Technician: What were your first thoughts when you heard Debbie Yow was the new athletic director?

Stevenson: I was surprised because I had not heard anything about her in any of the information that had come out. Any time you make switches with head people, you never know exactly what is going to be different and what is not going to be different. But I certainly liked everything she had to say.

Technician: What have you learned about her and what she did with Maryland’s gymnastics program during her tenure there?

Stevenson: I knew she was part of that program and that she was a leader of that program. I talked to the gymnastics people at Maryland a little bit. Basically what they said is that when she got there, they were a program that was not funded fully, scholarship-wise and support-wise. She just left and they are now fully-funded and on the rise. She did a tremendous job for them as a sport.

Technician: How pleased are you with your program’s recent accomplishments and what are your goals for the next few seasons?

Stevenson: We did a five-year plan three years ago. We are on track to meet all of the goals in our five-year plan. Of the seven or eight goals that we set up, we have met five of those and have three to go. We feel strongly that if we continue to move forward at the pace that we have been moving at, that we will make that next jump. Obviously, my goal is for my program to be a top-ten team. And everything I have heard from coach Yow is that she wants her teams to be in the top-ten and she is going to support them and make them get to that level. For me, that is a real positive thing.

Technician: How close is your team to reaching a level where it can compete with the nation’s top programs?

Stevenson: I’m really excited about the potential because with less than what most of those schools that we are competing with have, we are competing against them in a very positive manner. Five years ago, Georgia beat us by 4 points, which would be the equivalent of 16 points in basketball. Last year, going into the last event, they were ahead of us by less than one point. We have really closed the gap. A lot of that has to do with the fact that up until the last four or five years, we haven’t had anywhere near as much support as most of the schools that we compete against. We’re not competing against Maryland. We’re not competing against Carolina. To go to nationals, we’re competing against teams like Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Utah and UCLA.

Technician: What kind of mindset do you foresee Yow bringing to the table, and how does it line up with the way you want things to be run?

Stevenson: I totally agree with her 100 percent that if you are given the opportunity, time, facilities and everything else that goes into competing at that level, and if you can’t get them there, than they should get somebody else to do that job.

Technician: Talk about the 2010-11 Wolfpack gymnastics squad and what you expect it to accomplish?

Stevenson: I’m really excited about this year. We have gained seven new freshmen, five of which are extremely talented, four on scholarship and one walk-on. A lot of the kids that are coming in, if they come in and are in shape and are doing the things we expect them to do, the seniors are really going to be fighting for spots on the team. On the other end of that, those seniors and juniors who have a lot of experience are going to have to be the ones to help those freshmen learn to compete in college. In college, gymnastics is a team sport. They each do an individual routine, but if one of them messes up, it affects the whole group. I think our team as a whole will be much stronger this year than it has been.

Technician: Have you taken measures to shore up any weaknesses from last year’s team?

Stevenson: We were 26th this year, but struggled on balance beam. We have a new coach coming in. Colleen Johnson, who coached here for a while, and then went to Arizona, is coming back. During the years she was here, we were ranked in the top 15 in the country on balance beam. When she was at Arizona, I don’t think any of her teams finished outside the top 20 in the time that she was there.

Technician: You have coached Wolfpack gymnastics for 30 years. Have you considered retirement yet?

Stevenson: I’m only 54 so I don’t feel like I’m ready to get out yet. I love what I do because I walk in the gym every day and I work out with some of the nicest kids in the world. Our kids are the kind of kids you want to be around. I feel like they keep me young because of their attitudes and how they look at life.