RUHS Gymnastics Coaches Have Talent and Experience The gymnastics coach at RUHS, Sommer Alpiger, and assistant coaches Phoebe Mills and Sarah Schreck know something about the sport: Alpiger, 22, grew up in the demanding world of competitive gymnastics, training for many years at the huge Queen City Gym in Cincinnati, Ohio,

RUHS gymnastics coach Sommer Alpiger spots junior Tricia Preston as she practices her floor exercise. Alpiger, a top gymnastics and power tumbling competitor from Ohio, heads up a high-powered trio of coaches. One of her two assistant coaches, Phoebe Mills, is a 1988 Olympic bronze medalist. The RUHS gymnastics squad ends up the season with three home games. The first is tomorrow, Jan. 25, 6 p.m. (Herald photo / Robert Eddy)

She started going to the gym as a three- or four-year-old, and competed until she was a high school sophomore, several times taking first-place "all around" awards. Top loves, Alpiger said, were bars and power tumbling routines.

"When I quit, I could do double fronts and double backs (flips)."

Assistant coach Sarah Shreck brings a background in competitive gymnastics and dance to the RUHS squad. Her dance training has been especially useful in refining helping the team’s floor routines, Alpiger said.

And, assistant coach Mills, 29, incredibly, just happens to be an Olympic bronze medalist. She won her medal, for balance beam, at age 15, at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

Mills, on the U.S. National gymnastics team for six years, trained in Texas with renowned coach Bella Karolyi. Karolyi coached Romanian standout Nadia Comaniche and U.S. Olympian Mary Lou Retton.

After her gymnastics years, Mills turned to competitive diving, making the National Team one year. After going to the University of Miami on a diving scholarship, Mills focused on snowboarding, coaching the junior national snowboarding team at the Okemo.Mountain School.

Finally, it was time to consider the "work world," and Mills is now a Vermont Law School student. She coaches, she said, "because I enjoy being around the sport and giving back to it."

These three high-powered coaches were something of a last-minute find for Randolph Union High School, which advertised late into the fall for a coach to replace RUHS teacher Scott Sorrell, who stepped down from coaching this year.

An e-mail circulated around Vermont Law School this fall, by a law student who assisted Sorrell last year, was the key.

Both Mills and Schreck are law students. Alpiger isn’t,.but her boyfriend is, and he shared the e-mail with her.

Alpiger subsequently contacted RUHS athletic director Bruce Viens, and agreed to stop by the school: "I actually didn’t know I was applying for head coach until I got there."

She took on the job, although she was already working at South Royalton School weekdays and doing bookkeeping on the side. Mills and Schreck agreed to assist her, around the overtime demands of law school.

Now, in January, a small but dedicated RUHS gymnastics squad and their coaches are in the home stretch of their competitive season, with three home meets ahead of them.

Although the Ghost gymnasts have lost meets with the big Chittenden County high schools, they’ve enjoyed wins against schools their size, including U-32 in Montpelier and Middlebury.

Many of the Burlington-area schools field teams of "club gymnasts" who work year-round on their skills and routines, notes AD Bruce Viens.

Despite the tough competition, said Coach Alpiger this week, the RUHS squad has kept its focus on constantly improving—and having fun.

She has been impressed, Alpiger added, with the girls’ ability "to stay composed and do their best, regardless of what’s going on in their personal lives."

The team "has made an amazing amount of growth in the last month," agreed Assistant coach Phoebe Mills.

Because the RUHS girls don’t have a "permanent gym," Mills noted, they must spend valuable practice time pulling out and putting away equipment.

"Everyday, it’s a half-hour to put down and take up," sighed RUHS senior gymnast Kait O’Donnell, in her sixth year on the team. "Having an Olympian come into this run-down Central Vermont gym," O’Donnell added, "impresses me."

Their new coaches have fostered "a real change of pace," with a heightened focus on individual excellence," said Ashley Moore, also a senior with six years on the squad.

"Now, it’s ‘Be your best,’" added Moore. Paradoxically, she said, this emphasis "makes me think more about the team, and the importance of keeping my composure."

Moore, O’Donnell, and junior Amy Slayton all gave high marks to Alpiger, who is coaching both junior and high school team members, for her overall management and training.

And they agreed that they all have benefited from Olympian Phoebe Mills’ high standards and coaching style.

"Phoebe is tough," said Slayton. "But, it’s easier taking advice when it’s literally coming from the best."

Mills gives specific advice, "right down to the flick of the head," said Ashley Moore." I like it—it gives you a place to start."

Moore, who has made gymnastics a big part of her life, attending summer camps and training off-season at the North Star Gym in Barre, is heading into her last three meets at RUHS with a big mix of emotion.

She won’t be competing in college, Moore says. But like her coaches, she’s carrying a commitment to the sport.

"I want to coach, I want to coach—I know that."

"Gymnastics makes you learn things about yourself," Moore added, "and you need to give that back to the sport."

Final meets for the RUHS gymnastics team, all at home, are:

• Tomorrow, Jan. 25, 6: p.m., against Harwood;

• Wednesday, Jan. 30, 7 p.m., against St. Johnsbury; and

• Friday, Feb. 1, 7 p.m., against Champlain Valley.

By Sandy Cooch