Data Deep Dive: Head Coach Rankings

There are a lot of ways to discuss success in coaching, but they’re often very subjective in gymnastics since we can’t rely on win/loss records the way other sports do. While we could use win/loss, it would be largely meaningless. Instead, we chose to dig into coaching success in major conference teams by change in NQS over the coaches’ tenures since it is the most tangible piece of data we have.

We broke coaches from major conferences—Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC—into four major groups: those whose coaches’ tenures have lasted one to four seasons, those that have lasted five to eight seasons, those that have lasted nine to 12 seasons and those that have lasted more than 12 seasons.

Within those groupings, we looked at several measures of NQS change over time, examining each head coach’s tenure.* We looked at final NQS numbers from the end of each regular season to avoid different scoring standards in the postseason, like bigger judging panels.

• Difference: The change in NQS from the coach’s first season to the 2022 season.
• % change: The percent change in NQS from the coach’s first season to the 2022 season.
• Career average: The team’s average NQS under the head coach.
• Trendline slope: The trendline is a line of best-fit for all data points. Trendline slope refers to the slope of that line. Zero would represent a flat, horizontal line. 1.00 would indicate a vertical line. A number closer to 1.00 indicates a team that has shown more improvement season to season while a negative number would indicate a team that has seen its NQS decrease season to season.
• Trendline R^2: R-squared indicates the level of variance in the same trendline as described in trendline slope. This value indicates the distance of data points off of the line of best fit. In this analysis, that means this value indicates how many NQS scores are much higher or much lower than the line of best fit. A number close to 1.0 means all of the NQS values are close to the trendline while a number closer to zero means the NQS values fall further away from the line.

*Note that we used RTN data, which only goes back to 1998. Bev Plocki has been at the helm for Michigan since 1990, but we only examined data dating to 1998. No other coach has a tenure beginning before 1998. We did not include Washington’s Jen Llewellyn since she has only coached one year. Chris Waller and Dana Duckworth, who are no longer with their respective teams, are included.

An asterisk next to a coach’s name indicates the coach has won a national title with their team.

More Than 12 Years as Head Coach

In the group of longest tenured head coaches includes the only two active coaches with national titles in Plocki and KJ Kindler. Kindler owns the highest overall average NQS, as well as the best consistency per the R-squared analysis. Tanya Chaplin’s Beavers had the best 2022 relative to her first year at the helm in 1998 while Larissa Libby owns the steepest trendline slope.

Coach	Team	Since	Difference	Rank	Percent Change	Rank	Career Average	Rank	Trendline Slope	Rank	Trendline R^2	Rank
Bev Plocki*	Michigan	1990	1.402	6	0.71%	6	196.8883	2	0.0388	7	0.3039	7
Tanya Chaplin	Oregon State	1998	2.517	1	1.29%	1	196.3951	3	0.0571	6	0.4458	6
Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart	Denver	1999	1.541	5	0.79%	5	196.1939	4	0.0811	5	0.6157	4
Larissa Libby	Iowa	2005	2.45	2	1.26%	2	195.4709	7	0.1443	1	0.7432	2
KJ Kindler*	Oklahoma	2007	1.805	4	0.92%	4	197.5059	1	0.1291	2	0.8421	1
Jay Ronayne	Iowa State	2007	0.575	7	0.29%	7	195.6769	5	0.0849	4	0.5007	5
Brett Nelligan	Maryland	2010	2.125	3	1.09%	3	195.5514	6	0.1234	3	0.7363	3

9 to 12 Years as Head Coach

This group of five coaches features up-and-comers in the SEC in Auburn, Kentucky and Missouri. Cal’s Howells (counted from when Justin was named head coach), own the best average NQS while SEC Coach of the Year Shannon Welker showed the best improvement from his first season to 2022—as well as the steepest trendline—followed by Auburn’s Jeff Graba.

Coach	Team	Since	Difference	Rank	Percent Change	Rank	Career Average	Rank	Trendline Slope	Rank	Trendline R^2	Rank
Jeff Graba	Auburn	2011	2.345	2	1.20%	2	196.6008	2	0.1103	4	0.4469	5
Jason Butts	West Virginia	2012	1.05	5	0.54%	5	195.7481	5	0.0757	5	0.5029	4
Tim Garrison	Kentucky	2012	1.76	4	0.90%	4	196.4295	3	0.1730	3	0.8180	1
Justin & Liz Crandall-Howell	California	2013	1.99	3	1.02%	3	196.6668	1	0.1905	2	0.8117	2
Shannon Welker	Missouri	2014	2.425	1	1.25%	1	196.2571	4	0.2086	1	0.7111	3

5 to 8 Years as Head Coach 

This group is the largest and features those part of the huge coaching shakeup preceding the 2018 season. This is the first group with a few negative trendline slopes in Tabitha Yim, Sarah Brown and Courtney Kupets-Carter. Note that Yim’s calculations include the year-end 193.394 NQS from Stanford’s abbreviated 2021 season. Similarly, Mike Rowe’s numbers include a nil value in 2021 since Michigan State competed only twice that year. Still, Rowe’s Spartans have shown the greatest improvement from his first year to 2022, as well as the steepest trendline and closest fit in R-squared analysis.

Coach	Team	Since	Difference	Rank	Percent Change	Rank	Career Average	Rank	Trendline Slope	Rank	Trendline R^2	Rank
Dana Duckworth	Alabama	2015	0.3	10	0.15%	10	197.3573	3	0.0231	9	0.0484	10
Jenny Hansen	Minnesota	2015	0.99	3	0.50%	3	196.6758	5	0.2035	4	0.5486	5
Jenny Rowland	Florida	2016	0.34	8	0.17%	8	197.7999	1	0.0781	7	0.4892	7
Tom Farden	Utah	2016	0.715	4	0.36%	4	197.5401	2	0.0747	8	0.5983	4
Jay & Jess Santos	Arizona State	2017	1.76	2	0.90%	2	196.3947	6	0.2993	2	0.6721	3
Nadalie Walsh	Illinois	2018	0.51	7	0.26%	7	196.3416	7	0.2078	3	0.4962	6
Mike Rowe	MSU	2018	2.32	1	1.19%	1	195.7550	11	0.5920	1	0.9862	1
Meredith Paulicivic	Ohio State	2018	0.675	5	0.34%	5	196.1778	8	0.1554	5	0.2750	8
Sarah Brown	Penn State	2018	0.075	11	0.04%	11	195.9576	9	-0.0107	10	0.0211	12
Tabitha Yim	Stanford	2018	0.335	9	0.17%	9	195.5748	12	-0.1931	12	0.0615	9
Courtney Kupets Carter	Georgia	2018	0.06	12	0.03%	12	196.8172	4	-0.0414	11	0.0422	11
John Court	Arizona	2018	0.65	6	0.33%	6	195.8802	10	0.1381	6	0.6821	2

1 to 4 Years as Head Coach

The most junior head coaches include some of the biggest names on the list. Chris Waller and Heather Brink are the only coaches we examined whose 2022 NQS was lower than their first-year NQS, hence the negative difference, percent change and trendline slope values. Umme Salim-Beasley stands out in this group for showing the greatest improvement by every metric; Rutgers only doesn’t come first here in career average, a number owned by Jay Clark. His LSU squad also lands in second by most metrics.

Coach	Team	Since	Difference	Rank	Percent Change	Rank	Career Average	Rank	Trendline Slope	Rank	Trendline R^2	Rank
Umme Salim-Beasley	Rutgers	2019	0.96	1	0.49%	1	195.2988	5	0.3395	1	0.9588	1
Heather Brink	Nebraska	2019	-0.57	5	-0.29%	5	196.2208	4	-0.2437	5	0.5823	4
Jordyn Wieber	Arkansas	2020	0.335	3	0.17%	3	196.8433	3	0.1675	3	0.2043	5
Chris Waller	UCLA	2020	-0.475	4	-0.24%	4	197.2310	2	-0.2375	4	0.6688	2
Jay Clark	LSU	2020	0.45	2	0.23%	2	197.6110	1	0.2250	2	0.6232	3

READ THIS NEXT: Data Deep Dive: Most Impactful Transfers Since 2011

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Data analysis by Mariah Dawson; article by Emily Minehart

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