28 years later… Corn still enjoys coaching

After 28 years, USU’s gymnastics head coach Ray Corn has seen some changes. Especially in gymnastics.

“Anything prior to 15 years ago felt like we were in the dark ages,” Corn said. “That’s how much we’ve evolved in skills, in equipment, in leotards, in music. The whole gamut of gymnastics.”

But Corn said he likes the changes. In fact, he said he likes pretty much everything about coaching gymnastics.

“I don’t think there is a collegiate athlete or an athlete of any sort that would not like to have a second chance to continue competing,” he said. “At least for the last 28 years, I’ve continued competing in the sport of gymnastics.”

However, although he enjoys coaching, time has not made Corn’s job any easier.

Fewer schools now have collegiate gymnastics teams, he said, and that makes it so there is not a weak gymnastics program in the country.

“In my opinion, parity has pretty much set in,” he said, “and outside of perhaps the top eight teams in the country, everybody has the opportunity of pretty much beating up on each other on any given night.”

Corn came to USU in 1978 after coaching at Bear Creek High School in Denver for five years.

At that time, the Aggies only had a club team. Corn said, Utah State wanted to “change and elevate the program of gymnastics,” so the assistant athletic director at the time recruited Corn to come help with the transition.

Since then, Corn has radically changed gymnastics at USU. He took a club-level team and in just a few years, he guided it to a Division-I program.

One thing Corn said he brought to the program is the idea of a cohesive team.

“I think the experience that I had in Colorado coaching high school as well as a private club gave me knowledgeable background as to how to bring together a team,” he said. “That’s what I brought to Utah State when I came on board – a strong team concept.

“Whereas a lot of other programs didn’t like to have that team concept, they wanted to keep their athletes competition-ready by being very competitive against their own team members as well as the other team.”

But now, Corn said, gymnastics at the collegiate level everywhere is all about team, which can make coaching difficult.

“I think every year the challenging thing [as a coach] is the dynamics of a team,” he said. “You always have an upper class, middle class and incoming freshmen.

“Then [having to] take them and uniformly put them together as a whole cohesive team that lacks selfishness and has a common goal,” he said.

Coaching gymnastics has not always been the Colorado native’s goal.

He said he didn’t even get involved in the sport until the end of his sophomore year when he saw a gymnast training on the iron rings.

But even after he got involved, he said gymnastics didn’t really become a priority until college. But even then, it took a while to get the ball rolling.

Corn said he decided to go to Northern Colorado on a wrestling scholarship.

But, after getting there, Corn said he realized collegiate wrestling wasn’t for him.

So he went and talked to the gymnastics coach. After that, the ball just kept rolling. And the sport kept changing.

“It has been harder winning,” Corn said about gymnastics today. “Teams are tougher. We’re at an era that – unless you’re one of the top eight teams in the country – a successful season is a little over .500. There is now a propensity, like basketball, where we win at home and lose on the road.”

However, Corn said he wants to make sure people know that in gymnastics, it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about scoring.

“I hope [fans] realize and remember that gymnastics is about scoring; it’s not win/losses,” he said. “It’s not how you start, it’s where you finish.”

One of the most rewarding aspects of coaching is seeing gymnasts who have been dedicated to the sport carry that drive and commitment into the real world, Corn said.

He said he likes seeing them succeed in the real world, whether as a valedictorian of Utah State or owner of their own company.

Outside of coaching, Corn said he enjoys golfing and spending time with his wife and two daughters.

-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu

Utah State gymnastics head coach Ray Corn leads the team in a practice Tuesday. Corn has been the coach of the team for 28 years.