HEAD COACH DANA DUCKWORTH

To say that Dana Duckworth has never met a stranger is an understatement.

“I love connecting with people,” she said. “It’s one of the true joys in my life.”

It’s an attribute she first developed growing up in Michigan and continued during her extraordinary career, first within USA Gymnastics and later as an NCAA Champion at Alabama.

It’s also what led her to be ultra-successful, first in the corporate world and then as an assistant coach and then, ultimately, head coach at her alma mater.

“At Alabama, we want to develop gymnasts who enjoy great success both in the arena and in the classroom, but more than that, we focus on developing the whole person,” Duckworth said. “That’s always been one of the cornerstones of this program and its success.”

The Crimson Tide’s head coach since July 2014, Duckworth’s continuation of that philosophy has held Alabama and its gymnasts in good stead.

In 2015, Duckworth became the first in league history to lead a team to an SEC gymnastics championship as a first-year head coach. The Tide also extended its streak of top-four NCAA finishes to seven, by far the best in the nation. The Tide also won its NCAA-best 30th regional title in her first season as head coach.

She also got to fly with the Blue Angles, serve as the Grand Marshal of the Crimson Tide’s 2015 Homecoming Parade, visit midfield of Bryant-Denny Stadium to receive yet another championship ring and look on as Kim Jacob was honored as a finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year in Indianapolis.

That success has continued unabated ever since. Alabama earned another NCAA regional title, and finished third at the NCAA Championships in 2016, marking the Tide’s 23rd top-three national finish, the most in collegiate gymnastics history. She also saw 2016 senior Lauren Beers earn her third NCAA Elite 90 Award and the 2016 SEC Community Service of the Year honor.

In 2017, Alabama earned its NCAA-best 23rd Super Six Finals berth and became the only team to finish in the top six each of the previous 10 years. Individually, Katie Bailey earned another individual NCAA title, while Keely McNeer earned Alabama’s 20th NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

In 2018, Alabama won its NCAA-best 32nd regional championship, posted its 20th consecutive top-three finish at the SEC Championships, taking second place, and advanced to the NCAA Championships for the 36th year in a row, while posting its 34th top-eight finish and 36th in the top 10. Mackenzie Brannan also closed out her career as a three-year CoSIDA Academic All-American as well as an SEC and NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner.

In 2019, the Crimson Tide extended its streak of top-12 finishes to 37-consectuive years, making UA one of just two programs in NCAA gymnastics history to never finish outside the top-12 nationally. During a Covid-19 shortened season, Duckworth was named the 2020 WGCA Region 1 Head Coach of the Year while leading Alabama to an eighth-place national finish, marking the Tide’s 37th top-10 finish. The 2020 season also saw Makarri Doggette become the 75th UA gymnast to be named an All-American, earning the honor on the uneven bars.

Through all this, Duckworth found that fundamentals of leadership, whether as a gymnast, volunteer coach, full-time assistant coach or head coach, remain the same.

“I am here to help these young ladies become the best version of themselves,” Duckworth said. “If I’m focused on that, then everything else will take care of itself. There’s no cookie-cutter approach at Alabama. We take the time to get to know each gymnast and identify what will make them successful and then we work to achieve as much as we can within a family environment.”

That understanding of what drives success at Alabama is why Duckworth was the only choice for the legendary Sarah and David Patterson when they went looking for an assistant coach in the late 2000s and again when the Pattersons retired and the University needed to hire a new head coach for the first time in nearly 40 years.

“I took recruiting trips to the top five schools – schools that are still in the top five today – and I felt something here,” Duckworth said. “I felt a connection with the coaches and with the team, a chemistry that I knew, even then, that I would not find at a different school. I went on four other trips and they just solidified what I felt here at Alabama. I love our environment, I love our culture, I love our tradition and I love the fact that when you go out as an Alabama gymnast you represent all those things.”

It was those same elements that made her decision to leave a lucrative career with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to join the Alabama coaching staff on a full-time basis in the fall of 2008 after nine years as a volunteer coach with the Crimson Tide such an easy one.

“I really enjoyed what I was doing at Pfizer and it’s a tremendous company, but my heart and my passion have always been here at the Capstone with our program,” Duckworth said. “I felt like this was an opportunity for me to do what I love and everyone I have ever talked to has said, if you love what you do, you’ll never go to another day of work in your life.”

Part of the Alabama gymnastics program as a gymnast and coach for 25 seasons, Duckworth has been a part of NCAA team championships from both sides. She was part of the Tide’s 1991 NCAA title as a sophomore and the 2002, 2011 and 2012 NCAA championships as a coach. She has also won conference titles as an athlete (1990) and a coach (2003, 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015).

As much as Duckworth appreciates the championship tradition she has been a part of for so long, what she holds most dear is the overall atmosphere created by the people who live, work and go to school at Alabama.

“The people at The University of Alabama make everything unique and special,” Duckworth said. “I love the fact that The University of Alabama is about tradition and culture. I tell people all the time that Tuscaloosa is the best-kept secret because we have it all here and everyone approaches things with a great deal of passion. It makes people’s experience very special.”

In addition to her infectious enthusiasm for the Crimson Tide and her skills as a technical coach, Duckworth also brings her standing as one of the nation’s premier choreographers to the gym. Nothing drives that point home quite like the consistent success the athletes she has worked with have enjoyed.

When Geralen Stack-Eaton won the 2011 NCAA floor exercise championship to cap off an extraordinary junior season, it marked the fifth time that a Duckworth-choreographed routine won the NCAA floor title, including one each by Alabama’s Morgan Dennis and Ashley Miles plus a pair by North Carolina’s Courtney Bumpers. During her storied Tide career, Miles earned four top-three national finishes on the floor, including the 2004 NCAA floor exercise championship. Duckworth also helped Miles win four consecutive Southeastern Conference and NCAA Regional floor exercise titles. Miles became the first gymnast in SEC history to win the same event all four years of her career.

“It’s such a wonderful experience to be able to help these athletes bring out their personality and perform routines that shine,” Duckworth said.

As a gymnast, the former Dana Dobransky earned eight All-America accolades and finished her career in 1993 by winning her second consecutive NCAA balance beam title with a perfect 10.0. She was named NCAA Woman of the Year for the State of Alabama in 1993.

As a student, Duckworth was a three-year Scholastic All-American and a two-time CoSIDA at-large Academic All-American, an award that spans several sports. She was inducted into Mortar Board as an undergraduate and earned both an NCAA and SEC Postgraduate Scholarship, utilizing them to attend graduate school at Alabama and obtain her Master of Business Administration in 1998.

“I could have gone anywhere in the country to get my MBA,” Duckworth said. “But I chose to come back to Alabama because our business school is one of the best in the country and I loved the size of the campus, I loved the MBA program and more than all that, it was a chance to come back to a place I consider home.”

In fall 2018, the UA MBA program named Duckworth as its Alumni of the Year, honoring all she has accomplished since earning her degree.

After graduating with her bachelor’s degree, Duckworth moved up the corporate ladder quickly at AMX Corporation, a high-tech firm based in Dallas. She finished her tenure there as manager of AMX’s training programs. After receiving her master’s degree, Duckworth served as director of marketing for a Trussville-based automotive company followed by a stint as Vice President of Corporate Solutions for a Birmingham company before returning to Tuscaloosa for a highly successful run with Pfizer.

Duckworth’s return to Tuscaloosa also saw her start a family. She and her husband Joe, a Tuscaloosa native, married in 2000. The couple has a daughter Camryn born in 2004 and a son Jace born in 2006.

“I could not do this without the support of my husband, my children and my family,” Duckworth said. “I also couldn’t do this without the support and love of the Alabama gymnastics family. Being an Alabama gymnast is so much more than a four-year commitment. It’s building a bond that lasts a lifetime.”