Michael and Tanya Chapman in the Gladys Valley Gymnastics Center.

She’s the Boss
Mutual respect is a recurring theme for OSU’s gymnastics coaching duo
By Jessica Lamb

It was the first day of practice for the UCLA gymnastics team. Tanya Service and Michael Chaplin were two nervous freshmen, about to start their first collegiate season. Tanya was a top-flight athlete, three-time member of the U.S. National Team. With such a stellar reputation preceding her, Michael assumed she was a few years older. Until he moved into his coed freshman dorm later that week. Her room was right next to his.

That was 17 years ago. Their rooms — offices, now — are still next to each other, in the dim bowels of Gill Coliseum. Only Tanya’s is a little bigger than Michael’s, and she has a door.

Sitting side by side on the couch in Gill 125, as Tanya and Michael reflect together on the path that brought them to OSU, any apparent disparity in rank seems to evaporate. Michael finishes her sentences. She expands on his. They share a look and a laugh. The buck might stop with Tanya Chaplin, head coach, but the story certainly doesn’t end there.

It was at UCLA that the two learned to keep their careers and their personal lives separate. They didn’t even talk during daily four-hour practices. Says Michael, "Basically, we went into the gym and it was business."

They delayed marriage for years, knowing that if gymnastics called them in opposite directions, they would have to follow their first love. "We both had a grasp on what we wanted as individuals," Tanya recalls. "We’re both very competitive. Being a competitive athlete, out of respect for each other, you want to give each other the right to work towards goals and not do anything that would hinder that."

Michael and Tanya Chapman and their daughter, Alana, enjoy quiet time as a family.

Mutual respect is a recurring theme for the Chaplins. When I ask Tanya whether she had any qualms about bringing her husband on staff as her subordinate, she doesn’t hesitate in responding: none whatsoever. In June of 1997, when the OSU head coaching position came open, Tanya was wrapping up her sixth year and second NCAA Championship season with the Huskies. Michael had been at Seattle Pacific University three years, successfully coaching bars and vault. Tanya had watched him enough to know what his strengths were and how they complemented her own.

"I saw the respect his athletes had for him and how much he enjoyed it, how much further he took the team," she says of his years with Seattle Pacific. Both Tanya and Michael thought the OSU job seemed like the perfect opportunity to become a coaching duo.

In many ways, being in the profession together is far easier than trying to balance two different careers, Tanya observes. "It’s very natural for us. We know what it takes to be successful."

What it takes is tremendous commitment — a kind of devotion that someone outside gymnastics might not understand. Every fall, Tanya spends most weekends in the gym choreographing floor routines. Then the season begins, and it’s a dizzying four-month succession of meets all around the country. Just when the year finally starts winding down, there’s recruiting to think about. That’s when Michael swings into high gear, watching hours of videos, sending out information packets — actively courting the nation’s top gymnasts. Neither of them seems to mind the long hours. They do it for love, after all.

But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. "It’s very consuming," Tanya admits. "Our lives are so busy and fast-paced." Finding time for each other — and their six-year old daughter, Alana — can be a considerable challenge.

"Someone once said gymnastics is more like a marathon than a sprint. Marriage is the same thing," Michael reflects. "You have to work at it every day and have to be committed to it to be successful." Tanya picks up on the analogy, adding: "Things constantly change. You’re put in different environments, you have to learn new skills. There are always new things being thrown into our marriage that we have to learn how to work through."

Michael concedes it has been a little tough to learn his place as assistant to his wife. It helps that Tanya is not a top-down operator, Michael says.

"It’s definitely a collaborative effort, and that makes it a lot easier for me, not to have to feel like I want to be in charge. I don’t feel a need to be head coach. But that was the challenge, learning that [my] job is to be an asset to Tanya and make her job easier."

For Tanya, the hardest part is remembering to shed her boss role as soon as she gets home.

"When we sit down and talk about things at home, it’s not like there’s a point where I just really have to make a decision, and [he] has to deal with it. But there are times, especially if it’s been a tense day at work, when I can take the role home." When that happens — Michael chimes in — he’s more than happy to bring it to her attention.

The home scene stays pretty low-key generally for the Chaplin family. It’s the rare weekend when they’re both around, and then the priority is just being together.

I ask what kinds of things they do for fun. The question is met with some hesitation and a sheepish exchange of looks.

"We’re trying to take a vacation..." Tanya finally says. "We’re thinking about taking up golf," Michael adds. Two years ago they managed to escape to Hawaii for a week. They knew it was time to get away when they overheard Alana, then four, telling everyone that she was about to take her first trip "without gymnastics."

On the morning I visit the Gladys Valley Gymnastics Center, Alana has begged off school to hang out with her mom, who is about to leave on a four-day recruiting trip. She’s wearing a velvety purple leotard and executing perfect back flips on a mat. Tanya and Michael have not signed her up for any formal gymnastics training. They want her to have a well-rounded girls’ athletics experience. She’s doing T-ball and loves dance, but it’s easy to see she has the Service/Chaplin genes. Besides, she has this amazing gym to play around in. Naturally, she’s hooked.

As Michael shows me around, it’s clear he loves the facility. And it’s not hard to see why. The gym is spacious, with abundant natural lighting. The walls are white-washed pine. There are two deep foam pits, a broad springy floor and a brand new vaulting table. This apparatus, Michael explains, is an improvement over the narrow vaulting horse it replaced. It allows women gymnasts to do some of the riskier vaults which they could not attempt previously.

These are the kinds of changes that keep gymnastics interesting, says Michael. Of course there are the unforeseeable mishaps, too, making every year different and challenging. In 2002, OSU gymnasts, Tanya Ricioli and Annie Campbell suffered injuries just prior to the NCAA Championships, which OSU qualified for by placing second at the NCAA West Region Championships.

The coaches’ — and athletes’ — excitement about the coming year is palpable. "Our goal is to be in the Super Six and to contend for a national title," Tanya says. But just as important, she adds, is creating a positive environment for the gymnasts, "so they have the opportunity to really grow, not only as athletes but as individuals."

The fact that the Chaplins are a couple was a major reason for choosing OSU, says senior Elizabeth Jillson. "I thought they’d probably communicate better [than other coaches]."

She hasn’t been disappointed. "It’s not all gymnastics to them. It’s like a family situation. If you can’t go home for Thanksgiving, you’re welcome at their place. They motivate us. They make a great team." OSU

Jessica Lamb is a Corvallis freelance writer.

Ben and Nancy Somera

By Jennifer Lowery
Nancy Somera certainly was interested when she was offered the head volleyball coaching job at Oregon State in 1999, but an important question needed to be answered.

Would she be allowed to hire her husband, Ben Somera, as an assistant coach?

If not, then she didn’t want the job. Ben was a former assistant at the time, working in sales out of necessity. The money was better, but his heart was in coaching.

"We just couldn’t afford (to have both of us coaching)," Nancy said. "But Ben always would say he would much rather coach than sell buckets."

Athletic director Mitch Barnhart gave her the go-ahead, and the Someras quickly turned the program around. Last year, Nancy’s third as head coach, the Beavers finished 17-12 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1983.

The Someras had coached a few years together before, spending time as assistants at the University of Southern California, but until moving to Corvallis, they hadn’t had to deal with one of them being the other’s boss.

"Yes, we’d be flipping roles and she’d be making more money," he said. "But the biggest issue was quality of life. I had a pretty good job, but it was expensive living in California."

The couple faced some challenges adjusting to their new roles. Three years later, though, it’s gotten easier.

"She wanted to have her hands on everything and have the final say. After all, it is her name on the program. The areas I oversee — blocking and recruiting — she wanted a lot more autonomy at first," Ben said. "That’s not the case anymore. It’s like, if you can’t trust your husband, who can you trust?"

That trust is the result of an 11-year relationship that began two years after Nancy graduated from USC in 1989. She was a referee at a local community center, where Ben also officiated.

"I was on one court, and he was on another," Nancy recalled. "We never really talked, but we kept bumping into each other around town. One day, one of us said, ‘Aren’t you that ref?’"
While Ben was finishing school, Nancy was making her way up the coaching ladder, starting out as a graduate assistant at her alma mater, where she had been a two-time All-Pacific-10 outside hitter. She eventually became a full-time assistant and was promoted to USC’s top assistant position in 1993.

Ben transferred to USC from Cal State-Northridge in 1993, when he also became a volunteer coach for the Women of Troy. He was named a full-time assistant in 1994, but with the cost of living so high in Southern California, Ben sacrificed his coaching career and moved into sales in March 1996, three months before the couple married.

He wanted to get back into coaching, though, and Oregon State gave him that chance. Sure, his wife would be his boss, but that didn’t matter.

"Doesn’t everybody work for somebody?" he asked. "You either like the people you work with or you don’t. It’s a lot easier when you do."

Nancy may not always agree with him, but she admits that having him around helps her get better at her own job.

"It’s less about him being my husband than it is about the length of time we’ve known each other. It’s like working with a best friend," she said. "You have a history, so there’s a lot of trust. You say things you wouldn’t say to someone you’ve only known a year or two.

"What you get is somebody who is honest, who’s not afraid to say you’re wrong," she said. "I hate to admit it, but sometimes I’m wrong. He’ll tell me I’m making a bad decision, and I’m a better coach because of it."

While Nancy tries to treat her assistants equally, Ben said her expectations of him will always be a little higher because of their relationship.

"Nancy demands a lot from everybody, but it’s like it is with anybody in your family. If you have friends over, you don’t care if their kid puts his hands in the cookie jar. If it’s your kid, you have a higher expectation level and demand more," Ben said. "But I think I have a much better feel for my potential (with Nancy coaching)."

The school year is hectic, but summer allows Nancy and Ben Somera more time to spen with their children, Sam and Maile.

And it allows them to focus their energy on the same thing. Before, they were going in different directions with Ben worrying about meeting his sales quota and Nancy focusing on her job.

"The good part about not working together is you can give input without your job being on the line, but now our goals are the same," Ben said. "We are both focused on taking this program in the right direction."

Still, there are challenges and obstacles to overcome.

The most difficult part of their job isn’t working together and trying to handle their relationship. That’s not that hard, says Ben. Child care is another story.

The Someras have two kids: Sam, 5, and Maile, 19 months. When they lived in California, Ben would schedule his sales trips around Nancy’s volleyball schedule so one of them would always be home. If they needed a babysitter, there were several nearby family members willing to help out.

Now they don’t have that luxury. According to Ben, making sure the kids are taken care of when mom and dad are out of town is by far their biggest work-related stress.

Other than that, the Someras are able to enjoy a normal life away from work. They split responsibilities at home, careful to make sure one person isn’t stuck doing more than the other. They try to leave their work at Gill Coliseum, although that’s not always possible.

"We try to get away from (volleyball) as much as we can," Nancy said. "Now that Sam is older, we can ask him how his day was and talk about it. We might have to call a recruit or something, but we’re lucky that a lot of the work we take home can be done after the kids go to bed."

While the school year is hectic, the summer allows them to enjoy more time together and with the kids. During the season, some workdays can last 16 hours. In the summer, they may need to work only four hours on a given day. That translates into valuable family time, with Nancy planning to leave work early to take the kids swimming on a Thursday afternoon in June.

"Our kids are always No. 1, but we’re definitely busy with our other 17 ‘children’ during the year," Ben said. "When I have the extra time, I always want to spend it with my kids."

Added Nancy: "It’s going to get harder the older they get as they become more involved in activities and we have to miss them. I don’t want to be a mom who’s never there, but that goes with the job. I’m just fortunate we have Christmas off."

What they’ve done so far, though, seems to be working. They’ve managed to find time to be there for their kids, their athletes and each other. And, Oregon State’s success last season proved that husbands and wives can work together, no matter who’s in charge. OSU
Jennifer Lowery is an OSU assistant sports information director.