By Craig Morgan, thesundevils.com Writer
Last season, then first-year Sun Devil gymnastics coach Jay Santos posed a question to his players after a hard practice.
"Who's working as hard as they ever have in their life?" he asked.
Most of Santos' student-athletes raised their hands, but Santos had news for them.
"I said, 'Okay, great, but I'm still going to need more from you.'"
Santos and associate head coach Jessica Santos knew that rebuilding the program would be a process littered with ups and downs when they took over last season. The team didn't win a meet the previous season and the coaching approach was in need of a major facelift.
"Our kids had trouble just straight up communicating to us or even talking to the trainer about how they felt on a daily basis," Jay Santos said. "We told them, 'it's okay. Tell us how you feel so we can make a decision as to what we should do today. There were just some really big culture issues that we had to change and then reinforce."
"We had conversation after conversation, whether it was one-on-one with the kids or talking with our leadership group or just full team meetings, which we do on a regular basis, to continually reinforce how we wanted to do things. We've probably had the same conversation dozens of times but we kept trying to be consistent with the same message."
While there were memory banks to erase form the previous season, Jessica Santos said they had some advantages.
"I think one of the things that really helped us last year was that we had a lot of new faces on the team; only seven or eight returners," Jessica Santos said. "While there was that culture ingrained in them from before, we also had a whole bunch of freshman and (Michigan transfer) Nichelle Christopherson come in, so we had a lot of people we could mold."
The coaches' message was simple.
"We wanted to try to give them a little more ownership of what they're doing in earning their spot every week to compete. The year before, they did not really have that opportunity to earn it because it was kind of like, if you could do something you did it because they did not have a lot of depth," Jessica Santos said. "I think it took a lot longer than what we wanted it to. Our first couple of meets were a reflection of how our preseason was, which was a little bumpy, but halfway through the season is when we finally started scoring a little bit better and they saw what we were doing was working and that's when the buy-in happened a little more and we were able to finish the season a lot stronger."
The Sun Devils finished last season with a win over rival Arizona, and they scored higher at the Pac-12 meet than they had the previous season.
Christopherson is a senior this season, and part of the leadership group with sophomore Ashley Szafranski, but several newcomers buoy their coaches' hopes for an even better season.
Junior Anne Kuhm has been a member of the French national team since 2009, a two-time French national all-around champion (2011 and 2012) and competed in the 2012 London Olympics. She brings a finesse approach to the team, which Jay Santos calls "pretty" gymnastics.
"She got a high skill level, great execution and that elite presence that will help our program so much," Jay Santos said. "She's such a proactive kid in all aspects of her life. Even in the transfer process when we were trying to get all the paperwork transferred from the University of Paris, she was on top of everything.
"She's very efficient in her approach, she works hard and she can get assignments done really easily because she's got that elite background."
Other Sun Devils to watch, in addition to Kuhm, Christopherson and Szafranski, include:
Junior Kaitlyn Szafranski (Ashley's sister), who transferred from LSU where she was a member of a Tigers team that finished as the national runner-up the past two seasons.
Freshman Cairo Leonard-Baker, a powerful, two-time Junior Olympic National qualifier, who holds three of the top-100 bars scores in the nation in 2017, including a 9.825, which earned her the title of 2017 NorCal state bar champion.
"We're not losing much out of 24 routines and we're gaining probably two to three from each of the four or five people we brought in," Jessica Santos said. "Vault was one of our weaknesses because we only had four athletes doing it last year. This year, we are close to eight or nine. That will help if someone has to come out for a break or a bad day or an injury.
"Making NCAA Regionals should be a more realistic goal. We were pretty close last year and we gained so much that it should be within reach."
While the talent and depth have both improved, Jay Santos said it's important that he and Jessica keep delivering the same message of support, encouragement and motivation.
"We certainly have not arrived but we're in a much better spot than this point last year," he said. "Being successful in college athletics nowadays is not easy. If you're completely detached and as a coach, you have no connection to your athletes, I think it makes it that much harder. Kids nowadays really want to know that you value them as people on top of what they can do for you athletically."
"We're set up to do a lot more this year than we ever were last year, but what we do with it is going to be a lot up to the kids. It's just about continuing to move that bar."
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter
Last season, then first-year Sun Devil gymnastics coach Jay Santos posed a question to his players after a hard practice.
"Who's working as hard as they ever have in their life?" he asked.
Most of Santos' student-athletes raised their hands, but Santos had news for them.
"I said, 'Okay, great, but I'm still going to need more from you.'"
Santos and associate head coach Jessica Santos knew that rebuilding the program would be a process littered with ups and downs when they took over last season. The team didn't win a meet the previous season and the coaching approach was in need of a major facelift.
"Our kids had trouble just straight up communicating to us or even talking to the trainer about how they felt on a daily basis," Jay Santos said. "We told them, 'it's okay. Tell us how you feel so we can make a decision as to what we should do today. There were just some really big culture issues that we had to change and then reinforce."
"We had conversation after conversation, whether it was one-on-one with the kids or talking with our leadership group or just full team meetings, which we do on a regular basis, to continually reinforce how we wanted to do things. We've probably had the same conversation dozens of times but we kept trying to be consistent with the same message."
While there were memory banks to erase form the previous season, Jessica Santos said they had some advantages.
"I think one of the things that really helped us last year was that we had a lot of new faces on the team; only seven or eight returners," Jessica Santos said. "While there was that culture ingrained in them from before, we also had a whole bunch of freshman and (Michigan transfer) Nichelle Christopherson come in, so we had a lot of people we could mold."
The coaches' message was simple.
"We wanted to try to give them a little more ownership of what they're doing in earning their spot every week to compete. The year before, they did not really have that opportunity to earn it because it was kind of like, if you could do something you did it because they did not have a lot of depth," Jessica Santos said. "I think it took a lot longer than what we wanted it to. Our first couple of meets were a reflection of how our preseason was, which was a little bumpy, but halfway through the season is when we finally started scoring a little bit better and they saw what we were doing was working and that's when the buy-in happened a little more and we were able to finish the season a lot stronger."
The Sun Devils finished last season with a win over rival Arizona, and they scored higher at the Pac-12 meet than they had the previous season.
Christopherson is a senior this season, and part of the leadership group with sophomore Ashley Szafranski, but several newcomers buoy their coaches' hopes for an even better season.
Junior Anne Kuhm has been a member of the French national team since 2009, a two-time French national all-around champion (2011 and 2012) and competed in the 2012 London Olympics. She brings a finesse approach to the team, which Jay Santos calls "pretty" gymnastics.
"She got a high skill level, great execution and that elite presence that will help our program so much," Jay Santos said. "She's such a proactive kid in all aspects of her life. Even in the transfer process when we were trying to get all the paperwork transferred from the University of Paris, she was on top of everything.
"She's very efficient in her approach, she works hard and she can get assignments done really easily because she's got that elite background."
Other Sun Devils to watch, in addition to Kuhm, Christopherson and Szafranski, include:
Junior Kaitlyn Szafranski (Ashley's sister), who transferred from LSU where she was a member of a Tigers team that finished as the national runner-up the past two seasons.
Freshman Cairo Leonard-Baker, a powerful, two-time Junior Olympic National qualifier, who holds three of the top-100 bars scores in the nation in 2017, including a 9.825, which earned her the title of 2017 NorCal state bar champion.
"We're not losing much out of 24 routines and we're gaining probably two to three from each of the four or five people we brought in," Jessica Santos said. "Vault was one of our weaknesses because we only had four athletes doing it last year. This year, we are close to eight or nine. That will help if someone has to come out for a break or a bad day or an injury.
"Making NCAA Regionals should be a more realistic goal. We were pretty close last year and we gained so much that it should be within reach."
While the talent and depth have both improved, Jay Santos said it's important that he and Jessica keep delivering the same message of support, encouragement and motivation.
"We certainly have not arrived but we're in a much better spot than this point last year," he said. "Being successful in college athletics nowadays is not easy. If you're completely detached and as a coach, you have no connection to your athletes, I think it makes it that much harder. Kids nowadays really want to know that you value them as people on top of what they can do for you athletically."
"We're set up to do a lot more this year than we ever were last year, but what we do with it is going to be a lot up to the kids. It's just about continuing to move that bar."
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter