1979-1980 has largely been a year of little disappointments in McCallum sports. no team has done really badly, and indeed some have done quite well, but then very few teams managed to live up to expectations.

One exception to his year’s rule has been gymnastics. McCallum’s gymnastics team, despite being uncoached for much of the year, managed to place third in the state for the second year in a row.

Gary Smith, Mark Pourmenafzadeh and John Craven made up this year’s squad, only the third to compete for Mac in the past eight years.

The group took first place in the district/regional meet at Burger Center, as Smith won first all-around while placing first in the floor exercise, rings, vaulting, parallel bars and high bar, and second in pommel horse.

Pourmanafzadeh placed fourth in the floor exercise, fifth in the vault and sixth in the high bar. Craven placed in the rings and the vault. “We did very well at district/regional,” Craven said.

Smith also scored highest for Mac at the state meet held in Fort Worth on April 18 and 19. He placed in the top six in all events to place third overall in the state. “State disappointed me a little,” Smith said. “In other meets, I had beaten some of the people who beat me in individual events at state.”

Teams from Richland and North Garland placed ahead of Mac at state for the second consecutive year. Had the Knights had a coach, however, the result might have been much different.

“We should have done better, but because of coaching problems, some of us did not get a chance to work out as much as we needed to,” Smith said.

More specifically, the team began the year without a coach and ended the year without one.

“The LBJ coach served as the Mac coach, too but this was not to last,” said girls’ gymnastics coach Brandy Haney. She accompanied the boys to Fort Worth along with girls’ state competitor Susie Hawley.

The lack of a coach does not hinder the Knights as much as it might some, as the three team members have been working out on their own for the last five years or more.

Pourmanafzdeh started out five years ago “just to have something to do,” while Smith began six years ago because “two of my sisters were already good in gymnastics, so I tried it, made the team at Crenshaw (an Austin gymnastics club) and have been at it ever since.”

Smith’s sister Sandra, a 1979 McCallum graduae, won two consecutive Texas individual gymnastics titles and now competes on the national level.

The third member of the team, Craven, has been in gymnastics since the age of 4 when “my aunt noticed I had some ability, so she told my mom, and I enrolled at Crenshaw’s.”

Since Smith and Craven are sophomores and Pourmanafzadeh is a junior, the team’s standing in state should improve. They will be joined by Pourmanafzadeh’s twin brother Kirk, who competed on 1978’s team that also placed third in the state.

Smith summed it up: “The team should do great next year. All the people who beat us last year will be graduating, so we should take second in the state for sure, if not first.”

This story was original published in the print edition of The Shield on May 23, 1980.