Spring Break
See you around, coach
Nick Lilja
Issue date: 8/13/08 Section: Sports
The Beaver gymnasts know it won't be the same in the gym. Foxal was known as a bit of a prankster at times.
"He'd play this game where he would hide your water bottle," Chong said. "You'd turn around to take a drink and it would be gone. Dick would be over somewhere chuckling and smiling."
"I'll miss his stories," Bolen said. "Sometimes you don't know if he is telling the truth. You think, they are probably true, but they are so far out there. Ones where he almost dies. But you can never tell."
"He has this pet mouse named Charlie," Piro said. "Which is really a stuffed mouse - that he keeps in his pocket - to surprise the freshman."
Since his first day in 1987, he has been sharing wild stories and building some as well. Oregon State gymnasts have won four individual titles and earned 59 All-American honors, including 11 on the uneven bars, his primary area of coaching.
"He has this flip book," Piro said. "He'll show it to you as a freshman. It's full of routines and skills that he wants you to do. Some of them are crazy and you'll be like 'Are you serious?'"
Starting Sept. 1, Foxal will be out of the gym, but not out of the program: He will continue to be associated with Oregon State gymnastics outside of the gym. His new position, Gymnastics Project Coordinator, includes administering camps, clinics and event set-up.
"It will be different without him," Bolen said. "But I can still hear the corrections he would make."
He has coached four gymnasts who have scored a total of eight 10.0s on bars, with the most recent coming in 2003 when Elizabeth Jillson was perfect in winning the Pac-10 Conference bars title. Jillson's conference title marked the fifth gymnast and seventh total Pac-10 title in the event under his guidance.
"Dick has been a wonderful asset to OSU gymnastics for a long time," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "The student-athletes love working for and working with him, and his presence in the gym will be greatly missed."
Foxal has earned West Regional Assistant Coach of the Year honors five times, including this past season when he helped freshman Jen Kesler to become a second team All-American in her first season of collegiate gymnastics.
"Watching him move on is hard," Piro said. "And it might be hard for him--gymnastics was his life. But it's time."
Prior to his arrival in Corvallis, Foxal was the head coach at Montana State from 1984 until the program was discontinued in 1987. He was selected as the Mountain West Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1985. He was also the men's head coach at Central Washington and the University of Washington.
"He's the greatest," Fitzgerald said. "He cares about us as people, not just as gymnasts."
"He'd play this game where he would hide your water bottle," Chong said. "You'd turn around to take a drink and it would be gone. Dick would be over somewhere chuckling and smiling."
"I'll miss his stories," Bolen said. "Sometimes you don't know if he is telling the truth. You think, they are probably true, but they are so far out there. Ones where he almost dies. But you can never tell."
"He has this pet mouse named Charlie," Piro said. "Which is really a stuffed mouse - that he keeps in his pocket - to surprise the freshman."
Since his first day in 1987, he has been sharing wild stories and building some as well. Oregon State gymnasts have won four individual titles and earned 59 All-American honors, including 11 on the uneven bars, his primary area of coaching.
"He has this flip book," Piro said. "He'll show it to you as a freshman. It's full of routines and skills that he wants you to do. Some of them are crazy and you'll be like 'Are you serious?'"
Starting Sept. 1, Foxal will be out of the gym, but not out of the program: He will continue to be associated with Oregon State gymnastics outside of the gym. His new position, Gymnastics Project Coordinator, includes administering camps, clinics and event set-up.
"It will be different without him," Bolen said. "But I can still hear the corrections he would make."
He has coached four gymnasts who have scored a total of eight 10.0s on bars, with the most recent coming in 2003 when Elizabeth Jillson was perfect in winning the Pac-10 Conference bars title. Jillson's conference title marked the fifth gymnast and seventh total Pac-10 title in the event under his guidance.
"Dick has been a wonderful asset to OSU gymnastics for a long time," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "The student-athletes love working for and working with him, and his presence in the gym will be greatly missed."
Foxal has earned West Regional Assistant Coach of the Year honors five times, including this past season when he helped freshman Jen Kesler to become a second team All-American in her first season of collegiate gymnastics.
"Watching him move on is hard," Piro said. "And it might be hard for him--gymnastics was his life. But it's time."
Prior to his arrival in Corvallis, Foxal was the head coach at Montana State from 1984 until the program was discontinued in 1987. He was selected as the Mountain West Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1985. He was also the men's head coach at Central Washington and the University of Washington.
"He's the greatest," Fitzgerald said. "He cares about us as people, not just as gymnasts."
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