Hungry to Win: Ribeiro Begins the New Era
September 25, 2022 | Men's Gymnastics
FEATURE
When Daniel Ribeiro had to choose his major during his junior year, he started freaking out. Already a captain the previous season, he opted to combine two things he loved – being a leader of the men's gymnastics team and playing Madden franchise mode, a decision that led to a business management major, and ultimately a career in coaching.
"I realized, which was so incredible, all the work that I'd been doing in Madden fit so unbelievably well with my business management major and from a person-to-person standpoint," Ribeiro said. "I realized that my work in Madden, the hours and hours that I put into Madden, the video game, was one of the most beneficial things I could have done to learn how to build teams, from a strategic standpoint at the collegiate level, and then being a captain taught me how to build teams from a culture and leadership standpoint."
From Chestnut Ridge, New York, Ribeiro chose to attend Illinois after seeing the team dynamic and culture, and he knew he wanted to join "the closest team in the country."
Competing with the Illini from 2008-2011, Ribeiro won two NCAA pommel horse titles and three Big Ten pommel horse titles and was a three-time All-American.
A captain for the final three years of his collegiate career, Ribeiro became close with former head coach Justin Spring, who joined the team ahead of the 2010 season. Though Ribeiro was still a student-athlete, the pair constantly discussed strategy, scholarships, and training plans. After being an invested team captain, Ribeiro took on an official assistant coaching role with his alma mater immediately after graduation.
"I made it a point to be very, very close with Justin," Ribeiro said. "I was a pseudo-coach as a captain in the last half of my career, to the point where it was like almost an immediate switch. Justin was waiting for me to graduate to bring me on a staff. From then on, we were just seamlessly working together, developing, evolving, winning, losing. The whole rest of our history just developed from there."
In his first year in the assistant coaching position and at the age of 21, Ribeiro and the Illini won the NCAA Championships, and he earned the National Assistant Coach of the Year award for his work, the youngest-ever recipient of the accolade.
In 2015, Ribeiro was promoted to associate head coach, but that title did not result in any changes in responsibilities. Having already been Spring's second-hand man as both an athlete and coach, he knew he deserved a promotion.
"The real reason that promotion came about was because of everything that I was taking on from a leadership standpoint and a program standpoint," Ribeiro said. "I was doing a lot, and we were winning championships. It was something that I'd earned. In the five years that I was an assistant, I had my hands in every pot with Justin, like we were running that program together, so being an associate head coach was appropriate for the role that I was already taking on."
When Spring left the program in 2022, Ribeiro assumed the interim head coach position, and he immediately had to fill in the gaps within his coaching staff. Assistant coach Don Osborn remained in his role, while he filled in the other assistant position with Tim McNeill and added Wes Haagensen as a volunteer coach.
The group has a "perfect balance between youth and experience," Ribeiro says, and all four coaches have won individual and team titles while competing and coaching. With the staff in place, he has set the foundation for team and recruiting success.
"It's exactly what I was going for when I envisioned putting together the absolute perfect and best staff in the country," Ribeiro said. "We are the only school to have four coaches at this caliber, and we are absolutely, clear and away the best coaching staff in the country."
When Ribeiro was still an assistant, he opted to add numbers to uniforms, something he knew would make athletes more identifiable and bring them "closer to mainstream sports." The move also allows Illinois to retire the numbers of program legends, which acts as motivation for the team and creates potential events moving forward.
Since taking over the head coach position, Ribeiro has added "titles" within the program, which a gymnast earns every time they win an event or all-around title at a meet. Ribeiro says it took him 150 hours to sift through over one century of Illini men's gymnastics history, and it allows him to push athletes to set records and move up on program leader boards.
Though these might be seemingly small things will add up, Ribeiro says, and create positive change within the program.
"I've always been into the tiny little details and the tiny little things," Ribeiro said. "These are very tiny little things, but they could have a big impact. If I can create enough avenues of things that could have a large impact on our program, I'm certain that a number of those tiny little details will hit. If I have a number of those tiny little details that do hit, then we're going to make a large impact on the program."
With the implementation of the numbers and statistics, Ribeiro has also maintained the culture and reputation of Illinois men's gymnastics that initially attracted him to the program. Despite the addition of new coaches, the Illini identity will remain consistent while continuing to evolve and develop.
"Culture is something that I'm not going to need to change a whole lot. What I'm going to do is continue to evolve it," Ribeiro said. "Creating a core value system is the baseline of culture. Creating a value system that athletes can live their lives around, that shape everything that they do is the thought process behind culture. As long as we are continually creating those opportunities to develop our team and our culture, we're gonna continue to have the absolute strongest team chemistry in the country."
With the interim tag, Ribeiro has already left his mark on the program that has meant so much to him over the past 15 years, and he's determined to take the Orange and Blue to the top of the Big Ten and the NCAA.
"We are the most storied program here," Ribeiro said. "It is the least talked about program with the most success. That's what we stand for. It's within our DNA. It's who we are. Illinois has been champions for the last 100 years, and I plan on continuing that status."
