CHAMPIONS
BACK2BACK, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN Winning back-to-back NCAA team titles wasn’t the only thing causing the Alabama gymnastics team a serious case of dĂŠjĂ vu during its four-day national championship trip to Duluth, Ga. in April of 2012. In addition to its second NCAA championship in a row, the Crimson Tide bookended the championships by doubling up on a pair of prestigious individual honors. The night before the FKDPSLRQVKLS VHPLĂ€QDOV GXULQJ WKH NCAA Championships Banquet, Alabama senior Rachel Terry was presented with the NCAA Elite 89 Award, marking the third year in a row a Crimson Tide gymnast has earned the honor and the second year in a row the senior from Hoover, Ala., earned the award, presented annually to the studentathlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at WKH Ă€QDO VLWH IRU HDFK RI WKH 1&$$¡V 89 championships. Terry, who carried a perfect 4.0 GPA for her career, followed in the footsteps of Kassi Price, who earned the inaugural award as a senior in 2010 with a 4.0 GPA of her own. “I think it is a testament to the ideals that are most important to this program that one of our ladies has earned the Elite 89 Award in each RI LWV Ă€UVW WKUHH \HDUV LQ H[LVWHQFH Âľ Sarah Patterson said. “It speaks volumes about the level of excellence that our ladies aspire to on a daily basis.â€? A four-year Scholastic AllAmerican, Terry majored in early childhood education. She was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta, Kappa Delta Epsilon and Phi Eta Sigma honor societies and earned the College of Human Environmental Science’s Phi Upsilon Omicron Award during her Tide career.
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Then, less than 24 hours after Alabama’s won its second NCAA team championship in a row and sixth overall, Geralen Stack-Eaton extended the Crimson Tide’s threeday dominance on the balance beam by winning the individual national championship on the event with a score of 9.9375. “During that beam routine that was the calmest I’d ever been. I guess because I knew that was it and whatever happened, happened,â€? Stack-Eaton said. “I was just so calm and knew I was just going to go up there and give it my all. Before I was really calm and after I hit my Onodi, I was like ‘Yes! I made it.’ After I hit my dismount, I knew it was going to be good, but not that good.â€? It was Stack-Eaton’s second individual NCAA title in as many \HDUV DIWHU ZLQQLQJ WKH Ă RRU H[HUFLVH LQ ,W ZDV DOVR $ODEDPD¡V Ă€IWK LQGLYLGXDO EDODQFH EHDP WLWOH DQG Ă€UVW since AndreĂŠ Pickens won the title in 1999. It was the Tide’s 23rd individual national championship. Stack-Eaton ZDV DOVR VHFRQG RQ WKH Ă RRU H[HUFLVH in 2012 after scoring a 9.9375. It was the perfect end to a very good weekend for the Horsham, Pa., native, who scored a 9.9 or better on WKH EDODQFH EHDP DQG Ă RRU H[HUFLVH in all three nights of the national championships. She also earned four All-America honors for the third year in a row, giving her 12 accolades for KHU FDUHHU W\LQJ KHU IRU Ă€IWK DOO WLPH at Alabama. In the end, despite all the individual honors, it was all about team for Stack-Eaton. “I think what meant the most to me is that for two nights in a row, I was consistent for my team, and then on the last night, for myself,â€? StackEaton said. “It was nice to prove to myself that I could do that.â€?
ALABAMA GYMNASTICS