A Legacy Like No Other

When gauging the career of a collegiate coach, UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden widely is viewed as the pinnacle. He sits atop his own Pyramid of Success.

The Wizard of Westwood won 10 NCAA championships in a span of 12 seasons (1963-75), which included a streak of seven straight titles (1966-73). During one stretch (1971-74), his Bruins won 88 straight games.

To compare any college coach to Wooden is nonsensical, but Mark Williams' own pyramid of success stacks up rather nicely alongside Wooden's.

The Oklahoma men's gymnastics coach has won eight NCAA championships in the last 16 seasons, which includes a current title streak of three straight. His Sooners are coming off their fourth straight unbeaten regular season and have won 87 straight meets.

If OU wins this year's national title on Saturday in Chicago, it will move Williams within one NCAA championship of tying the legendary Wooden.

Fully aware men's gymnastics pales in comparison to competitive monstrosities such as men's basketball and football, Williams scoffed at the mere suggestion of being compared to Wooden.

Asked if his achievements are properly appreciated, a smiling Williams quipped, “Well, I'm not the football coach, but I've been pretty darn lucky. I'm happy to be at a place like this where they want to expand facilities and provide what we need to be competitive with the best college programs in the country. (OU athletic director) Joe Castiglione is great. The people in the department who are close to me, I think they know how hard we work.”

Is it cumbersome to keep the streak alive? “A little bit,” Williams admitted. “It's always out there.”

"The goal for us is (winning) the national championship. I'm not willing to compromise what I know works for us to be in the best position on Saturday just to have us win meets. It doesn't make sense to the overall goal of the season."
- Mark Williams

As impressive as 87 straight is, Williams gladly would surrender the winning streak to secure a fourth straight national crown. “There were a lot of times this year when I thought, 'OK, this is our team this weekend, and it's not our best team,' ” Williams said. “It's not worth it for us to destroy a team (head-to-head) just for the sake to continue a streak. In the back part of my brain I'm thinking, 'That streak is pretty cool,' but we're still going to do what we set out to do.”

The streak very well might come to an end during Friday night's preliminary round of the NCAA Championships at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.

Williams revealed standout juniors Yul Moldauer and Levi Anderson will compete in only three events rather than all six in hopes of them gaining some last-minute rest prior to Saturday's finals. Trick is, teams must finish in the top three in the two preliminary pools to advance to the championship meet.

The top-seeded Sooners are in the same 7 p.m. pool as No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 8 Penn State, No. 9 Iowa and No. 12 California. Though OU previously beat Illinois, Ohio State, Iowa and California this season, keep in mind two of the Sooners' top all-around performers will sit half their events. (Imagine OU men's basketball coach Lon Kruger sitting national Freshman of the Year Trae Young for half a game in postseason play.)

“I'm not going to put the best team out there on Friday, so we could lose the prelims,” Williams admitted. “But the goal for us is (winning) the national championship. I'm not willing to compromise what I know works for us to be in the best position on Saturday just to have us win meets. It doesn't make sense to the overall goal of the season. Yul is going to rise to the occasion when we need him, but we have to have him healthy enough to go.”

Mark Williams celebrates with senior Reese Rickett after a successful still rings routine.

With a win Saturday night in Chicago, Williams would tie Penn State's Gene Wettstone and pass his former coach at Nebraska, Francis Allen, for the most NCAA titles by a men's gymnastics head coach. OU also would become only the third school to win at least four straight national titles (joining Illinois and Nebraska) and the Sooners would tie Penn State for the most national team titles all-time with 12.

When your own achievements are nearly unmatched, how do you possibly out-do yourself each season?

“I just keep showing up every day,” Williams said. “You come in, you do your best every day and a lot of times it really doesn't feel like work. Sometimes it feels a little hard to keep getting up at 5:20 to come in for morning workouts now that I'm just about to hit 60 (years old), but I don't know any other way to do it. It would bother me if I knew we weren't doing what we needed to do. It wouldn't work. I either have to be all-in, or I'd have to find another job.”

Williams credits senior Hunter Justus for playing to role of watchdog in the locker room.

“In December, we weren't a very good team and I had my concerns that we were ever going to get there,” Williams said. “Guys like Hunter, who hasn't lost a meet since he's been here, wasn't going to let that happen with this team. In some ways, he was a force even beyond the coaches where it wasn't OK for us not to be ready to go and to not live up to the standards we've had. In January we started getting it back together and our confidence grew.

“There might be other teams that talent-wise certainly are at the same level we are. If they get hot, we could easily get beat in the championships this year. But I feel like we've gone through all the steps of being prepared. The guys have bought in and they've figured it out. A couple of times this year we haven't been all that good at the beginning of meets and then these guys rally and say, 'We're not giving this away.' Ohio State should have beaten us by two or three points after the start we had (March 23 in Columbus), but we just clawed back and kept at it. We didn't give up, put the pressure back on them and ended up winning when we probably shouldn't have. And that's a good sign.”

Williams said a significant energy boost comes from third-year assistant coach Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons, a member of three championship teams at OU (2005, 2006, 2008) who also captured the 2007 NCAA all-around crown.

" I knew how demanding (Williams) was of his athletes, how demanding he was of his assistants. I was ecstatic to work with him. He really brings the best out of their athletes. He hasn't changed much since I've known him. I came in here as a freshman pretty full of myself, then my head shrunk pretty quickly knowing you're competing for a team. It's not just about you."
- Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons

“It's been one of those years where everyone has had to step up,” Abdullah-Simmons said. “We knew we had enough to be a good team, but didn't know if we had enough to still be that national championship team from years past. Coach always has given me a lot of free rein to speak up when I need to, or when he feels like something needs to be said … and to bring some energy in practice or in competition.”

When approached by Williams, Abdullah-Simmons said he jumped at the chance to join his former coach. “I understood what Mark was all about,” Abdullah-Simmons said. “I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew how demanding he was of his athletes, how demanding he was of his assistants. I was ecstatic to work with him. He really brings the best out of their athletes. He hasn't changed much since I've known him. I came in here as a freshman pretty full of myself, then my head shrunk pretty quickly knowing you're competing for a team. It's not just about you.”

As usual, Williams tapered his team's workouts to help his gymnasts achieve maximum strength come championship time.

“I'd say one of the keys to our success has been that we go really hard in the fall, then we get the gymnastics down at the beginning of the season,” Williams said. “These last two weeks have been the fun days. These days are light. We're feeling healthy and ready because we did so much to get to this point. I've always felt like you need to feel good and be excited and have fun in the performance side of things now. I don't beat them up these last two weeks because I don't know how much better they can get in that period of time anyway. I just want them to feel good, excited and confident.”

The 59-year-old Williams has won 12 NCAA championships in his career – two while competing at Nebraska (1979-80), one as an NU assistant (1981), one as an OU assistant (1991) and eight since taking over as Sooners head coach in 2000 (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2015, 2016, 2017). He also has seven national runner-up finishes at OU. His career winning percentage is .927 (460-36-0) and he has won 16 conference titles in 19 seasons at OU.

Williams' burning desire to add to his NCAA trophy collection has not waned, not even during one of his most challenging seasons to date. OU gymnasts have endured nine surgical procedures since the end of last season, six of which Williams categorized as “major.”

Having to overcome all these health obstacles, could this season be Williams' most rewarding to date?

“I guess we'll see,” Williams said with a wry smile. “I'm really proud of what these guys have done and I can honestly say we don't have the same depth or talent in the gym we've had in the past two years when we were really dominant. But we also have Yul Moldauer, who is pretty darn good, and a host of guys around him who are as good as any other college team. If Yul does well and the rest of our guys do well, I like our chances. But if we struggle, we're vulnerable.”

Translation: Anything short of winning another national championship will not meet expectations.