UCLA hires former Cal assistant Janelle McDonald as its new gymnastics coach

As UCLA fell from the highest of the Pac-12’s gymnastics ranks lately, California moved in to fill the void. Whereas the Bruins didn’t advance to the NCAA championship, the Golden Bears put collectively their greatest season at school historical past in 2021 and gained their first Pac-12 title, sharing the common season crown in 2022.

In want of a contemporary begin, the Bruins turned to their in-state rivals for his or her subsequent chief.

UCLA employed California assistant coach Janelle McDonald to take over its gymnastics program on Monday, hoping a brand new voice may also help one of many faculty’s hottest groups regain its championship luster.

“Janelle has been exemplary at connecting with and growing younger individuals at each stage of her teaching profession,” athletic director Martin Jarmond stated in an announcement. “Her enthusiasm and vitality is contagious. She understands and respects the Bruin legacy and the dedication to excellence this program deserves as top-of-the-line within the nation.”

The earlier teaching workers, led by Chris Waller, lasted solely three seasons after Waller abruptly resigned on the finish of the 2022 season.

Whereas Waller’s intensive resume included NCAA championships as a competitor on UCLA’s males’s gymnastics workforce and an Olympic all-around closing look in 1992 earlier than changing into the highest assistant underneath former UCLA coach Valorie Kondos Discipline, McDonald didn’t compete collegiately. She attended Arizona State, the place she interned with the gymnastics program in 2010.

Nonetheless, she is an skilled membership coach, working at prime gyms together with Desert Lights in Arizona Object — which produced Olympian MyKayla Skinner — and Texas powerhouse WOGA. The well-known fitness center exterior of Dallas has skilled stars like Katelyn Ohashi and Madison Kocian.

“I’ve recognized Janelle for fairly a while now. It’s been superb watching her develop as a coach and seeing the best way she will add to a school workforce,” Ohashi stated in an announcement to UCLA. “Change is all the time thrilling, and so is a brand new perspective. I can’t wait to see the place she leads this workforce.”

McDonald joined Cal’s workers in 2018, specializing in bars. In 2021, she earned her second regional assistant coach of the 12 months award because the Bears made their fourth NCAA championship look whereas setting program data on bars, beam and flooring and in total workforce rating. McDonald coached the top-ranked bars squad within the nation, led by particular person NCAA champion Maya Bordas, Cal’s first ever particular person NCAA champion. Cal tied a 17-year-old NCAA document on bars with a 49.825 mark in a meet towards UCLA.

“My experiences in Berkeley and with the student-athletes on the Cal gymnastics workforce have pushed me to turn into a greater model of myself and have ready me to tackle this new alternative,” McDonald stated in an announcement to UCLA. “I can’t wait to get began with our workforce and construct with them a tradition that can honor and proceed the good historical past of this program.”

Cal practically ended its ladies’s gymnastics program in 2010 due to price range cuts, however the Bears at the moment are one of many prime groups within the Pac-12 underneath co-head coaches Justin Howell and Elisabeth Crandall Howell. This system attracted former elite stars like Andi Li, whose older sister Anna as soon as starred at UCLA, and incoming freshman eMjae Frazier, who competed on the world championships for america in 2021. She can be the youthful sister of former UCLA star Margzetta Frazier.

Margzetta Frazier, a senior well-known for her viral Janet Jackson flooring routine, overtly referred to as for a training change throughout an look on actress Amanda Seales’ podcast through the season amid controversy about how Waller and his workers dealt with a preseason incident by which a former gymnast used racist language. Stress amongst gymnasts and coaches lingered all through the season because the Bruins missed the NCAA championship lower by 0.025 factors within the NCAA regional closing. It was the primary time in program historical past that UCLA hadn’t competed as a workforce on the nationwide meet in back-to-back years.