Larissa Libby has led, or been one of the leaders of, the Hawk women’s gymnastics team since ‘Bye Bye Bye’ was one of the top songs.

By Mason Clarke
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Iowa women’s gymnastics is one of the hottest programs in the nation. It is 3-0 in Big Ten competition, including this past weekend’s defeat of No. 14 Nebraska.

Head coach Larissa Libby, who leads the GymHawks, is in her 16th year with the program, 12th as the head coach.

The GymHawks have consistently been  successful under Libby, but the road she has taken began in an eventful way.

“I was nine months pregnant [when the head coach left] …  I didn’t want to be a head coach at that point,” Libby said. “I didn’t feel like I was ready.”

The team’s success following Libby’s becoming head coach seemed to suggest she was ready.

Over the course of her career, she has coached a mass of Academic All-Americans and nationally elite gymnasts. Every All-Championship team member Iowa has produced has come under Libby’s guidance.

This season, the Hawkeyes are No. 26 in the country and have a high score that only 13 teams have bested.

A key to the smoothly operating system is the relationship Libby establishes with her assistant coaches.

“I haven’t worked for somebody who is so encouraging,” assistant coach Jennifer Green said. “She’s also given me a lot of ownership of what I get to do … When I first came here, I was not the beam coach. For her to allow me to do balance beam, and that was her event at the time? It’s huge.”

Libby and her staff have developed a very team-oriented squad. The relationship she has established with her athletes is another key to Iowa’s success.

“[She’s] like my mother and a role model and a friend. Psychologist sometimes, when you need to talk to someone,” senior Johanny Sotillo said. “She’s always there for us.”

Sotillo is not the only senior on the team who feels she has been affected by her time with Libby.

“She really took the time to get to know me,” senior Alie Glover said. “She’s always believed in me. She’s always told me I’m better than even I think I am.”

The seniors are going on four years with Libby, but the person in the program who’s been with her the longest is assistant coach Caleb Phillips. He said, going on seven seasons with Libby, he has loved the relationship they have.

After spending 2008-13 with Iowa, Phillips took a one-year stint in Utah before Libby offered him a chance to come back, and he is grateful that she did.

“The way we gel together is incredible,” Phillips said. “If it wasn’t easy to work with her, if it wasn’t fun and engaging, there’s no way I would have come back.”

Libby has kept the GymHawks program running for a dozen years, and she seems to have loved every day with her athletes. This season, the GymHawks have kept a memories jar in which they stash anything they don’t want to forget.

The memories are often made on road trips, which, Libby said, she enjoys more than anything.

Her favorite moments and memories from coaching always involve the team, and she says that coming to the gym with her women lifts up her day.

The women also seem to benefit from time with Libby. Sotillo, who has had a bumpy road herself that Libby helped guide her through, summed up the effect Libby has on the team.

“I love every time we’re at competitions, and I look at her, and I completely forget that we’re competing,” Sotillo said. “[It becomes] just a great time, having fun, doing what we love.”

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