It’s been almost a year since 23-year-old Karly Nowak graduated from UO. It’s been almost a year since she said her goodbyes to moody, cloudy mornings in Eugene, and it’s been almost a year since she wrapped up a student-athlete career that rivals any other you’ve heard of.

That, of course, is why she came right back for more.

The Oregon acrobatics and tumbling assistant coach knows what it’s like to be a college athlete. She knows what it feels like to face an arena filled with eager faces — to lift a trophy and to hear the roar of a thousand supporters. Remember, she was one, this time last year.

But she also knows what it feels like to stand in that very same place and face every challenge the world can throw at her. And that might be even more important to what she’s doing now.

A&T is an “emerging” sport in the eyes of the NCAA — in fact, it’s not even a fully-fledged competition in the eyes of college athletics’ governing body. Instead, the sport likened most often to competitive high school cheer is overseen by the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association. The sport draws most of its athletes from cheer, too. They’re able to receive scholarships and continue competing at the college level without committing to the cheer squad.

Nowak, a 2023 NCATA All-American, spent four years in Eugene as a student athlete — time that convinced her to return when her old head coach, Taylor Susnara, called. “Coming in after my senior year and just jumping right into it was an experience that I couldn’t pass up,” Nowak said.

It’s not a foreign path; Susnara has helmed Oregon’s team since 2021, but both she and Nowak previously attended school in Eugene, where they competed as athletes in what’s been one of the premier A&T programs in the nation. Susnara, a UO athlete from 2015 to 2018, had a trophy cabinet to rival Nowak’s before joining the university’s coaching staff as an assistant in 2019. She accepted the head role after the 2021 season.

It’s been a journey of self-discovery for her, too. 

“[The athletes] trusted me and my background,” Susnara told UO Alumni. “As the years went on, it got easier. I gained real-life experience, had some coaching development opportunities, and I got more confident in my coaching ability.”

Those are qualities that she saw in Nowak. 

“As a student athlete, Karly and I connected well — we just kind of understood each other,” Susnara said. “It’s been really fun … she knows my good qualities [and] the qualities that I could work on as a coach. I think that she challenges me in different ways that are very helpful to connecting and relating to the athletes.”

For Nowak, working with Susnara has provided a new look at an old friend. 

“I think that throughout my four years [as an athlete] I had a really great connection with Taylor — a really great relationship,” Nowak said. “I think that was also one of the drivers … something that I considered when taking the coaching position here.” 

What they’re building in Eugene is about more than just a championship. Both of them know the toll that being an athlete takes on being a student. So, for these coaches, it’s all about the mental health of their team.

That’s where Nowak comes in.

“Karly, coming from the student athlete side just this past year, [is] able to give some insight on what the team atmosphere was — how it could change and what could be better,” Susnara said. “Coming in as the head coach, I felt like that was an area that we were weak and something that we needed to continue to hone in on.”

North of Oregon’s campus, across the drifting Willamette River and nestled in the shadow of Autzen Stadium lies the Casanova Center. This is where Nowak and Susnara spend most of their working time together. There’s a ping pong table in the lobby, where Oregon Athletics employees host rambunctious tournaments in their free time, but the two coaches aren’t playing around.

“We plan everything out down to the wire,” Susnara said, sitting in a conference room off the lobby. “From our practice plan timing to what we’re doing within each of those practices.”

That Tuesday, they were breaking down film from the season’s first meet against Hawaii Pacific University. 

“We’re going through our deductions — we’ll go over that with the team today,” Susnara said, “and then we’ll focus on the pieces that we need to work on from our last meet.”

When they’re in the enormous, harsh confines of Matthew Knight Arena — the antithesis of the soft couches across the water — Susnara is the one giving the team talks mid-meet. She’s the one who organizes the big huddle of 40-plus athletes and details their plan of attack. Nowak, meanwhile, takes athletes aside one-on-one, maybe before they draw the attention of the crowd and judges with a solo pass, to provide her advice.

“I think that I have a good connection with a lot of them and I know them really well,” Nowak said, “and I think I know how to get to them and know how to talk to them and what they need at certain times.”

Their mannerisms are remarkably similar— the hand on the shoulder, seemingly making that crowd of athletes disappear, or the squat that allows them to get as close to the mat as possible while staying out of the television cameras’ line of sight. They nimbly manage the emotions of a frantic group in a sport that demands absolute focus as they govern their own emotions on the mat: with aplomb.

“I think that we’ve always had a lot of talent on this team,” Nowak said. “A lot of the time it really just comes down to the mental piece and going out there and doing it when it counts. Just showing up every day, ready to attack every skill.” 

That’s what she and her coach-turned-collaborator mastered during their time as athletes. Now it’s what she’s trying to teach her friends-turned-students.

“I feel like, at the start of the season it was a little bit tough, obviously, being friends with some of the girls last year and teammates with them,” she said.

It’s fulfilling, too, she says. 

“I think it’s really cool to go out there and watch them do their thing and watch them grow as athletes,” Nowak said. “[I’m] seeing them now, on the other side of it, just getting to watch them succeed and do the things that they love.”

And she’s still in love with Eugene — so much that she’s comfortable staying where she is, at least for the moment. “I wouldn’t say that my ultimate goal is to be a head coach,” she said. “I think that I like where I’m at right now. I like this position — and I think it’s more so the environment and not so much the job. … Staying here is more important to me than becoming a head coach one day.”

It doesn’t get much better than that. The students have their teacher. Their teacher has her mentor. And Oregon — soon — could have a national title.