Coach's Corner: Barbara Tonry

COURTESY SPORTS PUBLICITY OFFICE Barbara Tonry

Tonry has been at Yale as long as women's gymnastics. The program started with a few female students who came to men's coach Don Tonry (who is now Barbara's husband) and expressed interest in learning gymnastics. Don wanted to help, but he was busy with the men's team. So he called upon Barbara Galleher.

Galleher was a natural choice--she was the national tumbling-and-trampoline champion in the '50s, finishing first in the 1952 national competition even though she was too young to participate. "I could only compete in an exhibition," Tonry said. "I was unhappy, but I came back two years later and won."

She then turned her attention to all-around gymnastics and made the 1964 Olympic training squad. At the time that Don approached her, Galleher was a physical education teacher at Hamden High School taking graduate courses at night and still participating in all-around gymnastics. But she somehow found time to come to Yale and build a women's club team.

In 1973, the team won its first intercollegiate meet against Connecticut College. Soon after that victory, Yale decided to have a full-time women's couch, and Tonry made the tough decision to leave behind her high school students and her graduate courses.

Before the arrival of Title IX protection for women's sports, the gymnastics team was still in a vulnerable position. "When a school was squeezing for money for men's programs, it would drop women's programs," Tonry said. In the late '80s, the team was downgraded to Tier II, which meant less funding. This move was soon reversed after the gymnasts protested. "They said we were one of the winningest teams at Yale," Tonry said.

That they were--and they have continued to win. Under Tonry, the team has won 11 Ivy titles, and has placed second every other year but one. Still, it does not have a facility competitive with other Ivy schools. "It would be nice to get a new facility," Tonry said. "But I'm not holding my breath on that one."

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