put those things together, some smarts and also someone that would work 24/7, and great things happen. Greg helped guide us on how we could be great.”
Marsden considers herself lucky to have been at Utah for as long as she has been, especially considering the fact that most coaches in any given sport bounce around from one place to another before finally settling down. She always figured she would end up coaching somewhere after she graduated from the U, but when she married Greg her senior year, things came together seamlessly, because there was no other program she would have wanted to be a part of more than Utah’s. But the transition from a gymnast to a coach wasn’t as easy as the decision to stay.
Since Marsden joined the coaching staff right after graduating, she ended up coaching some of the same girls who had been her teammates only a few months before. Marsden wanted to be there for the girls and she wanted to let them in on everything the coaches were saying — she still wanted to be one of them. She also knew she had to distance herself. She did, and it became easier over time.
Marsden does her best job to remember what it is her girls are going through and what they are feeling.
“To gain an understanding of the staff perspective, the coach’s personality and also still be able to relate to the athlete is a fine line you walk, because I couldn’t ever be just one of them,” Marsden said. “If I became just one of the coaching group then I lost a little bit of the connection, so I feel like I had to ride that line carefully. [I had to make] sure to be true to my job and my responsibility as a coach, but also to make the girls feel like I was there for them.”
Student athletes often have much demanded of them and Marsden can sympathize. However, Marsden thinks athletes now have it a little easier. Her girls have access to tutors, mentors and all the study help they could ever need — that wasn’t the case when Marsden was attending the U in the early 1980s.
That week-long road trip Marsden and her team took in her first season is something unheard of in today’s collegiate athletic world, and it took its toll academically on the gymnasts. This isn’t to say that the gymnasts who competed that many years ago weren’t good students, but Marsden would say the student athletes now are given a better support system in terms of school and are better students for it. Last year’s team had an average 3.7715 GPA compared to Marsden’s 3.0 GPA she said she finished with.
But again, Marsden knows that the balance between school and practice can get tricky no matter what the support system is. Being one of the lone coaches on the team who has been through it, granted it was in the 1980s, she feels like she’s able to connect with her team more so than others. The Red Rocks haven’t messed with their recipe for success, which also has its benefits.
“Even though it’s 35 years later, I feel a kindred spirit with them,” Marsden said.
Her gymnasts feel the same way.
Baely Rowe is entering her senior season on the Utah gymnastics team and she’s doing her best to live in the moment — she doesn’t like thinking of it as her “final year” on the team. Rowe has been able to depend on Marsden time and time again, and she expects no different this season.
“She brings a light energy in the gym being one of us,” Rowe said. “We can always go to her for anything related to gymnastics, and if we’re struggling with something she has been there. She can help us in many different ways and she offers many different perspectives.”
Rowe thinks this year’s team is different. To some extent Marsden does as well, however, being a coach for 33 years, there’s not much that sets one team drastically apart from another. What Marsden does notice is the same tendencies and personalities that some of her gymnasts have now that remind her of former Utah gymnasts.
For example, Sabrina Schwab reminds Marsden of Theresa Kulikowski, and Rowe reminds her of Kim Allen. They cycle through, and although that might seem kind of repetitive and boring, Marsden wouldn’t have it any other way. She does think that this year’s team is as driven, if not more so, than any other team. She expects her team to compete for the Pac-12 Championship and she expects the team to make it to the Super Six. The Red Rocks have a history of winning, one that Marsden started, but it’s not the only thing that has kept Marsden going.
What has kept Marsden at the U for so long is that she gets to coach beyond gymnastics — she gets to coach lessons of life through gymnastics. Marsden isn’t stuck in a dead-end job. She wakes up every morning excited to go to work, and she doesn’t even consider it work
“It’s not a job, it’s my life,” Marsden said.
@kbrenneisen