From staff Reports
ASU gymnastics head coach John Spini named Shelly Eaton, the co-owner and director of SportsTech International/Desert Devil Gymnastics in Mesa, to his coaching staff last week.
Eaton will primarily be in charge of choreographing ASU’s routines on balance beam and the floor exercise, replacing Kristen Smyth, who accepted the head coaching job at Stanford after five years as an assistant at ASU.
“Shelly Eaton brings us another step closer to our goal of winning a national championship,” Spini said. “She not only gives us a solid foundation, but also provides us with a much wider recruiting base because of her ability to communicate with young athletes.
A member of the USA National Gymnastics Team from 1985-1989, Eaton, then Shelly Schaerrer, went on to earn shares of two NCAA Championship team titles at the University of Utah from 1989-1992.
A seven-time All-American, with a second-place finish in the all-around at the 1990 NCAA Championships, Eaton took home multiple individual awards while at Utah, including the 1990 Utah Collegiate Female Athlete of the Year.
Last season ASU failed to make the cut at the NCAA preliminaries in Athens, Ga. The Sun Devils finished fifth in Session II.
