The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/20/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: DANIEL SHIREY Courtney Kupets launches through the air during her floor performance. Kupets posted two 10s in the Super Six and a 10 in the preliminary round. [Click to enlarge]

LINCOLN, Neb. - Class dismissed.

Gym Dog senior Courtney Kupets put on a clinic at the NCAA gymnastics championships, posting three perfect 10s on three different events and claiming her third NCAA all-around title during team competition on Thursday and Friday.

She then proceeded to collect three more individual titles Saturday, giving her nine all-time and making her history's most decorated collegiate gymnast.

So the question is simple - is she the best athlete NCAA gymnastics has ever seen?

"There is no question she's the best college gymnast of all-time," coach Suzanne Yoculan said. "She, and this is related to the boxing gloves that got us through the end of the season, is the Muhammad Ali of gymnastics - The Greatest."

LSU coach D-D Breaux agreed, and Kupets' teammates did, too.

"It was just an incredible, incredible week for her," said junior Courtney McCool. "Three days in a row, that is unbelievable. There are no words to describe her as an athlete, as a person, as God's daughter. It's just incredible to be able to watch and be a part of."

Said junior Grace Taylor, Kupets' roommate: "You can't argue with the fact that she's the best gymnast in collegiate gymnastics now, and probably ever. Ever before and ever to come. I doubt there will ever be a person that will be able to accomplish what she did."

Someone at Saturday morning's NCAA banquet suggested that Kupets be tested "for robotics." And it's easy to understand why.

After her 39.8 on Thursday gave her the all-around title, Kupets turned around the next day and threw up 10s on bars and vault, not to mention 9.95s on her other two events. Individual all-around scores aren't tallied in the Super Six, or the senior would have posted a 39.9, which would have been the highest score by a Gym Dog outside of Karin Lichey's NCAA-record 40.0 in 1996.



On Saturday she went to work again, adding to the six individual championships she already had.

Title 7: Kupets kicked her day off on bars, sticking her landing for a 9.95. Her closest competitor put up a 9.9125.

Title 8: This one came on floor. She put up another 9.95, good enough to tie her with LSU's Ashleigh Clare-Kearney for the championship, and matching former Kentucky gymnast Jenny Hansen's mark for the most individual titles all-time.

Title 9: With McCool sitting in the top spot with a 9.95, Kupets threw up a 9.9875 in the seventh spot on beam. It held, leaving the Athens native all alone in the history books.

After a 9.900 on her first vault Saturday, she took a big hop on her second, leaving her in a tie for third place with an average of 9.856.

Kupets took titles on all-around, beam and bars during her freshman season in 2006, and on all-around and vault in 2007 before missing last year's NCAAs with an Achilles tear. The 15-time All-American now owns an NCAA title on every event, becoming the only gymnast to accomplish that feat.

She quite possibly is the best. But Kupets herself, ever-humble and always looking for a way to deflect attention from herself, isn't so sure.

"I don't believe that, because I just do what I do and I love it," she said. "I don't know. It's kind of crazy for someone to say that about me. It's really an honor and I just don't believe that people would think that of me. I just have fun with what I do."

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