University of Georgia Athletics
Gymnastics Circle of Honor
December 12, 2008 | Gymnastics
The Circle of Honor is the UGA Athletic Association’s all-sports recognition program which is designed to recognize and pay tribute to extraordinary student-athletes and coaches who, by their performance and conduct, have brought honor to the university and themselves, and who by their actions have contributed to the tradition of the Georgia Bulldogs. The criteria also stipulates that each recipient has earned his or her academic degree.
| 2007 Inductee: Hope Spivey | | 2006 Inductee: Heather Stepp |
Hope Spivey tallied 12 first-team All-America awards, four individual NCAA national championships, four individual SEC titles and three All-SEC honors. She was thesecond Georgia gymnast and just the fifth in college history to record a perfect 10.0, and she finished her Gym Dog career with 24 perfect scores. In 1991, Spivey became the first Georgia freshman ever to win the NCAA all-around title with a then-NCAA record of 39.525 as well as the first to earn All-America honors on all four events. She tied for the NCAA Vault title and won the floor championship in the same meet. She was named the SEC’s Freshman of the Year and was presented with the Honda Sports Award. Spivey scored her first of four SEC individual titles during her sophomore campaign, winning the vault and floor exercise events. The Gym Dogs captured the national title during Spivey’s junior season of 1993. That team is still considered the greatest college team of all-time, with a perfect record of 32-0. In 1994, Spivey won her second NCAA individual floor exercise title with the only 10.0 scored at that year’s NCAAs. She was named the SEC’s Gymnast of the Year. | Heather Stepp’s gymnastics career couldn’t have ended any sweeter. | |
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| 2005 Inductee: Corrinne Wright | | 2000 Inductee: Lucy Wener |
| When Corrinne Wright left Athens she had made herself into one of Georgia’s top athletes in any sport, winning nine All-America awards, including two NCAA individual national titles.As a freshman she held the nation’s No. 3 ranking in the all-around for most of the season including a season-best score against rival Alabama. She finished third in that event at her first NCAA Championships while helping the Gym Dogs clinch their first team title. She was a Southeastern Conference champion on vault and floor as a freshman, and the SEC champ on bars and floor as a senior. In 1989 and 1990, Wright was named All-SEC. During the 1988 season, Wright was hampered by an ankle injury for most of the year and still managed two All-America honors on the vault and floor. Wright was nominated for the Honda Sports Award, given annually to the nation’s top gymnast, during her career. She was also named a team MVP in 1989 and was among those listed on the SEC Honor Roll in 1990. | | By the time Lucy Wener’s four-year career as a Gym Dog came to a close, she would not only help put Georgia on the collegiate gymnastics map, but also helped redefine the skill level of college gymnasts all over the country. In her very first year in Athens, the Memphis, Tenn., native provided a memorable prologue of what was to become the standard of excellence as she helped lead Georgia to a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships and in the process became the first Gym Dog ever to capture an NCAA individual championship by winning the uneven bars. One year later in 1987, Wener, Coach Suzanne Yoculan and the rest of the Gym Dogs had made it to the pinnacle of the collegiate gymnastics world as Georgia captured its first ever NCAA Championship by unseating five-time NCAA Champion Utah, in its own backyard of all places, Salt Lake City. One day after leading the Gym Dogs to the title, Wener won the NCAA Uneven Bars title for the second straight year. |
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