In Bermuda, a coach’s rebirth

During his 30-year tenure as the Terrapin gymnastics team's coach, Bob Nelligan watched his program get cut three different times.

After the controversial 1986 death of men's basketball legend Len Bias, a financially strapped athletics department initiated a series of budget cuts. And as a new sport struggling to establish a foothold, gymnastics seemed a logical casualty.

"My entire time at Maryland, I felt like a janitor," Nelligan said with a laugh yesterday. "I was constantly in maintenance mode because there was a real chance the program wasn't going to survive."

Consumed by a desire to sustain and elevate his teams for more than three decades, the Massachusetts native admitted that when he finally decided to hand the program over to his son — then-assistant coach Brett Nelligan — in June 2009, he hadn't thought much about life as a retiree.

For a man who had devoted more than a half-century of his life to gymnastics, it wasn't easy. So when Nelligan heard that Bermuda needed a new coach for its national gymnastics team, he booked a flight to the tiny island nation in the Atlantic about 650 miles from the United States.

"After I retired, I spent the next two months in the gym working with the girls," Nelligan said. "I wasn't quite ready for the rocking chair."

Nelligan was already familiar with the country's program because he had served as its interim coach when Terp gymnast and Bermuda native Jenny Wright competed at the 1997 World University Games.

Still, his interest shocked some.

"I was really surprised, but the first thing I really started to think about was how it was going to be not having him around anymore," Brett Nelligan said. "But more than anything, I was just happy for him."

When Nelligan was offered the position, he saw another opportunity to take a program to new heights. He knew he'd be building from the ground up — again — but this time, there'd be an oceanside view.

"While I was at Maryland, we didn't have our own gym or our own locker room," Nelligan said from his home on St. David's Island, Bermuda. "So coming here, I understood that my job was going to be about developing the program."

When Nelligan arrived in Bermuda in September 2009, his gymnasts were training in a portion of a U.S. naval base's recreation center. The team's facilities were so limited that when the girls practiced on vault, they could only run 65 feet before reaching the apparatus — a far cry from the usual 80-foot runs most competitive gymnasts take.

"I'll never forget the time I took two of my gymnasts to vault at the World Championships in London a couple months after I got to Bermuda," Nelligan recalled. "My girls walked to 65 feet and turned to me and said, ‘Why is everyone else starting at 80 feet?' They had no idea."

Despite his gymnasts' naïveté, both of Bermuda's representatives placed within the top 80 of the world-class field, a benchmark achievement for a country boasting a population of less than 70,000 people.

Yet even as Nelligan prepares his squad to host the 2013 Island Games, he understands that the program's continued progression depends upon his willingness to multitask — a trait he learned during his days in College Park.

"Whenever you're building the infrastructure of a young program, you have to wear a lot of hats," Nelligan said. "Even though the work we put in the gym is important, everything that goes on outside the gym is just as important."

Nelligan's current job duties range from negotiating the team's gym lease to making sure the squad's seven grade-schoolers are eating their vegetables.

But for a coach accustomed to working with gymnasts at the end of their careers, the opportunity to train athletes as young as 7 has given the 61-year-old newfound inspiration.

"It's so fulfilling to see these kids every day and to watch them grow," Nelligan said. "Even though it's tough being almost 900 miles away from home, seeing that look in their eyes when they're learning something new makes it all worth it."

Of course, Bermuda's breathtaking landscape doesn't hurt either. After spending the majority of his time stateside cooped up in a cramped gym, Nelligan has taken full advantage of his new job placement's perks.

The self-proclaimed "outdoors guy" spends his free time whale watching, snorkeling with octopuses and visiting Bermuda's famed beaches. Embracing the island's laid-back lifestyle, he's traded in his Isuzu Rodeo for a moped.

"The days here are absolutely stunning," Nelligan said. "We have flowers year-round, 60-degree winters and a constant breeze. You really can't put it into words."

Now the man who spent much of his life maintaining a program on the brink of extinction is not only taking his much-needed vacation — he's living it.

"I can't imagine a better way to wind down my career," Nelligan said. "Life is good."

letourneau@umdbk.com