John Roethlisberger Discusses MAG Olympics, NCAA Gymnastics, & Flip Fest

He needs no introduction but it feels like he has a thousand hats he wears . He obviously has a crazy career Olympian for Team USA , enormously successful career . But then beyond that , flip Fest , one of the co-owners and kind of runs Flip Fest , the summer camp he does , commentating for NCAA and for Elite .

He has his hands very , very helpful in the men's program as well .

So I've wanted to have John on the podcast for a long time and thankfully , through a friend of mine , dave Durrani , and our associations at power monkey camp , which is at flip fest , was able to kind of get in contact with him and just have him on at the perfect time in lieu of Olympic trials and many things coming up here in the States .

So this conversation goes all over the place in a great way . We talk about college situation and , you know , the women's side , what we can do to make the men's side better . We talk about the Olympics coming up in the men's side as well as the women's side .

We talk about all sorts of great things related to summer camps and off-season training and stuff and how to get the most out of that , and just tons of really great recommendations that John has from experience all over the map of gymnastics .

So this one is honestly I think all the podcasts are must listens , but this one in particular is like there's so much really important information for the entire sport to kind of soak up here from someone like John who has years and years of experience to kind of go through . So lots of good stuff to dive into and I hope it's all a wonderful episode .

It's got a nice little series here of episodes leading up to the Olympics which I'm excited about . So hope you all enjoy this episode with John Boom . Live , john . How are you man ? I'm so happy to have you on the podcast .

So that starts on Sunday , in a couple of days , and then we have two weeks of that and then nine weeks of gymnastic camp and I'm going to try to mix in USA championships , olympic trials and three weeks at the actual Olympics in there . Not busy at all , not busy at all . It's crazy , but it's good , man , I mean , I'd rather be busy than bored .

I'm not sure if that makes me young or this very meta , but yeah , I've wanted to have been the podcast for a while and then I was .

I was at developmental program nationals lecturing to the college coaches and just thinking about like who , who can we kind of get on , who is like got hands in a lot of spots , given the Olympic year , and I was like I think it's time to have John on man between college and club and everything .

So let's , uh , let's actually start with flip fest , cause that's probably a good place is , um , I only know , I only know it through power monkey because of my experience with Dave and I didn't go to flip fest growing up .

But can you , uh , can you maybe share the madness that is how you got to starting flip fest from your career and like coaching and stuff Cause because it seems amazing for the kids for sure .

I don't know if anybody out there knows Phil Savage , but great boys coach for many , many years , and he ran a boys camp in Knoxville out of his gymnastic club and it was a very small camp . One week and Kip Simons actually our other 96 Olympic teammate was supposed to go and be the special guest .

Well , he had to cancel out and I'm sure , knowing Kip at the time , it was probably for some very irresponsible reason , like a Dave Matthews concert or something right or a girl , you know whatever .

And then over the next few years I went as a special guest and I was retired from gymnastics , trying to find that thing . That , you know , got me excited and I always love summer camps . You know , I went to IGC , I went to Lake Owen and was just always in love with that whole idea .

And he kept kind of hounding me and say , hey , why don't you come and be involved with this camp ? And I'm like , you know , gym camps are gym , camps are great , but summer camp to me is like going to camp . And finally we're like , well , why don't we just do that ? And so I came down in 05 .

We grew the camp to 800 kids in five weeks of camp out of Phil's gym , and during that time we found property in Crossville , an hour from Knoxville , and we put all our chips in the middle of the table and it was six months .

There was just a piece of land with nothing on it , just trees , not a single building or water line or electric line , and in six months we had all the cabins built in a gym and we were running a camp and it was uh , it's been great ever since .

And the first time I went to power monkey camp I think it was like nine years ago I was at like the third camp and I like walked down to the lake and I was like holy hell , this is like . This is like my childhood plus gymnastics and fitness . This is sick .

So , um , it's pretty awesome and from the pictures looking afar , I feel like you guys strike the perfect balance of the quality of gymnastics and education and guests and stuff .

It's obviously there , but like kids go to summer camp and kids go to gymnastics camp for fun , and I think you guys do such a good job of blending the lake and the canteen and like all that kind of stuff with you know the quality of gymnastics . So like is that like engineered ? Is that just happened by chance ? Like is that important to you ?

How did that all come about ?

You know I never tell , I never tell coaches , I never , never tell parents , I never tell gymnasts when they're talking to me about coming to camp and never say , hey , come to flip best , you will learn a ton of gymnastics . That's never what I tell them , Cause that'd be dishonest .

I mean , anybody who's been in gymnastics for a week knows that this sport takes a lot of time to to learn skills and and they do make they do make a lot of new skills and learn I shouldn't say learn a lot of skills . While they're here they get skills they've been working on at home for a long time . While they're here , they make a lot of progress .

But the main goal that we have in a week is that when they leave on a Friday , that they feel like I can do anything , Like I am special , I am unique . I can be a great gymnast if I want to be . I can be a great doctor . I can be a great athlete in another sport . It's not even specifically about gymnastics .

It's really important to us that , no matter what your background , where you're from , who you are , that you come to camp . This goes for our staff too . We want you to leave feeling empowered , energized and truly looking in the mirror every day and believe in that I can do something great in my life , and that's the main goal that we have at camp .

Yes , we want them to love gymnastics . We want them to leave loving gymnastics and hopefully learn some new skills . Progress in their new skills , Um but uh .

But that's mostly what we want them to get when they leave camp and obviously have fun on the lake , have fun at the camp , dance and just have , you know , make some new friends that you might have for a lifetime .

So I was from Connecticut , from the area , and I was the recreational director at that camp for like five or six years because I only taught preschool and rec , gymnastics and a little bit of club stuff and a little bit of pre-team stuff and then I realized very quickly that kids sneezing on your face is not a great long-term career .

But it was just going to summer camp and like learning from all the coaches they invited and like getting it in and it was perfect for me because I care the reason I of like the human level impact , what it does , the positive effects . It was really cool to be able to learn how to spot and learn to do that .

But also , yeah , like have fun , make friends , do whatever . And my favorite moments where we would have like improv nights or skit nights and kids who were like literally the most introverted , type A elite personality and they're like doing skits about whatever , it's like this is so good for them to learn or just to dance or have fun .

So , yeah , it's hilarious how the camp like kind of brings out the best , I think , in a lot of people .

But first thing I want to wonder is , given your incredible background and achievements , like , how does it hit you every time we get to a quad and trials comes up ? Like my palms get sweaty when I hear the national anthem because I think back about college and competing like does it still hit you pretty hard every time a quad comes up ?

I'll be honest with you . I mean , I thought about it the other day in the car and you know I'm , you know obviously I've got a lot of work to do , but it's different . You know , I don't have that stress that follows you everywhere , you know it follows you to the bathroom , to dinner , to a movie , to everything you do for .

You know , for , yeah , for years you're thinking about it , but when it comes down to that last few months , you're like , oh , gosh , gosh , yeah , you know , you kind of just , you just want to get through it , you want it to go well , but it's like , can this be over so we can get on to the next thing ? It's , it's hard , these athletes .

They carry a lot on their shoulders , um , not just physically but um , mentally and emotionally .

It's always on your mind what am I doing ? Am I doing everything right to prep for it ? I mean , I don't know , do you ? There's probably a lot of elites who are either in the , in the quad or around the world listening to this . Do you know ? It's so cliche , but you only can be who you are .

And I always used to , in practice , imagine myself in the competition and then in competition , imagine myself in practice .

And when I did that well , I competed well you know , I just I was in that bubble , I was in that little corner , cook , all in the Minnesota campus , and and that's where I was , even if I was on the floor of the Olympics or the Olympic trials .

It's funny you mentioned about how you you're thankful You're not in trials right now is you know , Dave and I , when we first started becoming friends from power monkey camp is that it became a recurring joke of every time some ridiculous Instagram quote of somebody doing a laid out triple double or full twisting casino or something , and I was saying to David I'm

like dude , what is this ? He goes I'm so happy I'm not doing gymnastics anymore . It is crazy the level of difficulty , especially on the men's side that like every time I'm like it's not physically possible to get another half twist , like there's no way we can do it , and then some ridiculousness comes out .

You know , on that world stage you kind of have to have won the genetic lottery , right . You know , and and back back in my day , and I know that's everybody loves to say that- I used to work uphill to snow .

You know you have to be so genetically predisposed and all the events are so different . You know that . You know you can be pre genetically predisposed to be a great ring man but that probably precludes you from being a good pommel horseman and parallel bars and and you know .

So it's just , it's , it's hard , it's an amazing sport and uh , you know this is a rabbit hole that , uh , we might still go down , but uh , it's , it's a great sport . I just want to see it be a great sport for a lot of people that might not have that genetic lottery ticket in your back pocket .

You know guys and girls and college people trying to get there too as well , and it's hard when somebody wants it so bad . You know they , they want to work so hard and , like you start to get every , every layer . You crawl up the ladder . It's like a thinner bottleneck you got to squeeze through of like perfect flexibility , perfect strength , perfect genetics .

Your family has to be supportive . You have to have the right equipment , the right coach .

Like , yeah , I feel bad because some on the college side too , like some kids , are just trying so hard and I feel like , oh , oh , I don't know man , I like I'll be here to support you , but like , especially if they get a couple of injuries and they're like , I know a kid who's coming back from an ACL tear and it's like a second one and I'm like , oh ,

my God , my gut just wrenches for you because I know you want it real bad , but he's starting to do it so national stage than beyond there be so high . You know which is cool . It's exciting to watch , but you feel bad for people on the other side I think .

You know , keeping those opportunities and I've been a big proponent of that at the junior level , you know , get these young kids coming in gyms . You know , like you know , my boys are six , nine and 11 . You go to a gym and you probably remember the first day you go on palm horse . Palm horse is not built for .

You know , the pommels basically can come up to your elbows . Parallel bars , I feel like , is the same thing . You know , why do we , why do we have to pigeonhole these kids into doing all the events ? Why don't you come in and let's tumble this vault , let's do rings ? You know , and I've kind of .

You know , my kids aren't gymnasts , but I bring them to the gym and I've kind of gravitated towards that . One of them likes to do rings and one of them , you know , likes to do , you know , floor or whatever , and so I think we just need to open up our options as far as how kids participate , cause it is , it's , it is the ultimate foundational sport .

If you have a child that you want to be a be an athlete in any sport , if you're not putting them in gymnastics at some point , you're doing them a disservice and I firmly believe that it doesn't mean you have to do it for 20 something , 30 something years , like I did it , but doing it for a few years as they're growing up , maybe more , maybe you continue

to do it on the side . It's the most beneficial sport for kids and it really for anybody adult gymnastics . Be careful , but .

It's really hard to have a body again genetic , uh , jackpot that my friends that were great all arounders just happen to have long ish arms but kind of be flexible and kind of be strong and a little springy , but not too springy .

That they were like you know , and so they hit this strike well , and I remember vividly I was a late bloomer , maturity wise , and so I was like very short for a long time . The high bar looking up at a high bar when you're 10 years old or eight years old , it looks like you're literally jumping off a cliff . Right , I love the floor and ball .

They were close to the ground . I didn't go anywhere , you know , but I got weeded out of um .

I think a couple of events early because I got really comfortable on floor , involved , got really strong legs and then it was really hard for me to do rings , um , and actually it's funny , the podcast I just recorded today that's coming up prior to yours is uh with Brett Wargo who's from Ascend , he's with Shiley's and Ascend and stuff , and he was his big

proposal was a wildcard system on the on the developmental side .

So kids can do two events or three events at nationals and still have a college opportunity to get recruited between your ankle in January , you know , and you can't get back on floor and ball but you're great on bars and beam like , or for guys too , I think the more we can encourage a flexible system for the club level and the overall system of three events ,

five events , four events , whatever . Like just keep people in the gym . We just want to keep kids in the gym , especially on the men's side . Just keep them in gym , keep them involved for their health . If they move on , that's fine .

But like I think right now we're still sometimes are trying to jam around , you know , blocking a square hole with with all six events . So for sure , um on the , on the piece of uh , the next uh avenue of that , what on the men's side we're gonna have uh sam is actually gonna come on before uh trials for the the women's side and talk about .

But I'm curious about , like what's exciting for you on the men's side , cause I think this is one of the best years we've had , you know , in a while to be excited . Fred is a local guy in region six , so go Fred , go Michigan , I know , uh , but what's exciting for you in terms of , like , the men's elite side ?

I think , uh , china and Japan , everyone thinks are going to be the prohibited favorites . Three up , three count . They got a hit , so we'll see what happens but you know , great Britain will be good . I heard Ukraine looks very good .

So there's some other teams that are good , but I think we're really in position to do some damage and get back on that Olympic podium .

And Fred Richard you mentioned him and Asher Hong also , they're two young guys and I think it's so important , young guys , and I think it's so important . You know , you see , brody , and Brody's kind of that guy has been that guy obviously injured , but he's coming back and and he's really been the leader .

But you , it's almost like you always need a couple of those young guys who are coming up to be big time . You know Paul and Morgan home , you know , you know , for you know you had the Blaine Wilson's and you know Brett McClure had been around for a while and but Blaine and Blaine had done so much for the team .

But you need those other pieces and we've had those , those kind of big time guys at the top . But you need those other pieces to fit and be really high level and I think that's what gets me excited to see . And those two are , you know , obviously going to be in the mix .

And you got some others , coy , coy young , who just won a couple medals at the world championships and um , it's uh , yule moldauer . I think he's really the best leader of this team and he's the leader that this team needs . I think him , along with brody , have contrasting leadership styles , but both super effective . And you know it's going to be .

It's going to be a tough team to make . You got to play it out , you got to got to see how things , how the pieces , fall together , cause they got to put together a team that's strong on every event . But this team's going to be in the hunt and if they hit , if they can go three up , three count and you know , hit them all .

If they hit them all around the podium . I don't think there's doubt in my mind , but uh , got to hit .

You know , I love that and I work with some of his teammates and say he's just , that's his style , that's cool . But I also think there's a room to play for like a Yule excitement and hype and kind of like , you know , getting riled up a bit and who knows what people need . But you know , I think Fred brings some of that too .

You know Fred's obviously done so much on the , you know , exposure side of social media and he's doing his own thing as well . But I think I don't know , I feel like that everyone has a different thing to bring and different personality and stuff is good and healthy for a team .

You know , I don't know from experience and maybe you can speak to it , but yeah , no , I agree .

If you're thinking about , you know , if you're thinking about that gold medal that you want to win while you're doing a routine , your gymnastics , and be able to block out those distractions around you . So , to your point , even if you're the rah-rah guy or if you're the quiet guy , you know you can't be thinking about .

You know a social media post and you can't be thinking about . If I hit this , I'm going to , you know , get an endorsement , or I can't think about the pressure that we have . You've got to go out and do gymnastics and you have to have a team of guys that are bought in to going out and doing great gymnastics , no matter what it takes .

And from that stems , you know , winning . And I think that's , I think I saw that from this team at the world championships . They were down and they came clawing back and I think I think that's important .

It's got to be about the journey and about the gymnastics and about doing great gymnastics , not necessarily about , you know , thinking about the win or thinking about the prize at the end . It's about the journey and being totally absorbed in that process and never , never , refusing at all costs to give up until that last team lands .

Or we have some crazy like I think about , like Danelle Levia , right , who just had like crazy difficulty but like sometimes it just didn't always come together .

But I think I don't know if I told you this at camp one time I met you , but you know the last quad when you know , obviously , simone , and that whole thing happened , I was really grateful that you were on the broadcast , mike , in that situation , and I watched , I watched the live stream and I watched your guys' broadcast coverage and I think in that moment

it was like everybody in Glasshouse is throwing stones , right , it was just everybody . Nobody understood . But for you you were able to really clearly articulate , like have poise about it and like really help get through that moment and have poise about it and like really help get through that moment .

And , yeah , it's a credit to your like your personality , your style , your experience . But I feel like I don't know under people broadcasting , but sometimes you get someone who's not familiar with gymnastics and it's really uncomfortable to hear them try to talk about a tough situation

like that . So how did the broadcasting thing come about ? Like , how did you get into it ? Why did you want to do it ? Cause you already have 94 other things you do .

I think one of the first broadcasting opportunities I had was college sports television , which I don't know if that's where Big Ten Network stemmed from . It doesn't exist anymore , but I would do some of the men's Big Ten meets .

And then , eventually , 2003 , nbc asked me to come be in the production truck with them , which was a very low paying , non-glamorous job , but it was awesome . It was so much fun . I learned a ton .

I sat next to the producer and director at everything from USS championships to Olympic trials to the Olympic Games and made sure they're covering the right stuff and gave them information when they asked for it . And you kind of see the meat come together .

I heard the broadcasters like here , tim and Elfie , and then Tim and Nastia and the play by play guy doing their job and learn from them while they're doing it .

And during that process NBC said , hey , we need somebody to do play-by-play for US Secret Classic or a World Cup event , or maybe it's a World Championships and I'll be honest with you , if I'm being totally transparent , they probably needed somebody cheaper because they couldn't get the big dog to come in and they're like , well , let's have Roethlisberger do it .

So I was inexpensive and I was available and hopefully I did an adequate enough job , or I seem to cause they kept having me do it . So you know , that's that type of thing started to come up and I remember I did my first play by play meet and it was again . It was some tiny , you know domestic meat and it was okay .

I don't think I did great , but I got through it . And then eventually there was something else and something a little bigger and then they asked me to do world championships and and so they gave me these opportunities as we went along and then , ultimately , when things started to change and they wanted to bring new , new faces in , I had that experience .

I worked with them in the truck and outside the truck and they're like , hey , let's have John be part of the broadcast team for championships and Winter Cup and trials in the Olympics , so super great opportunity . The women's side this is kind of funny because my first women's only job that I got was Big 12 Championships .

It was on Fox Sports Southwest or something like that . It was Big 12 Championships . And I got it because everybody probably knows KJ Kindler , head coach at Oklahoma . Well , she was head coach at Iowa State before that and they're trying to figure out . Hey , anybody have any ideas who we could get to be the analyst ?

And KJ must have heard me somewhere and we kind of knew each other . She's originally from Minnesota as well and I know her sister really well . She went to the university of Minnesota and , uh , you know like how about John Roethlisberger ? So she got me my first job . I was actually analyst . There's a play by play person .

I was the analyst for a number of years and then , lo and behold , the sec network started and I had gotten some of that experience being play by play for NBC and had opportunities . My opportunities continue to grow and they brought me in to do play by play and I've been there ever since . Love that job . It's super fun , it's a great .

They've created a great product that the fans and TV audience loves . Fans in the stands love it's energetic and it's fun to . It's fun to cover . Honestly .

There's so much technical gymnastics you could talk about , like round and circles , right , but there's an art form to presenting it in a way that a fan who doesn't really understand could enjoy and kind of get involved in .

I think college gymnastics is probably a big part of it , but Simone and the guy's side being good is just a huge , monstrous increase in viewership . The next , the last , like three years , four years , and the easiest way to lose new people is to have it be too overwhelming or too technical . They don't know what the terms mean .

And so , yeah , you guys do a really good job of of blending , like you and Sam and Bridget could literally talk circles around technical stuff , but it's like prompting each other's questions for like leading an answer that somebody else could fill in or stuff Like is that ?

If you notice , they go from one you know routine and and they have about 20 seconds it feels like less honestly and the next one goes . And that's by design from the coaches . You know as well . They don't want to be slowed down by TV , so you keep it moving and because of that you know you're not going to sit there and break down .

You know the angle of the shoulders on your Chanko , for you know 30 seconds or a minute as to why she took a step forward on landing . It's just it doesn't lend itself to that . But also , american audience audiences want stuff that's easily consumable . Yes , and it's not a a shot at us , because I'm part of the american audience .

I turn into sports all the time . But if you go down a rabbit hole and you're so technical that you start to lose people , it it's you're going to start to lose people . You know it . Just , you got to keep it flowing and that's what women's college gymnastics has done so well . Now they maybe they're with the scoring .

There's a lot of controversy that it's too easy . There's too many times , and I do agree with that . Maybe they've gone a little too far to make it as simplistic as possible , but I mean , people can watch . I run into people all the time they go . Yeah , I've watched for the whole season and I kind of understand now what they're going to score .

And if you have that idea , what do we do ? What do we do at home when we watch a game ? Oh man , they need to run the ball . Oh , they need to throw it deep to Justin Jefferson . Oh , watch , right here , they're going to throw a screen pass . We sit here and we've never been able to do that .

You sit there , you don't know what the score is , you don't know who's winning , you don't know what you need to win With FIG scoring . You don't know if it's good . And men's gymnastics is a perfect example of that and that's another whole talker .

But with women's gymnastics , all right , if they take a step , you know that's probably a 10th , half 10th or 10th . If they see a form break or they miss a handstand or they wobble , you can kind of get an idea . Oh , that looks like a 9.8 . That looks like a 9.7 . Oh , that could be a 10 .

And when you're sitting at home and you start to know and you start to understand what's good and what's bad , how far behind , it's easier to know who's winning , what you need to up the basketball and basketball game . And you know , you know that you're losing by three . Everyone knows you got to shoot a three pointer .

You know I got three points , three pointer to tie and it just has to be easier and I think , unfortunately for the men's collegiate gymnastics . It's incredible gymnastics . There's no human on the planet Earth that has watched a men's meet , especially live and left , and thought , oh , that was boring , that wasn't impressive at all , but never had .

That's never happened in the history of mankind . All right , it's just never . It's unbelievable what these guys do . We just alluded to it moments ago but it's so challenging to watch because it's with FIG scoring . You know , dave , I'll ask you is a , is a 13 , nine , a good score in men's gymnastics ?

Yeah , it depends , but yes that is the pivot and I knew you would say that . And if you say , if is is a shot from behind that big half circle in basketball and everybody knows yeah , that's great , yeah is it . What's it worth ?

Three points yeah you just said it depends , and that is the problem with men's gymnastics , because a 13.9 on horse pretty good score , 13.9 on ibar pretty good score , 13.9 on vault terrible score , 13.9 on rings . And so every event score different . So now here I am commentating men's gymnastics and like , all right well , minnesota's in the lead .

But here's the deal they've already gone to vault and parallel bars , two high scoring events , and they have high . So now I'm explaining , I'm handicapping the meat and trying to explain what a good score is a bad score , why minnesota's winning , yet mich , michigan's in last place .

But they're really in the lead because they've already gone to Pommel Horse or High Bar and it has to get better . Yeah , because it's too good a product to not get the masses behind it , in my opinion .

So like I don't watch a lot of football , my dad's a Vikings fans , right , go shout out .

I don't really know everything , but when they draw lines and say , well , this guy's gonna run here , he's trying to fade here , see this guy coming , I'm like , oh , I kind of get it . Like I haven't watched in a year but I kind of get it . I and plays and what's going on , I'd be like I don't know . I don't know . That's six points and one more .

That's what I need , and I think you're you're alluding to what you guys do really well on the women's side , which is like you guys can't draw a line

. Sports science stuff does it .

But like you can explain to people like if they go out , this team needs this to be in the reek , like and like the average person , the mom and dad watching with their hardcore 15 year old Florida Gator fan is like mom and dad's like , oh , I get it , this is cool , I can cheer , I can be involved , I can do it Like , and I understand five people go and

one can fall and whatever . But yeah , it's a struggle on the men's side to like get that through on the college as well .

Men , they don't have that , and the length of the meets and men's to tend to be a little bit too long if they can make them tighter . You know I had talked to a producer at one point and said , gosh , could you give the men a night like the women at Friday Night Heights ? Yeah , you know , could you give them , you know , monday night .

You know , get them to name it , get them to get the format to four up , four count on each event , maybe even three up , three count going head to head on each event .

You know , if we could get the scoring more consumable , do back to back meets on a Monday night night and and be honest with you , let's make sure the cameramen know , let's show the the physiques on these guys , you know , and I don't mean to to like diminish their value of them as athletes , but these guys are the freakiest athletes you're ever gonna see .

I mean pound for pound they're . They're not right and and let's showcase that physicality and let people at home go , my God , you know little . They know that dude's 5'1" but man , he can hold himself like an ironing board and , by the way , look at his shoulders when he does it . I still get shots of it in meets . And go , my God , these guys are insane .

He's like it's a struggle to support the men's college programs , right , and people just kind of like unfortunately , more is going away . Then the quad comes and because there's no support , it's hard for the Olympic team , like the majority of the Olympic team comes from , you know colleges like , and especially the last four .

So then people get upset that the team's not doing well . But it's like well , you're , you're chopping your own legs out by undermining the college programs . And yes , of course you know uh , viewership and that is a big part of it .

But are there other things that you notice from the 30,000 foot view that would improve , like the men's program , the men's college situation , if you , if you , had a magic wand and you could help . I know it's a bear of a question , but to encourage that you know it's twofold , is it ?

As far as just supporting the college men's programs , you know there's this back and forth about you know , going to the 10-0 scoring system will help the popularity . By itself , that's not going to help , that's not going to make a big difference .

In conjunction with all those other things we talked about maybe making the scoring easier , making the format better , all these other things I think it could have a positive impact .

But you know , if you want to go down the role of college men's gymnastics and and the numbers of programs and obviously Minnesota and Iowa just recently got cut , we added a couple of programs , which is which is great Greenville and Simpson college , which is awesome .

We've had some of them down to camp as well , but it's it's a hard because it's a broader picture too

. You know , I think over the last few decades a lot of people want to point to title nine as a reason some of these men programs have gone down and that that certainly could be a piece . That's what they Minnesota blamed on it , which was not accurate , but they wanted to make that the reason and made it easy for them to cut .

But I think there's a big , bigger problem with college athletics and you're about to see it again . You know , a few years ago when they cut our program , I knew that there's bigger problems coming and I said I don't want Minnesota's program just to be reinstated and get the budget just rubber stamped and just go on as business as usual .

I want to be part of the solution . I want to figure out how we can exist with a tiniest footprint possible and still have this opportunity , because to me the best part of the most important part of college athletics is having a place to train and coach , and that's what Minnesota has now and and we're great , we're outstanding , we have this great opportunity .

We had more kids want to come be a part of the program last year that we could accommodate . We can't take them all . There's so many that want to come and I think that the thing down the road you know you got NIL , which is going to take a bite out of what , you know , colleges used to be able to pay .

You know , put into facilities or put into scholarships , and it's become professional . It's professional sports , you know , certainly for basketball and football .

And it's only going to get worse because now student athletes are going to get paid , they're going to be deemed employees , which means you have to pay them at least a minimum wage and it means you can pay them much more than that . And look at what do you think is going to happen , you know . So the , the herd needs to be thinned .

And the herd is going to be thinned by athletic directors because when they all become employees , you can't pay them all . You can't pay them all and you can't keep up with . You know , at minnesota , you can't keep up with ohio state and michigan in the in the race for nil , you can't keep . Most of the big 10 schools can't keep up with the SEC .

And and what are they going to do ? They like . We need less . We need , we need a smaller herd of sheep to , to , to take care of , because we can't spread the dollars and and when programs like ours get cut , my , my flag waving is hey guys , this is coming . This is going to happen . This isn't . You're not cutting this because of title nine .

You're cutting this because you need less people coming into the athletic department and you need to put more money into fewer and fewer athletes If you want deemed the important sports to succeed . And I just think programs like Minnesota who are part of the gym act are a shiny example of what college athletics should be and , if it's going to survive , will be .

And this isn't just for gymnastics , it's for other sports too . They cut , they cut . Uh , they wanted to cut tennis and indoor and outdoor track at Minnesota Also , when they cut gymnastics , they did cut tennis and they cut indoor track .

They kept outdoor track because they had just built a track facility and somebody had said you know , somebody in the regions couldn't stomach the idea that we just solicited our alumni to build a track facility . Now we're going to cut the program , and so they kept outdoor track . Do you think they ?

Do you think you can have a successful outdoor track team in Minnesota where it's frozen for six months of the year , and not support an indoor ? There's no good track program that has one or the other . You know they're going to go to programs that have both , obviously .

And so those programs like that program and the tennis programs , men's gymnastics you know some of these smaller type programs , swimming at Iowa bit the dust , you know it . Are we just going to cut them and just let them go away after hundreds of years of tradition ? Or are we going to sit here and go , guys ?

We see what's coming when I know two athletic departments already that , through their coaches , their athletic director said if , if and when student athletes become employees , you and a whole lot of other people are gone . That is the , that is what is going to happen because they can't do it .

So so are we just going to say goodbye or should we sit here and go guys ? How can we as a community continue athletic opportunities on a broad level at major universities so that we can keep kids moving and keep kids athletic and get kids in shape ? I don't need to tell you about the obesity problem in this country .

And the more you chip away at all these opportunities and you don't need to , is my point you don't need to just cut them and push them off the table and let them die .

Minnesota and most power five universities across the country , their athletic facilities , whether it's rec sports facilities , country their athletic facilities , whether it's rec sports facilities and or their athletic department . If you took those , they would be probably the greatest Olympic training center in 90% of the country of the world .

And we have 50 of them across this country , most of which sit empty half the day . How are we not encouraging and facilitating ? And we don't have to pay money ? We don't . We're not taking any money from the university of minnesota . We fundraise it . Hundred thousand dollars approximately is our budget . Yeah , we pay . Mike burns a very modest salary .

We pay for uniforms , we pay for travel . Um , we pay for all the things you really need to have a sports program , not not 10 , you know , 10 uniforms and 15 different football helmets and shoes and and all this other stuff .

It's , it's just the bare necessities of what you need and I think , until we get to the point where we look at it and go , you know , we need to really reevaluate how we're doing this and again going back to the minnesota , we're an example of how that can work and we have some world-class gymnastics coming out of that gym .

And , by the way , I said you need a coach and a gym to have a program . Well , we just found out from the University of Minnesota that they want to kick us out of our gym . You've been in our gym . We've been in that gym almost 100 years and it is the most modest gym that you have ever seen in your life .

It's about 40 feet wide and about 90 feet long . We have a tumble strip , never had a full floor . We have a short vault runway . We have a high bar over a pit that's attached to the brick wall . It is the smallest little teeny corner of the world .

You'll ever see to have a gymnastics gym that has created Olympians world team members , national team members ever see to have a gymnastics gym that has created Olympians world team members , national team members , all Americans , over and over and over again . And now they want to kick us out and they want to move in a dry land diving facility .

Because over the ever since we've had our aquatic center , the dry land diving facility has been on the pool deck . They have a trampoline and a diving board and a resi pit . They want to kick us out so they can move in the six or eight divers and instead of saying , hey , gymnastics you've been here , for you've been on this campus for 120 years .

Why don't we figure out a way we can coexist ? Hey , can we have the divers come up and , you know , use your facility ? And it's like none of that . It's . So now it again . We're fighting another battle that we're probably going to lose and we're not going to have one of the two things that you need to have a program , and that's a gym .

We still got a coach . Luckily not sure how much longer we can keep them , but it's really disheartening . And until someone says , all right , hold on .

They're super high achievers and we're just going to whitewash them off the face of this campus , and it's not just here's elsewhere . And when is somebody going to say this ridiculous ?

One is is the cultural residence , emotional impact of of helping people understand like Olympians come from here , world champions come from here . These programs are why we have what we have on the national , on the extreme level , and so , like that slippery slope of once we start letting this one slide and that one slide it's just starts to go really downhill .

There's like that part of trying to tell that story and hopefully the podcast and other things do that . But then there's also the more strategic business Like what do we do ? Financial ?

Like how do we actually what are creative solutions that can make this work , whether that's viewership in college and the score and that kind of stuff , or like the , the actual nitty gritty of divers do it for these two hours and then we have the gym or whatever , like . I feel like those two things are running in parallel to have a notable foothold in it .

It's uh , it's disheartening , to say the least , at how flippant they can be about something that I think is so valuable to that school .

So I went and like fundamentally changed me and there's probably no , there's no shift , there's no business , there's no podcast . If I didn't have that experience and I think people underestimate how life-changing that can be for a lot of young guys who are , you know , in gymnastics in general .

They just kind of go on to not do gymnastics anymore , they kind of go elsewhere and then it's a big negative impact . So hopefully those stories kind of come through and people can hear those and pass those along a little bit .

I feel like the other thing we just finished , which was pretty exciting , was the women's college season and I feel like this is one of the most exciting years that I've seen , because I know I don't I love people that are great , they win , it's awesome , but I love the underdog story D3 , right , I love the shakeup the person gets into regionals or whatever .

So I'd love to maybe just hear your thoughts on how you think the season went and shout out LSU and you know their , their victory and stuff . But yeah , from the commentating watching side , how was it ?

And you know the next best team , and they , just they were an unstoppable force until they were stopped and it was dramatic , it was shocking to see them , you know , kind of collapse in the semifinals . But one person's heartbreak is another's opportunity .

And LSU , the best team and I said it on air , the best team to have never won a national championship , was sitting there going . This is our chance , you know , and they already they could have beat , they could have beat Oklahoma regardless . They a hundred percent have the athletes and the gymnastics .

But suddenly that door swung open and Cal the Cal Bears too , are a really good team and you had Florida and Utah in there and it was , it was just a great competition . It came , it finished the way we hoped .

You know we sat in production meetings and , like man , just want that last routine to go up and have it come down to that , and I imagined it in my head as a commentator . You know what am I going to do .

How do I handle this team and how would I handle that team if that's the team that's going to win and and it just it was like it came together as perfect as it could and and so it was an exciting finish . Congratulations to lsu . They did outstanding . They're going to be hard to beat . Uh next year as well . Oklahoma will be back in the mix .

Florida gators are going to have so much talent . It's not even it's not fair , probably , but but it's exciting and there's good teams . You know there's good teams coming up and saw Stanford jump back up in into the semifinals and you know the depth of women's college gymnastics keeps getting better and better . I think the Cal Bears are going to .

You know they're the new best team to have not won a national title , so they're going to be fun to watch . So it's great . It's a fun sport to watch .

But I would say that in terms of positive light and things that help the sport is one of the best things we can do . Is why I've spent so much work in the college program is a lot of people are looking at or watching or going towards the men's and women's side and so anything I can do to help that is obviously great .

But it's very exciting and it's always something new to talk about when you have , like Arkansas coming up or Cal coming up or you know , cecile now stepping into Georgia and she's going to have a lot of exciting things coming , like those constant michigan state another example just came just ripping the last few years and had amazing few years .

Like that brings a lot of excitement and it's easier for me to be , you know , excited to share with everybody that and I think that does help the sport a lot . Right , like the olympic boom helps a lot , but like the college sports self-hop .

So my hope is that , with positive momentum around this summer and the college seasons in general , if we can just figure out some of these scoring viewership of fanships , that the positive halo effect is wide you know ?

I think too , you know , the more you have different teams that can win you know it kind of had this Oklahoma dynasty and you know you've had , you've had a Utah dynasty way back when and you've had the Georgia and the Alabama dynasties , ucla but the more you have another team that can come up and and at any moment beat that team , and I think women's

basketball , the popularity has grown so much . I think that's a part of it . You know you used to have UT . You know I live in Knoxville and Pat summit and the Vols would win so many titles . And then you had Yukon and there was always like only there's one great team .

And then you know a couple that are pretty good and it's like you start to get the Iowas . You got LSU yes , south Carolina seems dominant .

You still have UConn , but you have more great teams that a lot of different things can happen and it sucks in a lot more fans , I think too yeah , absolutely , and I grew up around UConn so I was actually in high school when that like crazy run happened , when they both did it .

But also you think about , like all right , like I watch college basketball because that's actually one of the most exciting things for me to watch is like the tournament , it's so fun , that's like so as a fan of sports and knowing what sports does for young kids , I want there to be competition and excitement .

So , yeah , when you kind of blows everybody out in the first quarter , it's like all right , this is cool , but I'm going to bed , you know , like I'm not going to do it . So I agree , the more teams that are competitive at the regional and competitive level for men's and women's , um it , I think it rises like everybody's ship together .

So , um , yeah , so yeah , I guess I mean parting words of you're going through Olympics

this summer . Is there other stuff you're excited for ? We didn't touch about that you want to share ?

We need the fans and it's like I said tune in , you won't be disappointed .