Two years after the first student started at the University of Oklahoma, David C. Hall, a former Brown University gymnast, came to the campus to teach physical education. Hall would become Oklahoma’s first gymnastics coach. Few formal records remain, but Hall’s program lasted 15 years. Sooner yearbooks from 1902-1917 feature faded pictures of young men who were members of Hall’s “Gymnasium Squads.”
In 1965 Ken Farris, then an associate athletics director, journeyed to the NCAA National Championships in hopes of re-establishing gymnastics at Oklahoma. Soon after, Russ Porterfield, a former University of Iowa gymnast, was hired as the Sooners’ first competitive gymnastics coach.
Porterfield’s program sprung from beginnings almost as humble as Hall’s efforts in the early 1900s. Porterfield would admit he had to beg students to try out for OU’s first season in 1966 and the squad finished last in its Big Eight debut. But Porterfield persisted, and in 1971 the Sooners notched their first winning season. When he departed in 1973, Porterfield had given OU its first national champion, Odess Lovin, who won floor titles in 1972 and ’73.
Porterfield’s successor was Illinois native Paul Ziert, a successful high school coach. Ziert turned Oklahoma gymnastics into one of the nation’s most respected programs. His early teams were led by Illinois State transfer Greg Buwick, a two-time ...
