Valorie Kondos Field

Valorie Kondos Field (born Valorie Kondos; August 20, 1959), often referred to as Miss Val, is a retired American gymnastics coach.

Kondos Field is married to retired UCLA Senior Associate Athletic Director and former football coach, Bobby Field, a three-year starter for the Arkansas Razorbacks football team from 1968-70.

In 1982, at age twenty-two, she retired from dancing to attend the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1983, she became an assistant coach and choreographer for the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team.

She graduated from UCLA in 1987 with a degree in history.

Kondos Field is also an accomplished pianist, and director and producer of live shows.

She was the head coach of the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1991 to 2019, leading the Bruins to seven national championship titles.

Kondos Field was named head coach of the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team in 1991.

Additionally, the team won 19 Pac-12 championships, the first in 1993 and the last in 2019.

and 16 NCAA Regional titles.

In 1997, the team won their first national NCAA championship title, she was the fourth coach in NCAA Gymnastics history to win a championship.

The team won the National Championship title again in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2010 and 2018, for a total of seven wins under Kondos Field's leadership.

This comeback came after Antolin was removed from the team in 2001.

Antolin was reinstated in 2002 stating, “I am more responsible for my actions.

I used to put things off on other people.

Now I know it starts with me.”

In 2004, Former National Team Member and UCLA gymnast Jeanette Antolin was named the Sports Illustrated On Campus National Gymnast of the Year.

She also helped lead the Bruins to 3 National Championships.

In 2004 Kondos Field earned Choreographer of the Year award at the Canadian National Championships for Kate Richardson’s beam and floor routines.

Kondos Field worked as a freelance choreographer and director with the entertainment department at SeaWorld, San Diego for 30 years.

Riptide and Cirque De La Mer won the IAAPA, which is an international award for theme park shows.

In 2010, Kondos Field was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.

Over the years Kondos Field has coached Olympic gymnasts: Jamie Dantzscher, Mohini Bhardwaj, Kate Richardson, Tasha Schwikert, Kristen Maloney, Yvonne Tousek, Stella Umeh, Luisa Portocarrero, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Sam Peszek, Jennifer Pinches, Peng Peng Lee, Kyla Ross, and Madison Kocian.

Peng Peng Lee was elected team captain for the Canadian Olympic team in 2012.

In her final season at UCLA, Lee helped the team win their seventh NCAA title with a perfect 10 (her second of the day) on the last routine of the meet.

Jordyn Wieber joined the team as the team manager and then a volunteer assistant coach for UCLA.

She coached 5 Honda Award Winners and two Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year. Kondos Field was voted NCAA Coach of the Year four times by her peers and in 2016 was voted the Coach of the Century by the PAC12 Conference.

Kondos Field was the co-executive producer for the 2017 TV special “Jump, Jive & Thrive, ” a televised benefit show for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

She is a four-time Conference Coach of the Year, the 2018 West Region Head Coach of the Year, and the Pac-12 Gymnastics Coach of the Century.

She is the third most-winning NCAA gymnastics coach, behind Suzanne Yoculan and Greg Marsden.

Kondos Field grew up in Sacramento, California.

Kondos Field was a professional ballet dancer at Sacramento Ballet, Capital City Ballet, and Washington Ballet.

In August 2018, Kondos Field joined Olympic Gold Medalists and UCLA gymnasts Kyla Ross and Madison as they publicly spoke about abuse by Larry Nassar publicly for the first time.

Kondos Field coached 20 athletes to 36 NCAA Individual Championships as head and assistant coach.

On September 20, 2018, she announced her retirement as the head coach of the Bruins gymnastics team, with her final meet on April 20, 2019.

Kondos Field's autobiography Life is Short, Don't Wait to Dance was published by Hachette Book Group in October 2018.

It contains self-help and leadership advice based on Kondos Field's experiences as a gymnastics coach.

Kondos Field has spoken at “Corporate Coaching” events for companies including Gucci, JPMorgan Chase, General Electric, Jackson National Life Insurance, and the Aspen Institute, and has contributed to panel discussions including Bustle’s “Rule Breakers” and the ESPNW Summit.

Her first TED Talk, "Why winning doesn't always equal success ” was delivered in 2019 and has garnered over 2 million views.

Kondos Field joined softball coach Sue Enquist to teach a webinar series called “Critical Conversations: Transformative Coaching and Leadership, ” presented by the UCLA Transformative Coaching & Leadership Academy.