University of Minnesota Athletics
Burns Blog: Coach Discusses Upcoming Season
10/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Gymnastics
On the south end of the third floor of Cooke Hall, the Minnesota men’s gymnastics team is quietly preparing for the upcoming season. The men’s gymnastics training facility is certainly off the beaten path and we don’t get a lot of visitors on a daily basis but there is a lot of activity every day in that gym. That activity is making me feel good about the upcoming season.
This is no ordinary season, since we are hosting the NCAA Championships here at Minnesota in April. To have the meet in our own home facility is a great advantage for these guys. The Sports Pavilion is a great venue for a national gymnastics meet. When all the top teams come to town in April, we will be ready for them. We have been working hard since last year’s NCAA’s that were held out at Stanford.
We had a bit of a letdown last year by not making it into the Team Finals, which is the top six teams from the qualifying round. We are planning on making it into Day 2 at the 2009 Championships and as the host, we are looking forward to competing in front of a hometown crowd. Everything we do this year will be geared to our two big postseason meets the Big Ten Championships and the NCAA Championships.
The team is led by co-captains Kit Beikmann (Sr. Brighton, CO) and Aaron Fortunato (Jr. Bedford, OH). Those two have a slew of talented teammates who have their sights set on the end-of-the-season meets. Obviously, we have some pretty important meets along the way and we will be hosting the top four teams from last year’s NCAA Championships (Oklahoma, Stanford, Illinois and Penn State). We will have our work cut out for us this season at home, but I think this team is ready to make a statement with its performances.
Our preseason training has been going great and we are much further along at this point than we were last year. We do have a few key guys who are still recovering from post-season surgeries last spring, so the fortunes of this team will rest heavily in their recovery. We are making good progress in that department. While we may be a little thin at the beginning of the season, we should be at full strength by the end of the year as we prepare for Big Tens and NCAA’s.
Overall, I am very pleased with where we are right now. The guys are responding well to a more aggressive training schedule during this part of the preparation phase. Our freshman class will be a big factor in our success as well. They are really looking like the impact players I knew they were when we recruited them last year.
All in all, it looks pretty good for the Gopher men’s gymnastics team this year. If you’re ever over near Cooke Hall, take a peak inside the gym and watch for a bit. You might be surprised at what goes on in that small gym every day!
-Head coach Mike Burns
Players Mentioned
