Tradition Never Graduates: Plocki's 24-Championship Journey at Michigan
3/28/2019 11:02:00 AM | Women's Gymnastics, Features
By Steve Kornacki
Bev Plocki has established expectations that didn't even remotely exist when she arrived as women's gymnastics coach at the University of Michigan in July 1989.
She inherited a 2-19 team before winning a conference title just three years later. Now in her 30th season with the Wolverines, she's won more Big Ten Conference championships than any coach in any sport in the league's storied history, adding No. 24 to her list of accomplishments last week in State College, Pennsylvania, to pass legendary Indiana swimming and diving coach James "Doc" Counsilman.
Plocki has coached 10 NCAA Super Six teams, finished No. 2 nationally in both 1995 and 1999, was the national coach of the year in 1994 with a 27-1 team, and has won 11 Big Ten Coach of the Year awards.
There's plenty to be proud of, but what means the most to her has nothing to do with big gold trophies and plaques. Plocki's greatest source of pride is rooted in something she said that was so simple and yet so powerful: "Tradition never graduates."
"If you'd have asked me earlier in my career," said Plocki, "it would've been winning championships. But after all these years, looking back over it all, all the championships are awesome, every one is special in its own way, and the story is different each year.
One of Plocki's pupils early in her career was Li Li Leung, now president of USA Gymnastics
"But the thing that I think I am proudest of are all of the alumnae who graduated from the program and the things they're doing now -- the kinds of wives and mothers they are, and the fact so many of them come back routinely and have stayed in very close touch with myself and the program.
"If they can come back here and say these were the best times of their lives, that's what it's all about to me. All the championships and the rings make for great stories at reunions, but it's the people that they are.
"Usually, it's about 10 years after they graduate when they come back and say thank you or are appreciative for the fact that I did hold them to that standard and they're doing the things they're doing now because I pushed them."
But none of the individual character development or any of the championships would've occurred if Plocki hadn't convinced the Michigan Athletic Department to spare the struggling program she inherited from elimination.
"Men's and women's gymnastics and field hockey were on the chopping block," said Plocki. "My assistant at the time, Jack Evanoff, put together a four-year plan with me of what we thought we could do with the program, and said we'd be a top 10 program in four years. They probably laughed, but the end of our fourth year, we finished ninth in the country."
The program, it was mentioned, had been at rock bottom.
Plocki grinned and added, "We were underneath the rock on the bottom."
She came to Michigan after two years as a graduate assistant coach at West Virginia, where she was a gymnast for three seasons after beginning at Alabama and deciding that program wasn't a good fit for her.
Mountaineers coach Linda Burdette-Good had a "big-picture approach" that Plocki preferred.
"Winning was important at West Virginia," said Plocki, "but it wasn't everything. The athletes mattered."
She grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania, where her father, Bob, was a welder in the steel mill and her mother, Betty, taught early elementary school grades. Bev was the third of their four daughters, and she's amazed at the commitment they made to her gymnastics career.
Bev learned the sport from a neighborhood friend and progressed through various clubs before landing, at age 10, with coach Danny Warbutton (who finished 10th in the U.S. Trials for the 1972 Olympics) at Gym Dandys in Washington, Pennsylvania, a 150-mile roundtrip commute from Butler that her parents navigated six days every week for six years. Dad handed her the keys to a used car when she was 16 to make the drive herself.
Warbutton and Burdette-Good, who coached 37 seasons at West Virginia and is in its athletic hall of fame, were Plocki's greatest coaching influences.
The bookends of Plocki's 24 Big Ten championship teams: 1992 (above) and 2019 (below).
Plocki said inheriting a struggling program at Michigan worked in her favor because the only way to go was up.
"What we had to change was the culture of the program," said Plocki. "There was a lack of structure, and girls had their boyfriends at practice, and they would stand on the court talking to them."
There also was a complete lack of expectations. Plocki recalled the first meet the Wolverines competed in for her on Jan. 14, 1990, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was against Central Michigan, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois -- all three of which had beaten Michigan in duals the previous season -- and when competition was over, Plocki recalled her team being interested only in where they were going for dinner. She told them that awards hadn't been determined yet, and several gymnasts rolled their eyes.
"But when they announced fourth place," said Plocki, "it wasn't us. Then they announced third place and it wasn't us. 'Omigosh!' they said. Then they announced second place, and it wasn't us. We'd won, and all of a sudden they realized that the buy-in that they'd had, everything we were doing, had paid off.
"You'd have thought it was Christmas morning and they had just gotten a Mercedes. They were so excited, and from then on, it was, 'What else could we do?' "
Michigan finished sixth in the Big Ten during that first season in 1990, and then third, and in 1992 won the first of those 24 championships, the most by any coach, in any sport in Big Ten history.
"It was a great feeling to see that quick of a transformation," said Plocki. "It was the beginning of creating expectations."
Her parents and mentors impacted Plocki's team-building style, and it's why she looks to form a family as surely as a unit. She also credits Scott Sherman, her assistant for 22 seasons and the 2008 national assistant coach of the year, for what they've formed together.
Bev's stayed true to her roots through it all.
"The reason I've been successful here is that I have a strong, passionate personality," said Plocki. "Danny taught me to ask why things are done."
She said Warbutton was like a "Papa Bear."
Has she become Momma Bear?
"Absolutely," Plocki said with both certainty and a smile.
And together with her husband, Jim, a long-time Michigan strength and conditioning coach, they've raised two children. Tyler is a sophomore fullback on the Wolverine football team, and Elizabeth, a recent University of Michigan graduate, is working for a mortgage servicing company in North Carolina.
They're a loving family that endured Jim's trials and surgeries while fighting leukemia. And while Bev says, "We're not out of the woods yet," he's experienced an encouraging year.
Her gymnasts, including 2017 Big Ten Medal of Honor winner Nicole Artz, who had become a local elementary school teacher, were there to support the Plockis as part of their extended family.
Bev's record is 772-257-4 (.749) heading into next week's NCAA Regional at Crisler Center. She's coached four NCAA individual champions (Elise Ray, Beth Wymer, Kylee Botterman and Joanna Simpson) who combined for eight titles, 46 gymnasts who have brought 177 NCAA All-America honors, and 112 Scholastic All-Americans.
"Sometimes 30 years ago feels like yesterday," said Plocki, "and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. But it's been such an incredibly wonderful journey. Like I tell my teams, 'You have to embrace the journey. There are highs, lows and everything in between.'
"This has been my only 'real job,' and Michigan has been my entire career. It's been amazing."
