U.S. Men's Gymnastics Coach Announces Retirement
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) _ U.S. men's gymnastics coach Peter Kormann says he will retire when his contract runs out next month.
"I've been doing this for 25 years," he said Monday after the Americans finished fifth in the Olympic team finals. "I'm a little burned out."
After a successful career coaching college at Navy and Ohio State, where he won an NCAA title, Kormann joined USA Gymnastics in 1995. He was a key part of team director Ron Galimore's "Operation Flip-Flop" program, designed to breathe life back into the struggling program.
More than his technical wisdom, gymnasts seemed to rally behind the 44-year-old Kormann because of his bubbly personality and his tactics as a motivator.
"Peter's been incredible for this team in the last four years," John Roethlisberger said. "It's just the heart he's given us. And reminding us that we compete for the greatest country in the world. He really taught us that. Because of that, we've gone out there with some tenacity and determination and heart."
A bronze medal winner in 1976, Kormann's self-described mission was to let the gymnasts' personal coaches take care of the day-to-day teaching, while he kept the athletes focused on the big picture.
He often produced inspiring videos to show the athletes before a big meet and he always had a ream of charts and graphs to prove to his team and any skeptics that the United States was closing the gap with the rest of the world.
But the fifth-place finish was no better than what the Americans did four years ago in Atlanta. His legacy, therefore, is very much up in the air.
Kormann's mother, Mary, suffered a stroke late last month, and he nearly left the team's training camp in San Diego to be with her in Massachusetts.
"My family talked me out of it," he told the Columbus Dispatch.
After Monday's finals, in which the United States finished 1.36 points out of the bronze medal Kormann had guaranteed this summer, the coach was especially hard on himself. He took the blame for the team's poor performance and suggested that maybe he hadn't pushed them hard enough in training.
"I'm here as a coach to tell you that those kids did everything they were asked to do over the last four years," Kormann said. "If there was something that came up wrong, it came from here."
(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
