New coach has Utes excelling on uneven bars

He is still the new guy on the coaching staff, so Jeff Graba is a little careful what he says. But for the past two weeks, his event — the uneven bars — has been the University of Utah's gymnastics team's highest-ranked discipline.

Utah's bars team rates No. 2 this week, just behind Georgia, which is Utah's opponent in the Huntsman Center on Monday at 7 p.m.

Georgia is the defending NCAA champion and ranks No. 1 as a team, with Utah No. 3, and Georgia's bars team has the top Regional Qualifying Score of 49.325. Utah's RQS is 49.215.

In other events, the Utes rank third (vault, coach Greg Marsden's event), fifth (beam, associate coach Megan Marsden's event) and ninth (floor, a collaborative event).

"We do have a game amongst the coaches," Graba said.

Coaches are always competitive with each other, in a good-natured way. The Marsdens often playfully note when their events did best in meets.

Each of the events has ranked highly. Right now, bars is on top.

"It is nice to needle Greg on that once in a while," Graba said. "It makes it a little bit fun. But in the end, it's a whole team effort. Until the whole team hits, it's fun, but it really doesn't matter if bars are really good."

Graba was hired last May after long-time bars coach Aki Hummel went into private business. Graba spent the past two seasons on Ray Corn's staff at Utah State after running his own club gym with his twin brother in Minnesota.

Being new has both helped and hurt.

Senior Gabi Onodi seems to have responded and upgraded her bars routine enough that she is at least Monday's alternate — depending on whether Utah's best bar-worker, junior Nicolle Ford, can compete after dislocating her right index finger in a workout last Sunday.

Onodi has never been in the bars mix until now.

Graba says it's all her doing, but he concedes, "I'm new enough that maybe I don't know her limitations as well."

He was able to get her to try a release move that would give her enough scoring power to compete. Hummel also tried, but this year, Onodi chose to work on it.

Graba's explanation is that, "I've seen seniors before that see the end of their career coming and they want to make sure they go out with a bang."

He also admits to some cajoling.

"There was a little bit of sweet talk just because we don't have a lot of depth" in that event, he said.

Being new also means Graba has to learn what works for each athlete. And that's essential in this first season of the new code of points, which calls for more difficult skills to give judges more ability to separate and reward those who show excellence.