NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships : Nebraska Easy Winner; UCLA 3rd

Nebraska could hardly have begun the evening worse. Freshman Brad Bryan, the first athlete to perform Friday night, stumbled across the floor, looking very much like a man who had lost his way. The judges, who might have been inclined to be sympathetic to the hometown boy, marked it 8.60. The Cornhuskers, annual runner-up in the NCAA men’s gymnastics championships, were clearly about to disappear in their own gym. Again.

But neither defending champion UCLA nor top-ranked Illinois, the other teams in the the team finals, had much time to smirk. The next athlete, Nebraska’s Mike Epperson, ripped off a 9.65, which was not bad for a kid who missed all last season with a broken wrist. And after that, Nebraska’s scores got good.

The Cornhuskers went on to record the highest score in NCAA championship history, totaling 288.15. Second-place Illinois, which had a nice score of its own at 287.15, never made a run. And UCLA, which got some low scores in its first event, never recovered.

The Bruins, who had held off Nebraska in the UCLA Gym for the title last year, finished a full three points behind with 285.15.

Both UCLA Coach Art Shurlock and Illinois Coach Yoshi Hayasaki remarked on the high scoring, Nebraska’s that is, citing the influence of a highly partial crowd of 4,744.

“It was hard to counteract the effect of the crowd,” Shurlock said. “We were making some mistakes we probably wouldn’t have if we had gotten the scores we thought we deserved.”

UCLA was visibly deflated after scoring 47.40 in rings, its first event, without any visible breaks. The Bruins had scored 48.00 the night before during the 10-team qualification.

“I thought we did a good job on rings,” Shurlock complained.

The Bruins never made any major mistakes the rest of the night, but neither did they particularly sparkle.

“Maybe the (scoring on) rings knocked our confidence on floor,” Shurlock speculated. The Bruins did even worse in that event, and after just two rotations, Nebraska’s lead over them had grown to 2.15. It was over.

If there was some talk that Nebraska didn’t deserve such a high score, there was at least none that they deserved to lose. Both Shurlock and Hayasaki agreed Nebraska was the best team.

The Cornhuskers were due, anyway. They had finished second in each of the last three NCAA championships.

Nebraska Coach Francis Allen said he knew the meet was won after Epperson covered up for Bryan. “Poor Brad, it just kept getting worse for him,” Allen said. “He was a nervous wreck. Then the rest of the guys, the really hard-core gymnasts, came out and knocked out floor. After that, it was pretty much downhill. We were on top of them the whole time.”

Allen was even ready to call this his greatest team, even though the great Olympian and former Cornhusker, Jim Hartung, was smiling at him from the back of the interview room. “Now, I didn’t say they were better than Jim Hartung,” he quickly added. “Depth, more depth. I’m talking about balance.”

Hartung was on four NCAA championship teams, 1979-1982, at Nebraska, a heady time when the Cornhuskers couldn’t imagine losing. In all, they won five in a row, UCLA placing right behind them two of those years. In recent times, it had been reversed. UCLA had won twice in the previous four years, and Nebraska had been runner-up the last three straight times.

If they didn’t have Hartung, except cheering on the sideline, they did have their share of talent. The day before the championships began, senior Tom Schlesinger had been awarded the Nissen, the gymnastics equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. And teammate Kevin Davis probably had been his chief competition. The two, in fact, are ranked in the top six, going into today’s final competition for the all-around. Schlesinger is the defending all-around champion, Davis the runner-up from last year.

UCLA sophomore Chris Waller, who ranks 10th going into today’s all-around after Thursday’s optionals, had another good night. He claimed that the crowd had no effect on his performance. “It didn’t affect us as much as the judges,” he said.

The Bruins and lots of other gymnasts can achieve some small satisfaction today and tonight when the individual awards are contested. There are four Bruins (Waller, Tony Pineda, Curtis Holdsworth and David St. Pierre) who placed 24th or better in the Thursday optionals to qualify for the all-around competition. That will be this afternoon, with today’s compulsory scores being added to the Thursday optionals.

Then tonight, the individual event winners will be decided. The Bruins have St. Pierre representing them in floor, Pineda and Holdsworth on pommel horse, and David Moriel on high bar. Cal State Fullerton has Amir Kadury on high bar and Bill Barham on parallel bars.