Gymnastics: Butts Named Assistant Head Coach
November 17, 2009 01:03 PM | General
November 17, 2009
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| Jason Butts |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University gymnastics coach Linda Burdette announced today that current assistant coach Jason Butts has been promoted to assistant head coach.
“I think this is a much deserved promotion for Jason and a great ‘thank you’ for all of the hard work and dedication he has already shown the program,” says Burdette. “He is ready for more responsibilities. Together and with assistant coach Travis Doak, the three of us make a great team and look forward to leading the Mountaineers to another successful season.”
“This is a great honor,” says Butts. “West Virginia University has already provided me with so many opportunities, and I feel privileged to continue coaching at such a great university under the best teacher in the sport – Linda Burdette. I’m excited for the future of this team and can’t wait to get back in the gym and compete this season.”
The 2009 Southeast Regional Assistant Coach of the Year, Butts enters his fourth season with the Mountaineers as the vault, uneven bars and floor coach. Since joining the WVU coaching staff in 2007, the Mountaineers have gone 66-25, appeared in three-straight NCAA Southeast Regional Championships and won the 2008 East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) Championship. Additionally, two Mountaineers – Janáe Cox and Mehgan Morris – qualified as all-arounders for the NCAA Championship, with Cox earning first team floor All-America honors in 2007 with a 13th-place finish on the apparatus at the national meet.
Last season, six Mountaineers earned 10 first-team honors on the vault, bars and floor. WVU finished ranked first on the floor and second on bars and vault in the EAGL; the team was respectively nationally-ranked 17th and 21st on the vault and bars.
Butts helped guide Morris to a fifth place all-around finish at the 2009 Southeast Regional Championship and a qualification for the NCAA Championship. Additionally, she not only repeated as the EAGL bars and floor champion, but also won the all-around league title and was named the EAGL Outstanding Senior Gymnast.
Three additional Mountaineers won EAGL titles in 2009 – Chelsi Tabor (vault), Tina Maloney (vault) and Shelly Purkat (beam).
In 2008, Morris scored a 9.85 on bars at the EAGL Championship to win the individual title and the Mountaineers picked up their first league team title since 2004. Morris, along with Erica Watson, was named to the all-EAGL first team on bars, while Amy Bieski was a second team selection in her rookie season.
Butts saw his bars lineup vastly improve through his first season at WVU. After early season struggles, the group came together down the stretch to have the EAGL’s top bar RQS and a score that ranked 23rd in the country by season’s end.
WVU placed second at the EAGL Championship in the uneven bars after posting a 48.85 score in that event.
Butts guided Cox and Morris to first team all-EAGL selections in 2007. Morris posted four 9.9s that season under Butts and averaged an impressive 9.85 in 13 meets to rank atop the league’s individual rankings. Morris would go on to place seventh at the southeast regional.
The Athens, Ga., native brought 12 years of club coaching experience to WVU, most recently from Classic City Gymnastics where he trained both males and females from 2001-06.
He guided the women and men to Junior Olympic Nationals during that stretch, as well as coaching athletes to the Region 8 Championships, while also assisting numerous gymnasts in earning Division I athletic scholarships in the process.
Butts has worked at the Woodward Camp (1994-96) and the UGA Gym Dog Camp (2004-06). He competed as a competitive gymnast for 10 years reaching Class I status and was a Junior Olympic National Qualifier.
Butts received a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from Georgia in the fall of 2006.
He resides in Morgantown.
