Oklahoma gymnastics: Sooners have gymnastics gem in Mark Williams
By Chip Rouse
In this century, no college athletic program has won more national championships and dominated its sport more than men’s Oklahoma gymnastics.
Penn State, Illinois and Nebraska were the elitist of the elite in men’s gymnastics in the last century, but no one approaches what the Sooners have accomplished in the sport since Mark Williams became the head coach at Oklahoma in Y2K.
In the last 16 seasons under Williams’ tutelage and leadership, Oklahoma has won nine national championships, including the last four in succession (2015-18). Only two other schools have won as many as four consecutive titles in gymnastics. Nebraska did it a record five times from 1979-1983, and Illinois four times, 1939-42.
Williams was a team member on the 1979 and 1980 Nebraska teams that won the NCAA championship.
In addition to winning nine national championships, the Sooners have finished second in the NCAA Championships seven times. They have never finished lower than fourth in Williams’ entire 19 seasons at Oklahoma. You can add to that 39 individual national champions and 16 conference championships.
After winning the 2018 NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championship, Oklahoma matched Penn State for the most NCAA championships in the sport, with 12. Williams’ nine NCAA titles ties also tied former Penn State head coach Gene Wettstone for the most NCAA championships by a head coach.
Oklahoma has gone undefeated in competition for four consecutive years, which includes 97 consecutive wins, the fourth longest winning streak in NCAA history and over twice as many as OU’s record-setting 47 consecutive wins in football in the mid-1950s. The Sooners are 470-36, a winning percentage of 93 percent, with Williams at the helm.
In 2015 and 2016, the first two in OU’s current run of four consecutive NCAA gymnastics titles, the Sooners recorded eight of the 10 highest team scores in NCAA history, including the record of 457.300.
Williams has been exceedingly successful at Oklahoma, one of OU athletic director Joe Castiglione’s growing list of home-run coaching hires at the school. His success at OU has earned him the reputation as one of the elite coaching professionals in men’s gymnastics.
Williams’ achievements coaching gymnastics, however, haven’t been limited just to the college level. He has been successful on the international stage, as well. Most notably, he served as head coach of the Team USA men’s gymnastics squad in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. team finished fifth, and three members of the team won individual medals.
The Sooner head coach also led the U.S. team to a bronze medal at the 2014 World Championships.
In his 30 years as a gymnastics coach, Williams has taken U.S. gymnasts to the Olympic Games, the World Championships, Pan American Games and the University Games.
Nine times during his time at OU, he has been named National Coach of the Year, including each of the last four years, and he has been Coach of the Year in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation 12 times in his 19 seasons as head coach of the Sooners.
Williams has clearly earned his stripes as a Hall of Fame coach, and in 2015, the folks at the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame made it official with his formal induction.
Oklahoma had experienced success in men’s gymnastics before Williams came on board — three national championships (1977, 1978 and 1991) — but nothing like the national prominence they have established under Williams.
No other athletic program at Oklahoma has as many national championships as men’s gymnastics (12), and no OU head coach has as many national titles as Mark Williams (9). And the good news for the Sooners is, he’s not finished yet.