Gator gymnasts aiming high

When Urban Meyer was Utah's football coach, the Utes became the first-ever BCS Busters, invited to one of the nation's top bowl games, which had previously been reserved for members of the big-time. In 2005, the Utes went on and won the Fiesta Bowl.

Before they even went to that bowl, Meyer accepted a job at the University of Florida, and in January, his Gators won the 2007 national championship, following the lead of the Gator basketball team that won the 2006 NCAA basketball championship and then added the 2007 title.

Now the tables are turned a bit.

Utah's gymnastics team is part of what is considered that sport's Big Four — only Utah (nine), Georgia (seven), UCLA (five) and Alabama (four) have ever won national team titles since the NCAA took over women's sports in 1982.

But this 2007 Florida team, ranked No. 1 most of the season and with a 21-0-1 record (the tie was at Georgia), looks a lot like Meyer's last Ute football team, like a Big-Four Buster.

Gator coach Rhonda Faehn brings her team to Utah for the 2007 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships Thursday through Saturday at the Huntsman Center seeking to bust the Big Four and join Florida's own club of 2006-07 national champs.

Faehn says the Gators have been good at simply focusing on the next meet and not getting swept up by pressure to join either the gymnastics or Florida national-title clubs, even though Meyer took a minute during a national television football interview on April 8 to laud the Gator gymnasts.

"This team is strong mentally and is not affected at all by outside things that they can't control," Faehn said in a telephone interview.

Faehn and Shelley Meyer, Urban's wife, have become close friends, and Urban is a big supporter of the gymnasts.

"Everyone (at Florida) is just feeding off each other," said Faehn. Coaches and athletes in all sports at Florida "are all close. When our athletes are interacting with the other ones who just won, we want a part of that. We want that success, too. We feel it. That's helped."

Basketball coach Billy Donovan gave Meyer's Gators a pep talk last season, and Meyer gave the gymnasts a pep talk before they won the SEC championship for the first time in 18 years on March 31. They followed that April 7 with the Northeast Regional title and come into nationals tied with Utah for the highest regional score, 197.325 (Utah won the West Regional).