Oregon State coaches talk about realignment

She was an all-American gymnast at UCLA and was a two-time gymnast of the year in what was then the Pac-10 Conference. Michael Chaplin, her husband and the team’s associate head coach, was also an all-American gymnast at UCLA.

In addition to their experiences, his sister, Kelly, was a Hall of Fame gymnast at Arizona.

That’s a lot of history for the Chaplins to see left behind.

“I competed in the first Pac-10 championship event when Washington State still had gymnastics,” Tanya Chaplin said. “We have a long history with this conference. It’s hard and I think that’s what a lot of Olympic sports are seeing, that the traditions, that’s challenging to watch that not be there right now.”

Chaplin is entering her 27th season as the Oregon State head coach and that stability is definitely an asset for a program that is in uncharted territory with the breakup of the conference.

One specific area where Chaplin’s experience helps is in scheduling. She remembers the days before the conference was involved in scheduling and now she is going back to that.

“We’re focusing on continuing to schedule with the best in the country, because we can still do that. We won’t have to worry about waiting for the conference to put our schedule together, whereas we’ve had to in the past. In that sense, that works to our advantage,” Chaplin said.

“We’re kind of going back to old scheduling before the conferences had conference schedules. Now we can actually schedule a couple years out, knowing that at any day that could change.”

Building a competitive schedule is also a primary concern for Oregon State men’s soccer coach Greg Dalby. His background is very different from Chaplin’s. He just finished his first season at OSU and led the team to the College Cup for the first time in program history.

But the challenge of realignment is the same. Dalby admitted the situation is “unsettling” but said the players on the team never asked him about the situation and he is fully confident in the program’s future.

“I have full belief that we’re supported really well by the athletic administration here and the athletic department,” Dalby said. “I also believe there’s a really clear pathway forward in terms of scheduling. You want a really good schedule so you can get into the tournament and you want a really good schedule so you’re ready for the tournament. We will be able to do both.” 

The presence of several top-tier soccer programs in the Pacific Northwest helps with scheduling. Seattle, Portland and Washington are all logical opponents for high quality games which do not involve high travel costs. There are also quality teams in California who can help fill out the schedule.

Dalby said there are several programs in men’s soccer which compete at the highest level despite not being in a power conference.

“Marshall’s doing it. West Virginia, LMU, these are programs that are playing at the highest level, as are we. So I feel really confident in the future here in terms of men’s soccer, it’s going to be really bright,” Dalby said.

In addition to scheduling, the other key factor is financial support. Oregon State has invested in the gymnastics program and the training center is first-rate.

“That’s the biggest thing is making sure we can get the resources we need for our student-athletes. We have an incredible facility. We have an incredible staff … incredible support staff. It is a special place so we’re excited to continue moving that direction,” Chaplin said.

Another area of potential concern is recruiting. Chaplin said the program’s recruiting has not been hurt at all by the realignment situation.

“We’ve got a great couple of recruiting classes coming in, one we’ve signed and one we can’t really talk about yet,” Chaplin said, adding that the Beavers currently have a top-10 class for 2025. “We want to compete for championships, we want to compete at the national level.”