GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They have honored the top all-around gymnast at the end of each Gators home meet for many years with what is named the Ernestine Weaver Award. They did the same on Friday night at the O’Dome.

This time was different.

The gymnast born Ernestine Jean Russell in Windsor, Canada, the dynamo who went on to become the first female gymnast from Canada to compete in the Olympics and was known as Ernestine Weaver during 13 seasons as the head coach of the Florida gymnastics team from 1980 to 1992, died on Wednesday. She was 87.

The No. 1-ranked Gators honored Weaver with a moment of silence before their clash against No. 4 Alabama. It seemed fitting that the Crimson Tide were on the schedule the week Weaver passed away.

With Weaver leading the way and the Gators’ attendance on the rise, Florida drew a then-record crowd of 10,651 to the O’Connell Center for a matchup against the Crimson Tide on Feb. 10, 1989. The crowd that night set a state record for a women’s sporting event and showcased once more the impact that Weaver had in women’s gymnastics.

“I think of her as an icon in our sport,” former Alabama coach Sarah Patterson said on Friday. “In ’89, we had just won in ’88 our first national championship. She already had three or four behind her. She just didn’t build it at Florida; she helped all the other coaches build their programs, too. We were all fighting to put people in the seats. It took us until 1997 to sell out Coleman Coliseum.”

 

Patterson’s first season leading the Crimson Tide was the same year Weaver was hired at Florida in August 1979. They were at different stages of their careers.

Patterson was fresh out of college and the final coaching hire for Alabama legend Bear Bryant, who was also the athletic director. Meanwhile, Weaver had represented Canada at the Melbourne (1956) and Rome (1960) Games, served as an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s team at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, and been a college coach at Michigan State and Clarion (Pa.) State College before taking over the Gators.

Weaver led Clarion to a pair of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championships and won a third AIAW title in 1982 at Florida, the program’s first.

The moment Weaver arrived, she added instant credibility to Florida’s fledgling program.

“I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for her,” said Mary Heidenwolf Niles, a UF gymnast who started her career at Clarion State and transferred to Florida when Weaver departed. “It was no question. They called me on the phone and said Ernie is taking the Florida job. I told my parents, ‘I’m gone.’ She really cared about us.”

Niles and Lynn Keefe, known as Lynn McDonnell during her days as a UF gymnast, gathered with other alumnae at the O’Connell Center on Friday during the program’s annual reunion weekend. Keefe was a standout for the Gators from 1981-84 and a member of the AIAW national championship team.

With their husbands by their sides – both couples met while students at UF – they shared memories as they mourned the loss of their beloved coach, and later, dear friend.

“The O’Connell Center was just being completed,” Keefe said of her arrival. “I was from New York. I came to like a foreign place. It was just life-changing. As athletes, we look back, and there were some rough times. My relationship with her got better as I left and moved on with my life.

“She had such a showgirl mentality. Presentation meant everything to her.”

Weaver’s flair for promotion with the help of her then-husband Jim Weaver, a UF associate athletic director who went on to be AD at UNLV and Virginia Tech, boosted the sport’s profile on campus, in the community and across the state.

Weaver’s talent at creating publicity stretched back to her days growing up in Canada, when she gained attention by training on makeshift equipment in an empty field adjacent to her neighborhood. Her performances drew crowds, media coverage and, eventually, a place in her native country’s heart.

She left Florida after the 1992 season when her husband got the UNLV job.

“For a long time, I thought, ‘If I’m not Coach Ernestine Weaver, who am I?’ But the handwriting was on the wall when Jim started looking for a job,” Weaver said at the time. “Leaving isn’t easy, and there are some very good memories. There has been some wonderful gymnastics at Florida over the years. But more than that, there are some wonderful graduates out there.”

Patterson, like many in the gymnastics community, was saddened to hear of Weaver’s death. But she said Weaver was a trailblazer for so many who came after her and are coaching today.

“I looked up to her in so many ways,” said Patterson, who would go on to win six national championships in 36 seasons at Alabama before retiring in 2014. “Florida was so far ahead of other schools in building the sport of women’s gymnastics. Her accomplishments were incredible. I think our sport and women’s sports today, we are where we are because of icons like Ernestine Weaver.”

Keefe, one of those graduates Weaver spoke of at her goodbye press conference more than 30 years ago, watched the Gators edge the Crimson Tide in front of another large crowd Friday.

Weaver is gone, but her presence is alive. All you had to do was look around the arena.

“She was the spark,” Keefe said. “I always say Florida gymnastics has just been amazing, but you have to have that spark, and that person who puts that foundation in place. She and her husband Jim certainly did that, along with all these gymnasts who trusted and followed her here.

“It just grew. She was a good thing for the University of Florida.”