Pacific Reign Rising!
By Christy Sandmaier
Hovering between 1200-1300 athletes enrolled this year, Pacific Reign Gymnastics has simultaneously stamped itself as an up-and-coming program at all levels and as one of the new hubs for women’s Elite gymnastics in the U.S.
In just two years, head coach and co-owner Cale Robinson, a member of Stanford’s 2011 National Championship team, has built a hugely successful program based on the principles of hard work, respect, communication, consistency and embracing each athlete’s uniqueness on and off the floor. He is quick to credit his partner and co-owner Owen Sun and the team of coaches and staff around him for the gym’s early and ongoing success, as well as the vision and passion they show for the sport every single day.
“I’m a small piece of the puzzle, and we’ve got a lot of good people around us that wear their hats with pride and do what they’re supposed to be doing. So that’s how I manage it all, really, it’s other people, not just myself,” Robinson said.
The gym, already home to junior Worlds team silver medalist Jayla Hang and junior Elite Simone Rose, welcomed 2022 National All-Around Champion Konnor McClain in April as she sets her sights on Paris 2024. All three could very well keep Pacific Reign in the spotlight for the foreseeable future and continue to raise the profile of a club focused on growing the next generation of gymnasts.
With inclusion at the forefront, Robinson, who admittedly hates sitting still and lives on a lot of coffee, wants to make sure everyone feels welcome at Pacific Reign. It’s a mindset that guides everything they do. He also credits recognizing the coach/athlete/parent relationship as a partnership as an important key to success. It’s a dynamic the gym embraces at every level.
“Every part of what we do is very structured and we expect a level of work and discipline from our Rec classes all the way up to our Elites. I’m really just passionate about that side of what gymnastics can teach kids,” Robinson said.
In addition, he hopes to continue to transform women’s Elite gymnastics through good old-fashioned hard work, yes, but also remembering and reminding his athletes that they are human and that there is life beyond the gym walls. He wants to provide a space where everyone feels heard.
“I fully believe in a growth mindset and I’m sure there’s been times where I’ve made mistakes or not done things exactly how I would do them now,” Robinson said. “But I think everybody just deserves the right to grow and mature and learn. That’s what I want to echo to the next generation of kids that we’re bringing up. That it’s okay to make mistakes, you’re going to make mistakes, but the bigger mistake is not learning from the mistake that you’ve just made. I think there’s a big problem with anxiety in the next generation and social media and how all that plays into it. Just trying to provide them a space that’s a little, I don’t know, old school blue collar in the sense of, like, I still expect you to be able to talk to me and be able to say, ‘Coach Cale, this hurts’ and not be afraid of that communication. Trying to provide them a space where they can do that, and they’ll be heard, and their assignments will reflect what they’ve told us is bothering them and we’ll work together to make the most of their gymnastics. Growing the next generation of humans and gymnasts, but both concurrently, is important.”
When asked what he’s most proud of, it was no surprise that his athletes, his team and his family were the focus. It’s all part of the balancing act of being a partner, father, co-owner and coach. And it’s exactly where he wants to be.
We sat down with Robinson right after Junior Worlds to get the lay of the land at Pacific Reign, learn about his coaching philosophies and guiding principles, and what he hopes for the most for his athletes. Here’s more of the conversation!
Tell us about balancing your role as a head coach and as a gym owner, because that’s definitely not for the faint of heart!
I’m obviously super passionate about gymnastics. I wavered back and forth for many years on whether I wanted to coach college or if I wanted to continue coaching club, and I just ultimately love the development side of gymnastics. I had just moved to Seattle and I had gotten a couple of college job offers and I even accepted a college job, and then that fell through because of COVID. My partner Owen, saw me as if I’m just continually working for universities or for other clubs, I’m kind of like a moving target, if you will. So, we started just exploring what it would mean to open our own gym and then eventually pulled the trigger and did it. Luckily for me, Owen runs the business side of things, so he manages that whole realm of that. We’ve been fortunate to hire some really good staff. We opened our gym in May of 2021, and then in January of 2022, I had a Ninja director come on and a Rec director come in. A lot of really good people that are also passionate about what they do have made our gym really what it is.
What are some of the guiding principles that you want to see passed along to your coaches and your staff that ultimately trickle down into the kids and the parents?
A few things. We fly a giant American flag in our gym, and right beside it is an even bigger rainbow flag. So for us, it’s inclusion, and what that represents to me beyond the realm of LGBTQ+ is just that everybody’s welcome in our gym and we’re going to treat people like we want to be treated. It’s a level of humanity and kindness that we hope is coming through in what we’re doing. So that’s the main guiding principle. Beyond that, I just still really believe in old-fashioned hard work and being gritty and putting your head down and getting to work. It might not happen right away, but good things will come from that. Whether it’s life lessons about getting up after you fall down, or that good things don’t necessarily come easy. Just many life lessons can be learned from that!
Another thing we’re big on is just communication. We tell our kids all the time that one thing you have in life is your voice and you’ve got to use it if you want to be heard and for your opinion to matter.
Obviously coaching and competing Elite is a whole different thing. But for the Rec kids, kids that are a little bit younger, what do you ultimately hope they get out of their experience at Pacific Reign? What do you want them either to walk away with or just feel from coming into your gym every day?
I hope that they feel a level of respect as human beings. I hope that they can gain many things working with other kids, working with instructors, working in a group setting, fine motor skills. If gymnastics isn’t the sport for them, I still think the body awareness and the different agility and the different strength components and flexibility components are only going to set them up for success in whatever they end up doing, whether it’s another sport or whether it’s living a healthy lifestyle. Those are the things that I hope they walk out with and the tools to feel like, okay, ‘I just did something hard and it feels good and I’m proud of that. And I was also respected in the process and was able to be told to do hard things and be treated nicely.’
So along those lines, what are some key traits you’re looking for when you’re bringing coaches on board?
Dependability. We would like a baseline level of gymnastics knowledge, but I think it’s easier to train the skill than it is to train the human. So we hope for a level of charisma, a level of just easy to work with in terms of communication. You try to get a sense in the interview process of asking them tough questions and seeing how they handle those moments, so that when you’re in tough situations, you have a sense of how they’re going to respond to that. And I think really just people with a growth mindset. I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I do expect to hire people that are open to feedback and open to getting better and understanding that even me, the owner of the gym and the head coach that’s done X, Y and Z, I’m still seeking out that kind of advice and that kind of mentorship from other people. Because you should always be striving to get better. And if you’re not getting feedback, you can’t get better.
How do you balance it all 24/7?
I literally hate sitting still and I love a full schedule. It keeps me going, it keeps me energized. It’s one foot in front of the other and just trying to keep moving. A lot of coffee! It helps that Owen works with me now, too. So the gym is like another baby for us and a passion project. We might talk about it too much, but at the same time we’re doing it together and it feels like something we’ve developed from the ground up. We didn’t buy somebody else’s gym. We grew our gym from the beginning and it feels like it’s ours and that’s really special, too. In the summers we’ll try to get out of the gym a little earlier at night and be home with our kids and enjoy that. We plan vacations like a year in advance so that we make sure we have some downtime.
What are you most proud of right now?
State and Regionals this year. Well, it’s actually kind of ironic, so I think it’s two things. One, I wasn’t able to be at our very first state meet ever this year, but it was because I was on the plane going to Junior Worlds with Jayla going to Turkey. So I was like up the entire flight refreshing my scores! As I watched it all come in, I just had an immense amount of pride. They did extremely well. Not just in one area, not just with one group of kids, but I think at every level, level 3 through 10, we were top three in the state at every level. To me that speaks volumes. Not necessarily of what I’m doing, but what the rest of my staff has been able to do and what as a team we’ve been able to accomplish alongside the partnership with the parents and the athletes – feeling the momentum of that buy-in and where it’s going to take us.
The other part of that is going to Junior Worlds and taking Jayla and Simone from when I got them – they had just finished level 8 so they obviously had a lot of great coaches in the lead up to that – to now. I was fortunate to cross paths with them when I did. Taking them from that point and just really having a phenomenal trust and relationship with their families, I can communicate openly with them and they can communicate openly with me. And really, I think hopefully transforming what Elite gymnastics has been in the past. We work really hard, but we treat each other like humans and I get to know them like humans. When they tell me they’re hurting, it matters to me. Seeing that set of beliefs also pays off in a big way. I think that’s something I’m really proud of. That’s two things. And then I think the third would be just my family, like growing my family with Owen and we have two kids and building a life together.
What are you most excited about and what spoke to you about hosting the first-ever Inside Gymnastics on Tour?
I’ve known Chris (Korotky) for forever, and Cory is a good friend, so I think it started with that. Bringing a group of elite-minded people together that I feel are on the same wavelength in terms of where gymnastics should be going is what I’m most excited about. Inviting that caliber of people together under one roof and having them share their knowledge and be a part of Pacific Reign is exciting – it’s not just getting them together under one roof, but giving our clients and other people that might need or want that knowledge or be inspired by the presenters – to give them the access to them, is what spoke to me the most.
For the full schedule, speaker lineup and more at Pacific Reign, Click Here!
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