Although the LSU gymnastics team goes into the NCAA Championships on Friday with minimal nationals experience, they may not have to worry.
They’re getting tips and techniques from a two-time national champion.
Former LSU gymnast Ashleigh Clare-Kearney won both the vault and floor exercise titles at the 2009 national meet to cap off a career in which she took a school-record 114 total individual crowns.
Now she works with the team as a volunteer assistant coach. LSU head coach D-D Breaux said with her relatively fresh successes, it was an easy decision to have her back.
“She’s got such a good eye and heart for gymnastics,” Breaux said. “She’s accomplished as much as any collegiate gymnast can accomplish. Academically, she’s brilliant. I want her hanging around my program.”
Clare-Kearney chose to volunteer because she has been involved in the sport since she was five and said she couldn’t imagine abandoning one of the most influential parts of her life so abruptly.
She said she hoped to give back to the University and keep the LSU tradition alive through coaching.
Competing for the Tigers gave her a huge support system and guidance for her decision to attend law school, she said. Clare-Kearney now attends the Southern University Law Center, spurred by the attitude she learned on the purple mats during her undergrad years.
“[LSU gymnastics fostered] the desire to win and do everything you can, hard work and determination,” Clare-Kearney said. “That carries into every profession, but especially the law because of how intense and meticulous it is.”
While she said she usually throws her two cents in on vault, where she holds the most titles at 37, her main focus is the floor. Clare-Kearney acts as the choreographer, picking the girls’ music and laying out the dance, presentation and leap combinations.
She likes to tailor each routine to the performer, playing to their strengths. When building routines for the team’s two outstanding freshmen, Rheagan Courville and Lloimincia Hall, Clare-Kearney built dances showcasing Courville’s grace and flexibility while displaying Hall’s power and entertainment factor.
With that kind of control, Breaux said the former champion is a perfectionist.
“She is extremely outspoken and very critical about everything they do,” Breaux said. “She’s very quick to point out good stuff and bad stuff.”
Breaux likened the young team’s admiration of its volunteer coach to idol worship, but she said no one looks up to her more than Hall, who called Clare-Kearney her mentor.
The two also call each other sisters.
“You look at titles, you look at how much she’s a team player, there’s something that I would want to get in to,” Hall said. “Our personal relationship is unbelievable. … We’re even allergic to the same things, that’s how close we are.”
Beside an intolerance for nuts and seafood, Clare-Kearney said the two also share that power style and an outgoing personality during performances.
Like Clare-Kearney, Hall is especially proficient on the floor, where she won seven of her titles, including the Southeastern Conference championship. She also tied the highest national score of 9.975 in the exercise twice this season.
“She has the potential and the talent,” Clare-Kearney said. “It’s going to be important for her to … focus on what she’s done in practice and what she’s done this season. The SEC as a whole is powerful, and if can you win that championship, you have a legitimate shot to win the national championship.”
Hall said she only has to look at her mentor to find the same success.
“If Ashleigh did these things … there’s no reason I can’t follow in her footsteps,” Hall said.
And having seen the best of Clare-Kearney, that’s the kind of thing Breaux likes to hear.
“If [Hall] has her sights set on mirroring what Ashleigh’s accomplished, then LSU’s in for some real good stuff,” she said.
 
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Contact Alex Cassara at [email protected].