After 'roller coaster of emotions' offseason, Red Rocks gymnasts ready to move on

SALT LAKE CITY — "Hectic. Crazy. Emotional. Turmoil. Little bit of everything probably."

Fifth-year senior gymnast Maile O'Keefe has experienced every emotion possible over the last two months. Going into her last season as a decorated member of the Red Rocks, O'Keefe wasn't expecting to lose her head coach a month before the season started.

But after an external investigation was conducted to review Tom Farden's practices as a coach — the report could not corroborate examples of alleged abuse from former Red Rocks gymnasts — he split ways with the university on Nov. 21 after four seasons as the program's head coach and another four as co-head coach with Megan Marsden.

"I am immensely proud of the young women who have poured their hearts and souls into Utah gymnastics during my time here and who have brought so much to this community," Farden said in a statement at the time. "It has truly been an honor to coach them, and I extend my heartfelt thanks and wishes for their continued success, now and in the years to come."

O'Keefe called Farden's departure and all the noise that surrounded him "fairly surprising," but elected to not go into it further.

But Farden didn't want to be a distraction to a team of gymnasts who were well on their way to challenging for a national title again.

"Just out of respect for us, he's really wanted to just step back and let us move forward. ... Whether he's here or not, he's prepared us to be able to move on," fellow gymnast Jaedyn Rucker said. "So we've just kind of given him his space, because it's been really hard on him, if not harder on him than it has on us. So we're just kind of respecting each other and we just — he wished us the best, we wished him the best, and that's been that."

For O'Keefe, though, Farden remains a key part of her gymnastics, even as the team looks ahead to the upcoming season.

"I think the way that we've kind of gotten through it is just thinking: What would Tom want us to do?" O'Keefe said. "Tom would want us to — he always had this saying: The sun will rise each day, we'll continue to move on whether I'm here or not, or whatever happened the day prior, whatever. So I think that's kind of the way we've gone through it best — just like thinking what would Tom want us to do."

Fellow "super senior" Abby Paulson described the last couple of months as a "roller coaster of emotions," with a "lot of unknowns pretty much the entire time."

"It was a difficult situation no matter what happened, like losing your head coach a month before the season is a difficult transition," Paulson said. "But we're moving together, we're bonding, we're hoping to use that to our benefit and growing as a team this year."

After a couple days off to process Farden's departure, the Red Rocks are now focused on moving forward with the 2024 season. And though there's plenty the gymnasts could say publicly about the situation, the team has elected to keep it all internal.

"No one's silencing us, per se," Paulson said. "We've just kind of collectively decided that we're gonna stay together as a team, stay in our inner circle, and keep anything that you have to yourself. Everyone on the team might be feeling something different; you can't say one thing that can cover what anybody else is feeling. So we're just keeping it in our inner circle and within our team, and we felt more comfortable with that."

"I think there's no way to ever repair perception," O'Keefe said. "People are going to perceive things the way they want to perceive them — whether they believe true, or they believe false or whatever. So I think all we're really doing is trying to stick together as a team and leaning into our coaches and trusting them and trusting each other."

'Super exciting' transition to Carly Dockendorf

There was nobody better to fill Farden's role than former associate head coach Carly Dockendorf, according to her gymnasts.

"Oh, that was super exciting," O'Keefe said. "I think we were all kind of hoping that's what they would do."

"After so many unknowns, it was like — when they announced it, I think it was just like a weight lifted off everyone's shoulders, like finally we have a finalized answer; and there's no better person to do it than Carly," Rucker added. "I don't think there's one person on this team that could say anything bad about Carly. So I would mainly say it was like a weight lifted off our shoulders and just like happiness and joy and excitement for her."

Dockendorf remains the "super competitive" coach who will strive to keep the Red Rocks in contention for a national title, but she's also focused on her gymnasts on an individual level, too.

"She really gets to know us each on a personal level and how we work," O'Keefe said. "I think that really helps us feel comfortable knowing we can go to her with anything and that she'll hear us out and take things into consideration and make alterations to our assignments, to our days, kind of taking everything into perspective."

"She's been one of the biggest rocks in my life, especially since getting to college," Paulson added. "I was one of those burned out elites who didn't really like gymnastics when I got here. She has always been a positive light in my life. She taught me my worth is more than just gymnastics. She taught me that I can love who I am outside of the sport, and that my worth and everything that I value isn't dependent on my performance."

Each gymnast has a story about how Dockendorf has helped them master techniques in their sport, while also sharing something she's done to help them in their personal life that goes beyond sports.

For Dockendorf, it's all about helping gymnasts become well-rounded people that recognize and believe in their worth outside of just their gymnastics.

"She just makes you feel so good about yourself," Rucker said. "I could be doing a new skill and no one could have trust in me, but the one person in the room that would have trust in me is Carly, and she just does a really good job with displaying that — like, just honestly making you feel secure in who you are outside of gymnastics and also with gymnastics."

As an example, Paulson recalled Dockendorf was really frustrated by her team's beam performance one week in a past season and spent "the weekend upset with the performance." But when she got back to the team, she told the team that "that's not who we are as people; that doesn't doesn't define us, that doesn't define our beam team."

"We just kind of talked about that and how we want to be remembered when we're done with the sport," Paulson added. "For all of us, we don't want to be remembered by our skills or by our titles — that doesn't matter. You want to be remembered by how you impact people. And that's one of the most important lessons that she's taught me and I thought brought life back into my gymnastics."

As a way to remember each gymnast's worth — not just as an athlete — Dockendorf has put up on a big board in the Dumke Gymnastics Center a picture of each gymnast paired up with a picture of them as a child.

"There's a picture of them as a gymnast, and it says, 'What you do'; and there's a picture of them as a child, and it says, 'Who you are.' And we really do talk a lot about it because the more they can recognize that gymnastics is just something that they do, it's not a reflection of who they are as a person," Dockendorf said.

"When you focus so much on the results, dictating your personal success, it can eat away at you if you make a mistake, and all of a sudden you miss a beam routine, and then you think, 'Oh, I'm a terrible person.' It's like no, you're still a great teammate, still a great sister, you're still a great daughter, all of the above. So for them it takes a lot of work to feel that separation, but once they can, they're able to go and compete a lot more confident and free."

Adversity makes the Red Rocks stronger?

The offseason adversity the team experienced has drawn them closer together, the gymnasts said.

While the events that transpired pales in comparison to what happened to the football program with the deaths of Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe, and the track and field team with Lauren McCluskey, it has served as a sort of galvanizing moment for the 14 gymnasts on the roster.

The team's motto was "finding our missing piece," and they quickly found it as they bonded over a shared emotional experience. That bond, each said, is stronger than they've ever felt before.

"This year has brought a lot of emotions on us," Rucker said, "and I just think that if we can truly feel connected to one another — I use the word truly because in the past it's felt like that was maybe the trend but it never really, we never really got there. ... We just bonded over something that was so unfortunate for us, and it's just built our resilience up as a team, and it just feels — something about this year feels like really different. It's like really special; I can get goosebumps talking about it."

For Dockendorf, who has seen that connection come together already, it's a great spot to be in as a coach as she goes through her first season leading the program. At the end of the day, the gymnasts want to compete.

"It has been such a distracting fall, and for them to still have their gymnastics in the same spot as they would any other year just speaks volumes of how strong they are," Dockendorf said. "And I think that they're ready to showcase their gymnastics. It has been stressful, and now they get to go do what they love and go out and perform in front of 15,000 fans."

"I'm just really excited to finally go on the floor and show everybody what we've been working on," Rucker said. "And despite everything, we're still a really strong team and we're still coming for that title."

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