Georgia GymDogs make a midseason change on coaching staff

The Georgia gymnastics program has decided to part ways with assistant coach Charlie Tamayo.

Tamayo was in his first season with the GymDogs before seeing his time run out before the first season ended. In a statement, Georgia head coach Courtney Kupets Carter indicated Tamayo was not meeting the standard she has set for the program.

"I have performance expectations for myself, my assistants, our student-athletes, and all the staff members in the gymnastics program," Kupets Carter said. "Those performance expectations were not being met at an acceptable level."

The Red & Black was the first to report on Tamayo's ouster.

Tamayo came to Georgia after serving as an assistant for the Navy men's gymnastics program. In his lone year with the Midshipmen in 2016-17, Tamayo was a part of staff that saw the team finish No. 11 nationally, which was the best end-of-season ranking in program history.

Before he arrived at Navy, Tamayo coached elite youth gymnastics. With Tamayo removed from the program, Josh Overton is the only full-time assistant on staff under Kupets Carter. Suzanne Yoculan Leebern, the former head coach for Georgia who led the GymDogs to 10 national championships, is a volunteer assistant with the team.

This news comes only two days before Georgia's fifth meet of the season, which is against Missouri on Saturday at 2 p.m. The meet will be hosted at Stegeman Coliseum.

While Georgia is off to a 1-3 start following its loss last Friday at Arkansas, the GymDogs are still the No. 14 team in the nation with an average score of 195.994. Earlier Thursday, before the announcement regarding Tamayo, Kupets Carter said her team has been working on its fundamentals during practice.

"I'm looking for a little more discipline in the gymnastics," Kupets Carter said. "The chemistry, the energy, the excitement was there for them at Arkansas. That's something we've really been working on and it's exciting for me to see. This week, it's been working on taking it back to the basics, taking it back to our gymnastics and having a good, solid week of workouts. I'm really looking forward to the execution, and being aggressive with their execution. Hopefully we'll find a few more landings at the end of the day."

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Georgia GymDogs make a midseason change on coaching staff."