Ray Corn had been discussing future gymnastics schedules with another coach. He'd gone in to his administrators at Utah State University and "timetabled one more season."

"And I just got to thinking, why?"

Corn, suffering since August with Guillain-Barre, a sometimes-fatal virus that attacks the peripheral ends of the nervous system, decided, "If there is a change, let's make it now."

He abruptly retired after 31 years as the Aggies' gymnastics coach, the program's only head coach. He said he will continue to teach at the school, run his summer workshops and nighttime kids' program, Titans Gymnastics, and will be USU's No. 1 fan.

"It was (sudden)," Corn admitted in a sometimes-emotional phone interview Monday, three days after the announcement.

"It's just time for a change. I'm looking forward to it, OK? I don't know what's ahead of me, but I just want to be able to rest and relax. We'll get through this," he added.

Corn was born on New Year's Eve 1949 in the Philippines and attended high school and college in Colorado. He said he is "pretty much out of the woods" as far as the most critical problems Guillain-Barre can cause — if it gets into the respiratory system it can be fatal or require a respirator — but he is also not seeing much progress.

"I'm improving all the time, but it seems like I've just hit this status right now, and I really am no better. I can jog a bit, different things like that, but to just keep going after it the way I have been, I think it's the best decision," said Corn.

"It was the entire right side of my body, from my neck all the way down to my feet," Corn explained about the Guillain-Barre virus, which he has read can be stress-induced. "It's like I have a constant burning sensation.

"Now it is just in my hip down to my foot that is the problem. I have my good days, and I have my bad days, but the bad days are getting more infrequent. On my bad days, it's like I have no strength in my leg whatsoever. On my good days, it's like I have sunburn just on that leg."

He said the virus takes time to run its course.

Corn won't miss all the bus and airplane travel or the NCAA certification exams, but his voice cracks when he talks of fond memories of an Aggie program he built with such passion that one-time athletic director Rod Tueller told him to "mellow out, take a chill pill, quit going 150 mph constantly."