The Lost Years of Maryland Gymnastics

For years, the Maryland gymnastics record book had been built from 1976 onward. History had shown that the program began in that year as head coach Susan Mattern led the nascent Terps to a 6-7 record to begin the story of the program. 

That is, until this year.

Dr. Pat Danoff tuned into the Big Ten Network from her home in Bethesda, MD, on February 24 as Maryland competed in the 2023 Big Five Meet. She was astounded by the level of talent on display from the team — a level of talent that was light years beyond her heyday as a collegiate gymnast at West Chester University. 

“I was just so fascinated by how good they were,” Danoff said. “If the current team members could see the kind of things we were doing back in those days, they would just be flabbergasted that it was college gymnastics just because of how far it’s come.”

Her curiosity about the team built as she reflected on the Big Five Meet, and she went to check the team website to learn more about the program’s history. As she scrolled through the team record book, she found that something was missing from it — her name.

Danoff (née Long) founded Maryland gymnastics in 1973 in the wake of Title IX after pushing for the athletic department to institute a women’s gymnastics program since she had become a physical education faculty member in 1970. The two seasons in which she coached, 1974 and 1975, had not been included in the team record book. 

The information sat in the back of her mind for a couple of months, and she figured it didn’t matter if her name was in the record book or not. But once she realized that the upcoming 2024 gymnastics season would mark 50 years since the foundation of Maryland gymnastics, Danoff gathered newspaper clippings and photos she had stored to send to current head coach Brett Nelligan, drafting a letter about her revelation.

“I just thought about it for a few days and thought, ‘Well, nobody cares about that,’” Danoff said. “You know, that's old business, it's a long time ago, who cares? And then I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is their 50th anniversary, they need to know about this. Whether they do anything about it or not is up to them, but they should know that this team was a reality in the ‘73-74 school year.’”

With her email, the course of Maryland gymnastics was shifted. The 2023-24 squad had been gearing up to be Team 48, but with Danoff’s email, this year’s squad has become Team 50.

Danoff had the chance to connect Team 50 with Team 1 on Homecoming Week in October, as she, 1974 team captain Marilyn Kostolich and women’s athletic director Dottie McKnight returned to College Park to meet with the current Terps and share stories of the team’s creation.

The journey from 1973 to 2023 required great persistence from Danoff. After joining the university faculty in 1970 and teaching a course in gymnastics for physical education majors, Danoff worked to implement a competitive women’s gymnastics team similar to the one she had competed on during her time in college at West Chester.

"I repeatedly asked the athletic director Jim Kehoe if the university would support a women's team,” Danoff said. “The Gymkana Troupe had been in existence for many years, but there was no opportunity for women to compete against those from other schools. Coach Kehoe refused, saying that there was no money and no facilities available for such an endeavor.”

She and McKnight continued the push throughout the early 1970s, but every time they tried, Kehoe said that there weren't enough resources to form a team. But once Title IX was introduced in 1972, Danoff and McKnight’s efforts were strengthened and their request was finally granted.

The Maryland athletic department allotted her a small budget and a space to hold practices in the apparatus gym inside Cole Field House.

“She was very supportive and she was one of the ones that kept going with me to Kehoe to try to say, ‘We want this,’” said Danoff of McKnight. “Then she was totally supportive of ordering the equipment and just doing everything we needed as much as you possibly could.”

Once the team became approved, Danoff then had the challenge of finding a roster of gymnasts to fill out the first-ever Maryland gymnastics squad. High school recruiting was still years away, so Danoff had to find whoever was interested from a crop of students who were already attending the University of Maryland

The recruiting process was relatively blind for Danoff in that first year. Some students who were in her physical education class joined, but she had to extend her efforts to the larger campus community.

“We started practice in the fall of 1973, and I recruited gymnasts using hand-written recruitment signs that I put all over campus,” Danoff said. “That cracks me up when I see that now because of how ancient it is now. I probably put those all over the student union and all over Cole and we got a small group of maybe seven or eight girls.”

The student-athlete experience was different when Danoff started, especially for women in college athletics just a couple years after the passage of Title IX. None of the gymnasts in those early seasons competed on scholarships and much of the work around setting up events and getting to road meets was on the onus of Danoff and her gymnasts.

“Women’s athletics was just a shoestring operation,” said Danoff. “We drove to meets ourselves. We ordered everything ourselves. We schlepped the equipment. We did all that. And I think over time around that time, all the women's teams began to have larger budgets and more support, but it was something that we had to push for and it didn’t come easy.”

To get to the away meets, Danoff and the gymnasts would pile into two station wagons and drive themselves all around the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. While the accommodations were nothing special, the team was happy to have the opportunity to compete in the sport and have simple things like matching uniforms.

“We just thought this was the most wonderful thing,” Danoff said. “None of us had had much of an opportunity and we just were so thrilled to have anything. We were just happy that it got started.”

Danoff’s squads opened their first two seasons with winning records, as the 1974 team finished 5-3 while the 1975 squad compiled a 6-3 record.

Once her team had made it through the first two seasons, Danoff knew that Maryland gymnastics had staying power and wouldn’t be taken away. But she knew that more resources were needed to help Maryland gymnastics transform into the team it is today.

“I think we felt confident that they couldn't take it back,” Danoff said. “I don't remember worrying about it. I think our main concern was we need more to make it work, and so every year, I think Dottie and other people were trying to up our budget so we could get more equipment, travel further and have more support. I think we knew it was going to last because that's the way the country went. I mean, we didn't think that anybody would have the nerve to pull out the rug at that point.”

But Danoff had bigger dreams beyond coaching gymnastics. She loved the sport and the team she worked with, but she wanted to get married, earn her doctorate and start a family. After pushing for the foundation of the Maryland gymnastics program and coaching it through the early years, Danoff left the coaching ranks following the 1975 season.

Despite the instrumental role she and the first two teams had in establishing a program which has turned itself into a consistent NCAA Regional qualifier, Danoff had never been recognized in the record book until this summer. Danoff kept to herself after leaving her coaching position and didn’t contact Susan Mattern, who took the mantle from her.

For Danoff, she wanted to move on and didn’t want to micromanage the team from afar. To her, she wanted to see the team thrive under whoever took over.

When Danoff returned to Maryland, she had the chance to tell the team about her stories and how different gymnastics used to be. She marveled at how the sport had blown up and the complexity of the routines has grown exponentially since the mid-1970s. 

“The main thing that jumps out at you is skill level,” said Danoff. “The stuff that Mary Lou Retton was doing would get her nowhere today and the skill level has grown so much. The team members from when I was coaching were doing basic stuff compared to what this team is doing now.”

But to her, the spirit of gymnastics has not changed since she wrapped up her coaching tenure. The thrill and excitement of the team after a routine remains the same as it did 50 years ago.

“The girls being supportive of each other and being excited to be there, that’s the same,” Danoff said. “The leotards look different, there’s extra coaches, there’s male coaches, but the girls being proud and supportive of each other hasn’t changed a bit.”