Jordyn Wieber celebrates after competing at the Olympic Games London 2012 on July 31, 2012 in London.
Jordyn Wieber is going from the Bruins to the Hogs, and she’s getting a big promotion.
The 2012 Olympic champion gymnast, who has been a volunteer assistant at UCLA for the past three seasons, will take over as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks women’s gymnastics team, the school announced Wednesday.
The hire makes Wieber, 23, one of two U.S. Olympic medalists currently serving as a head coach in the college ranks, along with 2004 Olympian Courtney Kupets Carter, who coaches her alma mater Georgia.
Wieber burst onto the gymnastics scene by winning the 2011 world all-around title as a 16-year-old, and then played a pivotal role for the “Fierce Five” U.S. team that won an Olympic gold medal one year later in London. Their team gold medal was the first for Team USA in 16 years.
Because she had turned professional during the run-up to the London Games, Wieber was ineligible to compete in college gymnastics. However, she enrolled at UCLA and became a team manager for the Bruins. After three years in that role, she was elevated to volunteer assistant for the past three seasons.
It was a good run at UCLA, where Wieber helped guide the Bruins to the 2018 NCAA title. Along the way, Wieber got to coach her 2012 Olympic teammate Kyla Ross as well as 2016 Olympian Madison Kocian.
The Bruins are coming off a third-place finish at the NCAA championships this past weekend in Texas, which served as the last meet for the school’s iconic coach Valorie Kondos Field.
Wieber, a native of DeWitt, Michigan, takes over an Arkansas program that reached 16 consecutive regional championships and eight NCAA championships under previous coach Mark Cook, who retired after the 2019 season.
Chrös McDougall has covered the Olympic movement for TeamUSA.org since 2009 on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. He is based in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
