• 2013 NACGC West Region Assistant Coach of the Year
John Carney recently completed his fifth season as an assistant coach at Oregon State. Carney, who was well known for his technical expertise at the club level for the previous 15 years, coaches the uneven bars for the Beavers and assists with tumbling, conditioning and recruiting. In addition, Carney has extensive technical knowledge that he uses to coach through video review. In his tenure at Oregon State, Carney's bars lineup has never finished a season ranked outside of the top 10 in the nation.
After losing a pair of All-Americans from the 2012 bars lineup, Carney used a revamped 2013 lineup to finish the season ranked No. 5 in the nation and was named the West Region Assistant Coach of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches (NACGC). Carney's crew set a school-record 49.675 on the bars in the final rotation of a record-setting night as the Beavers tallied a school-record 197.850 en route to winning the Pac-12 Championships for the second time in three years. Brittany Harris, Stephanie McGregor and Makayla Stambaugh earned All-Pac-12 First Team and Erika Aufiero earned second team honors. In addition, Stambaugh was named an NACGC Regular Season All-American on the bars.
Carney's bars group once again had a fantastic year in 2012 finished the season tied for seventh in the nation. Olivia Vivian and Brittany Harris earned Pac-12 First Team honors on the bars joining all-around selections Melanie Jones, Leslie Mak and Makayla Stambaugh on the all-conference team.
In 2011, Oregon State's bars lineup finished the season ranked No. 1 in the nation and three gymnasts - Jen Kesler, Stambaugh and Vivian - reached the Individual Event Finals earning All-America First Team honors. All three earned spots on the podium and finished second, tied for third and tied for sixth respectively. In addition, Mak, Stambaugh and Vivian tied for the Pac-10 Championship title in 2011 as the Beavers won the conference title for the first time since 1996.
In his second season, Carney helped the Beavers to an 8th place finish at the NCAA Championships, their best finish since 1996. Laura-Ann Chong earned All-Pac-10 First Team honors and Mak finished as the runner-up on bars at Pac-10 Championships.
In 2009, Carney's first season at OSU, his bars squad set the school's single meet record of 49.575, breaking the previous record of 49.525 which had stood since 2003. In addition, Kesler earned second team All-American for the second time in her career and earning the distinction of being his first All-American.
The respect in coaching circles for Carney's knowledge and teaching ability was evidenced during the summer of 2009 when he was invited to be a USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic National Team Training Camp staff member. He was also invited to provide a presentation at the 2012 Coaches Convention on making training fun.
Prior to his arrival at Oregon State, Carney was the co-head coach from 2001-08 at Gymnastics East in Bellevue, Wash., where he designed and implemented training plans and led the staff in technique and spotting skills for developmental athletes. In his position as co-head coach he helped guide the club's competitive team to many individual and team championships at the state, regional and national levels. While at Gym East, Carney coached former OSU gymnast Jen Kesler to five Level 10 national championships (two all-around, two vault, one bars). He also worked on the production of educational videos for staff training.
This is Carney's second stint at the collegiate level after spending the 2000-01 season as an assistant coach at Seattle Pacific. During his time at SPU, Carney was charged with coaching the uneven bars and vault. Prior to SPU, Carney spent 1993-2000 as the head coach at Northwest Aerials in Kirkland, Wash.
In all, over the course of 25 years of coaching Carney has guided his teams to eight Junior Olympic national team titles, while his gymnasts have claimed five J.O. individual titles and one J.O. Western National title. Nine of his gymnasts went on to earn scholarships to compete at the college level. Carney has been named USA Gymnastics Washington Coach of the Year five times and Region 2 Coach of the Year four times.
As a gymnast, Carney competed at the club level before ending his career after one season at Cal State Fullerton.
Carney, a native of Tucson, Ariz., graduated from Oregon State in 2011 with a degree in new media communications. His wife, Jackie, works in OSU's compliance office.
