By JOHN GASKINS
Jason Hardabura wanted this moment. At home. In the final routine. To be the best.
At approximately 9:45 Thursday night, April 22, the sophomore Nebraska gymnast, an advertising major, was exactly where he dreamed he wanted to be when he left his home in Canada three years ago: on a gym floor, experiencing what it felt like to have won a national championship.
The feeling hit him just as his feet hit the Bob Devaney Sports Center floor in a clutch high bar routine that gave him the winning 58.050 all-around score.
It hit him even harder when he jumped on the awards podium and was crowned NU’s ninth NCAA all-around champion.
“I came here almost quitting gymnastics,” Hardabura said. “Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t. I’m finally enjoying gymnastics.”
For 30-year Nebraska coach Francis Allen’s first foreign athlete ever, the night was the icing on the cake of one of the most dominating seasons in NCAA gymnastics history.
“I don’t even know how many all-around champions I’ve had,” Allen said. “But let me tell you, when you get one, they’re a gem.
“He’s a keeper. That’s quite a feather in his cap, winning the all-around as a sophomore.”
Hardabura joins Jim Hartung as the only Nebraska gymnasts to have won the all-around title in their sophomore season. Hartung experienced the feeling of winning the crown at the Devaney in 1980 and 1981 and is arguably Allen’s best gymnast ever.
That may change in the coming years.
“When you have an all-around champion, you got it,” Allen said. “And I got it with Jason. I’m not sure how he compares with guys like Jim Hartung and (1994 all-around champion) Dennis Harrison and all those studs. But he’s in that stud category.
“This means he’ll have to get better next year and the year after that. That’s what we expect of him.”
Going into the night, Hardabura was the No. 1-ranked gymnast in the nation and had won four straight all-around meet titles, including the West Region crown two weeks ago.
But Hardabura faced threats to his supremacy all night from three of the top all-arounders in the East Region: Ohio State’s Doug Stibel, Michigan’s Justin Toman and Iowa’s Todd Strada.
Stibel led Hardabura by .05 points after the opening rotation despite Hardabura’s career-best and team season-high 9.8 floor exercise routine and extended the lead to a full tenth of a point after two.
But Hardabura took charge of the lead after landing his second career high in three events with a 9.825 on the still rings in the third rotation. He led Stibel by a mere .225 points halfway through the meet.
The two ground through the fourth rotation with Hardabura using his worst score of the evening on the vault (9.5) to stay .125 points ahead of Stibel.
Stibel took himself out of contention when he took a nose dive on the still rings in the second-to-last event. But the fall didn’t leave Hardabura, who had pulled off his second-best parallel bars routine of the season (9.65), in the clear.
Toman, who finished second, pulled himself to within .15 points before the last event, with Strada on both of their heels, .225 points behind Hardabura.
The stage was set for the “dogfight” that Hardabura had predicted the competition would be the previous day. To make the moment more dramatic, the three contenders performed back-to-back-to-back.
Hardabura knew where he stood.
“We always like to tell you guys that we never look at the score,” Hardabura said. “But we do. I knew it was close.”
Hardabura had to wait to go last as his teammates continued to stick their own clutch routines, raising the crowd to its feet and Allen to a state of confidence.
“You have to feel you’re in a comfortable position with a guy like that,” Allen said. “That guy has got ice in his veins.”
Hardabura swung through the air with every deep breath that the arena took, and when he had landed, he knew what he had done. That’s when he let it all out — the fist-pumping, the high-fiving, the waving to his fans.
Hardabura could smell his national title even though Toman and Strada had yet to perform.
“Did you hear the fans tonight?” Hardabura said. “They were going crazy. It was like a football game. It was a great setting. How could you not get excited?”
“He was pretty hot, wasn’t he?” Allen said. “That was one of the greatest places to be an all-around champion, in the finals. It reminded me of some of those days of those other guys winning it. It will definitely go down in history as one of the best NCAA Championships in history.”
It was also best achievement in Hardabura’s career, a moment that made him look back and realize just how far he had come from his days on the Canadian gymnastics team, days which almost led him to quit the sport for good.
“One thing I want to say is how great a gymnastics program you have in the United States,” Hardabura said.
“You guys treat your athletes so well and have given guys like me so much opportunity. In Canada, we had to drive 30 miles a day to train in a gym, 30 miles back, and not have the support that a University of Nebraska gives you.”
“This is what it’s about. The tradition of Nebraska gymnastics. So much goes into it. Training four hours a day, six days a week, with six guys.
“You get to know them better than your brother or your father. It’s the best feeling in the world to be a part of this team.”