Allen Training Complex Adjacent To Devaney Is Perfect Fit

Once upon a time, the nation’s top high school and club gymnasts would flock to Lincoln to join Francis Allen and his Nebraska men’s gymnastics program, one that churned out national championship after national championship.
 
Recruiting wasn’t much a chore. The product spoke for itself.
 
“I used to bring in recruits in, and ‘Oh, s—, I’m coming here. You’re Francis Allen,” Allen said. “You know Tom Schlesinger and Jim Hartung. S—, I want to be one of those guys.’ “
 
And so they’d sign with Nebraska, and the Huskers would win more national titles. We’re talking eight NCAA Championships overall under Allen, and five straight from 1979-83. When they weren’t placing first, the Huskers were either finishing as NCAA runner-up (seven times) or at least placing in the top five nationally (20 times under Allen).
 
Allen, now in the Nebraska Athletics Hall of Fame, had a powerhouse program rolling full steam ahead.
 
Then suddenly one day, after having the nation’s top-ranked gymnast on campus for a visit, Allen heard a word that shocked him to his core.
 
No.
 
“I thought I had him,” Allen said. “Then on the way to the airport, ‘I’m not coming. Your gym isn’t big enough.’ I go, ‘What the …!”
 
The gymnast signed with heated rival Oklahoma. So did the next three top recruits in the nation over the next three years.
 
“And Oklahoma won every championship with those sons of b—–,” said Allen, forever known for his color and candor.
 
Nebraska’s fortunes turned, Allen firmly believes, in large part because of its facilities, which, most glaringly, lacked a floor exercise mat.
 
That first gymnast said ‘no’ 26 years ago – the same number of years since Nebraska’s last national title.
 
Allen is no longer Nebraska’s coach – he retired in 2009 after coaching the Huskers for 40 years – but he remains heavily involved in the men’s and women’s programs. On Friday, he was the central figure for a ribbon cutting ceremony that christened a $14 million, 46,000-square foot women’s and men’s gymnastics practice facility.
 
The Allen Training Complex.
 
Some 300 people, including 100 men’s and women’s gymnastics alumni, attended the event, which featured University of Nebraska System President Ted Carter, Nebraska Chancellor Ronnie Green, Nebraska Athletics Director Bill Moos, women’s gymnastics coach Heather Brink, men’s gymnastics coach Chuck Chmelka and, of course, Allen, the longest-tenured coach in the history of Nebraska athletics.
 
No longer, Allen said, should recruits visiting Nebraska utter that two-letter word he’d heard in 1994.
 
“This has got to be the best men’s and women’s training facility at a college in the world – not just the United States, the world,” a proud, beaming Allen said after the ceremony. “This gym is something. Kids are going to come in here – I’m just telling you, they’re going to see this and they’re going to go, ‘My God.’
 
“When they come in, they see it, they’ll go like, ‘Well, this means something, because somebody went to all the trouble to build this,’ and that’s the kind of momentum these guys need.”
 
Spacious practice gyms, locker rooms, team meeting rooms, athletic therapy areas and coaches’ offices for both the men’s and women’s gymnastics programs highlight the complex, adorned with televisions and other bells and whistles at every turn.
 
Appropriately, this facility is adjacent to a building named for another Nebraska sports figure every bit as iconic as Allen himself – legendary Nebraska football coach Bob Devaney.
 
Devaney, who also served as Nebraska’s Athletics Director from 1967-1993, boasted the same candor, humor and wit as Allen, which probably explains why the two held such a close relationship until Devaney’s death in 1997.
 
“We were close,” Allen said. “The thing that I cherished the most is in 1994, I won a national championship, and he was still functional and around. He and I and Bill Byrne were in a picture together with the guys on the podium. So I gave him his last national championship and Bill Byrne’s his first one (as athletics director).
 
“And I really liked both of them. I particularly liked both of them because they did what I needed an athletic director to do. They weren’t over messing around, ‘Well, you can’t have that, you can’t have this.’ They said, ‘You’re going to win.’
 
“But Bob and I were close. I bet he’d be just ecstatic about this place.”

 

How supportive was Devaney of Nebraska gymnastics? Allen has time and again told the story of the first time his team won the Big Eight Tournament, hosted at the NU Coliseum.

 

“We packed the place,” Allen said. “There were people in line clear out to 14th street, waiting for tickets. So Bob gets a roll of tickets and goes out in the street, and he’s hawking tickets. It was hilarious.’

 

“He wouldn’t micromanage. He’d always say to me, ‘I did some tumbling, my kids did some tumbling, I always cherish what you all are doing with those athletes. I appreciate you, so leave me alone and get to work.’ “

 

Among the former gymnasts who attended Friday’s ceremony was Anton Stephenson, who last year won an NCAA Top 10 Award, a prestigious honor that recognizes 10 seniors across the nation who excelled in athletics and academics.

 

“This is a new era for this team,” said Stephenson, a former All-American gymnast now in medical school. “I’m going to be honest. I wish I had another year here. I wish I was just starting my career here, honestly. It’s just really cool to see this program is getting the facilities and the treatment it really deserves. I can only imagine how much success it’s going to bring for the future of this program.”

 

The men’s program moved across the hall from its previous cramped headquarters on the north side of the Devaney Sports Center, built in 1976. The women’s program, meanwhile, founded in 1976, had previously held its practices at Mabel Lee Hall, a city campus classroom building. It’s the same building that had a small gymnasium tucked away in an upstairs corner where the men’s and women’s basketball teams sometimes practiced – particularly for weeks like these, with the high school state tournaments taking over the Devaney Sports Center.

 

The Hendricks Training Complex, built in 2011, alleviated such burdens. Now, Brink’s program, a constant in the NCAA Championships, will enjoy the same amenities, while Mabel Lee Hall will be torn down and rebuilt for classrooms for the college of education.

 

In mid-February, Brink had her gymnasts pack their belongings and board a bus as a surprise early move into the Allen Training Complex, even though it wasn’t completely finished.

 

“I’ll never forget the looks on their faces when they saw the gym and their locker room for the first time,” Brink said.

 

As for Allen, he’ll continue to visit and support both gymnastics programs in a building named after him, albeit one with no office for Allen himself. That’s by his choice.

 

“That’s not my style,” said Allen, also a former Nebraska gymnastics letterman and assistant coach. “I have a room back there where I repair stuff for the team. I’d rather have that than an office.”

 

He’s serious, by the way.

 

“When those kids break their hand strap the day of a meet and go, ‘Now what am I gonna do?’ Well, I can usually fix pretty much anything.”

 

And rest assured, nobody will tell him no.

 

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.