Long-time OSU gymnastics assistant will retire on Sept. 1

Dick Foxal is headed for the mountains.

After 38 years as a gymnastics coach, including the past 21 years as an assistant at Oregon State, Foxal has decided to retire from coaching.

He will stay on with the Beavers gymnastics program as a part-time projects coordinator, allowing him the time to pursue some of his favorite activities such as backpacking in the late summer and skiing in the winter.

Foxal, 65, said he has been mulling over retirement for a few years and finally made the decision last September that the 2007-08 season would be his last. He will turn 66 this September.

“There’s a time to step down and move forward into other things that I didn’t get to do and wanted to do,” Foxal said. “It’s just a good time to move on. Michael and Tanya (Chaplin) have just done a fabulous job with this program and I’d like to just sit up in the stands and watch it as a spectator n I’ve never been able to do that n and just watch this program go forward and see them competing in the Super Six and be successful like they have been.”

The Beavers went to the NCAA Championships 13 times during Foxal’s career in Corvallis. He coached the bars for OSU and developed 11 All-Americans on the event.

The most recent was Elizabeth Jillson, who made the individual finals on bars at the 2002 nationals in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and finished 11th. Jillson went on to win the 2003 Pacific-10 Conference title on the event with a 10.0.

Jami Lanz said Foxal’s style was a key to his success as a coach and that she is going to miss his storytelling ability.

“All those funny stories and just his coaching style is awesome,” Lanz said. “It’s nothing that I’d ever experienced before and I’ve worked with a lot of coaches.”

“He’s very laid-back but you know deep down he truly wants you to succeed and he wants you to do well and he really cares about who you are as a gymnast and an athlete and a student,” Lanz said. “He kind of motivates each person in their own way and that’s, I think, what’s special about him.”

That coaching style could involve some practical jokes or pranks.

D’Anna Piro said Foxal loved to stir up an idea for a prank and then step back and watch it develop.

“He definitely loved to play pranks and scare us with these intense routines that he had made up,” Piro said. “He liked to challenge us.”

Then there was the time Foxal brought his “pet mouse Charlie” to practice.

“It was actually a stuffed mouse and he would keep it in his pocket,” Piro said. “Every once in a while he would pull it out so someone would get a glimpse of it and then put it back in his pocket and my teammate Courtney (Dennison) was absolutely convinced that this mouse was real.”

Said Foxal: “I really enjoy working with the athletes, that’s the best part of it, is working with the athletes. They’re great people and they’ve always made me feel younger than I am.”

The funny stories and pranks won’t be coming to a complete end. Foxal will be around to put together the summer camps and clinics and he’ll help when OSU hosts the big gymnastics events such as NCAA or Pac-10 meets.

“It’s been the richest experience of my life, these last 21 years here at Oregon State,” Foxal said. “I just feel like I’m very, very lucky. I’ve had a lot of friends who started on sort of the same path I did and they eventually went into something else. But I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to stay in it all these years and be connected to gymnastics.”