Matthew Creger/The Diamondback
As first-year Terrapin gymnastics coach Brett Nelligan paced up and down the gym floor Saturday during his team’s meet, he celebrated in a way players of the program have become accustomed to.
Nelligan shouted and pumped his fist in jubilation after all-around Abigail Adams stuck the landing of an impressive dismount from the uneven bars. He ran up to Adams and gave her a two-handed high five, his enthusiasm apparent.
When the Terps took the Comcast Center floor Saturday in a quad-meet against No. 16 Denver, West Virginia and Rutgers, they didn’t look like a team that had just undergone a head coaching change.
Instead, the Terps (6-4, 2-3 EAGL) looked like a poised veteran squad en route to a second-place finish and their second highest score of the season. It was almost as if nothing had changed.
And for the most part, nothing has.
Bob Nelligan, the team’s coach for 31 years, retired at the end of last season. His son, Brett Nelligan, took over May 1. The younger Nelligan is now at the helm of the program after six seasons as an assistant coach.
So the transition has been easy, allowing the Terps to continue their progression after last year’s appearance in the NCAA Regionals — the team’s first appearance there since 2004.
“I know that Brett’s done an amazing job with this program, and he’s going to continue to do so,” Adams said. “The transition [from Bob to Brett] has been amazing.”
There are subtle differences between the two coaches. A former gymnast at UMass, Brett Nelligan brings a more demanding style. Bob Nelligan, who players called “Duke,” because of his love for surfing, a sport popularized worldwide by Duke Kahanamoku, had a more laid-back style.
“A lot of it is the same,” Brett Nelligan said. “We’ve just increased the intensity of everything. … Every aspect of the program, we just took it up a notch.”
“Brett is really focused and really determined,” Adams said. “He puts a desire and passion in our hearts, and he believes in us sometimes more than we believe in ourselves.”
When Brett Nelligan was named coach, he became the fourth person to hold the position. Replacing any coach who led a program for more than three decades would be a daunting task, but Brett Nelligan is also following in the footsteps of his father, and he admitted to a higher level of stress at times.
Since retiring, Bob Nelligan has moved to Bermuda to coach that country’s national gymnastics team, leaving his son to deal with new responsibilities as the man in charge without his lifelong mentor.
“I just try to remember what my father taught me and go from there,” Brett Nelligan said. “My father, for me, was always that safety net. I kinda always knew everything would be OK if he was here. Now, I don’t know it’s going to be OK, but we’re doing all right.”
Last season, the Terps earned the No. 35 seed in the NCAA Regionals with a Regional Qualifying Score of 194.625. After losing only one senior to graduation, the team entered this season with high expectations.
The Terps’ highest score so far this season is 194.250, which came in a Jan. 15 matchup against Temple, Cornell and Bridgeport. To an outsider, it might seem as if the team has not lived up to its new standards. But with scores across the nation lower than usual, the Terps have managed to stay in the top 36 nationally.
“We’re still, right now, ranked in the top 36, which makes Regionals. We scored higher than our average [Saturday], so we’re gonna move up [in the rankings],” Brett Nelligan said. “So everything’s OK.”
A team’s RQS comes from taking its top six scores, three of which must come on the road, dropping the highest score and averaging the rest. When a team records a high score, they get to drop a lower one, hence Brett Nelligan’s optimism.
The newly appointed coach also noted that the team has not been able to finish lately, something he feels will come as the season progresses, leading to better scores.
The Terps had a chance to win Saturday’s meet, but two gymnasts slipped up during their floor exercises, losing valuable points.
“Sometimes the ball bounces in and sometimes the ball bounces out,” Brett Nelligan said. “And these last two weeks it’s bounced out. … I think what were gonna take from this — when we get towards the end of the season and we have that lead or it’s close, we’ll know exactly what to do.”
As the Terps’ new head coach, Brett Nelligan has also been trying to get the gymnastics program more recognition on the campus. Saturday’s meet was held on Comcast Center’s main floor — the first time a meet has been held there in the building’s eight-year history.
The result was a sizable crowd and a team that looked ready to take that next step and make the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year.
“This is what we need to change the perspective of the program for the fans, for the recruits and for the judges,” Brett Nelligan said. “This is the new Maryland gymnastics. … We are on our way to becoming a next level program.”
engelke@umdbk.com
