Coaching Staff
Jay Santos - Head Coach
In his fourth season as the head coach in 2020, Jay Santos helped a young team, with seven making their collegiate debuts, reach new heights. They finished with a winning record (7-6-1) for the second-straight season, including a win over No. 10 Cal. Due to COVID-19 concerns, the season was cut short the week before the Pac-12 Championship, meaning NCAA regionals did not happen as well. However, the team went out on a high note, finishing ranked No. 21 on Road to Nationals, the highest ranking of the year. The four meets before the cancellations were all 196.000s or better, with a total of five team scores surpassing that number in 2020. In the last seven meets, the Gym Devils scored a 49.000+ on vault, finishing the season ranked No. 17 in the nation in that event. They also finished No. 17 on bars with six individual scores of 9.900 or better earned that season, five coming from Cairo Leonard-Baker. Santos led the Gym Devils to another successful season in 2019, the first since 2014 to have a winning record (11-10) in the regular season. The team was ranked in the top-25 on Road to Nationals all year and earned four wins over top-25 teams throughout the season. They scored a 196.000 or better six times and had a team RQS (Regional Qualifying Score) of 196.320 at the end of the year. The season-high score of 196.625 came at home against Oregon State, which was the 25th highest team total in program history. There were 25 scores of 9.900 or above throughout the year. To start off the postseason, the Sun Devils took fifth at the Pac-12 Gymnastics Championships, the best team finish since 2006. The team qualified for their second-straight trip to NCAA Regionals. Cairo Leonard-Baker qualified for nationals as an individual on bars, earning Second Team All-America honors. Boasting arguably one of the most substantial turnarounds in recent collegiate gymnastics history, Santos' squad improved 18 spots from their 2017 national finish of 41, capping the 2018 season ranked at No. 23 nationally (highest finish since 2007). Ranking in the top-20 of the national standings for 12 consecutive weeks, Arizona State made its first team NCAA regional appearance since 2014 while sending individual all-around qualifier Cairo Leonard-Baker to nationals. Courtesy of his efforts at the helm of the program, Santos was named the 2018 Pac-12 Coach of the Year. Under the tutelage of Santos, the Maroon and Gold jumped nearly a point and half in their season finale RQS tally, improving from 195.145 in 2017 to 196.545 this season. Most notably, the team eclipsed the 49.000+ mark in 33 event rotations, after only having done so four times in 2017. The Gym Devils knocked off four ranked opponents on the season — No. 14 Auburn, No. 20 Iowa, No. 14 West Virginia, and No. 20 Stanford — marking the first time since 2006 that the squad has accomplished the feat, while accumulating 13 team wins. In his first season as head coach in 2017, Santos quickly elevated the program, as the Gym Devils hit a season high team score in five of six consecutive meets including a season high 195.700 at Arizona. The Gym Devils scored 195 in four separate meets, the first time that has happened since the 2014 season. The team showed significant improvement on bars and beam from the 2016 season. Their bars regional qualifying score increased from a 48.24 in 2016 to a 48.8 in 2017 while beam improved from 48.57 to 48.93. The Gym Devils finished the season ranked 29th in the country on beam. The Gym Devils also bested then-No. 23 Arizona for the program's first Pac-12 win since 2014 and the coveted Territorial Cup series point. At the Pac-12 Championship, the Gym Devils completed the season with a 195.600, their second highest team score of the season, plus a season-high 49.275 on beam in the final rotation, the highest team beam score since March 13, 2009. It was the second highest team total for the program at a championship meet since 2004 when they scored a 196.775. Vice President for University Athletics and Athletics Director Ray Anderson named Jay Santos the head women’s gymnastics coach on May 27, 2016. Santos’ wife, Jessica Santos, serves as the Sun Devil Gymnastics program’s associate head coach. They have two sons, Mason and Cooper.
James Williams - Assistant Coach
Hired on June 1, 2023, James Williams came to Arizona State after working as a recruiting associate. Prior to that, he spent four seasons at San José State, where he was primarily a bars and floor coach. He also has experience coaching at Yale and in club gymnastics.
With the Spartans, Williams helped the team reach new heights as the bars and floor coach in his four years there. The 2022 MPSF Assistant Coach of the Year, he helped the team earn eight of the top-10 team program bests on bars and the top six on floor. On bars, one of those was a program record of 49.350, which was set in 2022. That season, the team set the five highest team scores in program history and earned nine of the top 10 individual all-around scores. In the MPSF conference, he helped the squad sweep first-team all-conference on bars in 2022. During his time, he coached 10 All-MPSF selections on bars and nine on floor.
Yale, he was an assistant coach for a year, where he was the primary vault, bars and floor coach. He was named the 2018 ECAC Assistant Coach of the Year. The 2018 team had the highest team score, bars score and vault score in school history as well as its highest RQS in program history. Two Bulldogs qualified for the NCAA Regional for the first time, and the team broke more than 40 school records.
A club coach with over 12 years experience at JO and Level 10 or higher, he was the women’s team coach at AIM Texans Athletics in The Woodlands, Texas prior to going to Yale. Williams coached the women’s team at the KPAC Kristie Phillips Athletic Center in Statesville, N.C., and at the Stars Gymnastics Training Center in Houston, Texas.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Williams is a 2010 University of Houston graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business.
Lacy Dagen - Assistant Coach
Lacy Dagen was announced as an assistant coach on June 16, 2023.
Dagen has previously served as the volunteer assistant at UC Davis in 2022 before returning to Corvallis in 2023 to be the volunteer coach for the Beavers. She also competed as a gymnast at Oregon State from 2018-21 and was on the roster at Florida from 2016-17.
While with Oregon State for the 2023 season, Dagen helped the Beavers to another successful season. The team advanced to the NCAA Regional Finals in Denver and had a final ranking of No. 12. OSU was ranked No. 4 on beam and No. 8 on floor to end the year as well. Dagen helped coach All-American Jade Carey, who was the 2023 Pac-12 Gymnast of the Year. She also coached her younger sister Madi Dagen, who was All-Pac-12 honorable mention on floor. The team ended the year with 12-straight team scores of 197-plus, including a 198.075 that broke the program record. OSU also earned a share of the Pac-12 Regular Season Title for the second year in a row.
In her role with UC Davis, Dagen helped kick-start a record-breaking competition season, with the Aggies earning the highest score in school history at an MPSF Championship, earning a 196.050 to finish second at the meet. She assisted in the Aggies breaking the school's road score with a 196.225 at Sacramento State, as well as school and conference vault score with a 49.300 at San Jose State. The UC Davis squad finished the season with the highest NQS score in school history, tallying a 195.915, while Dagen assisted in 17 MPSF All-Conference honors with eight individuals receiving recognition, including the MPSF Gymnast of the Year and three Aggies qualifying for the 2022 NCAA Regional Championship.
Dagen competed at Oregon State from 2018-21 and was selected to the Pac-12 Vault All-Conference Team and received several academic honors. She became a regular part of the balance beam and vault lineup. She went on to hit 17 out of 18 routines in 2020, including a career-high 9.975 on beam in a dual with Stanford. She was granted an additional year of eligibility from the NCAA in 2021, in which she made six appearances on vault. She went on to garner All-Pac-12 honorable mention, thanks to a national-qualifying score of 9.881 that ranked her eighth in the conference on vault. In all, Dagen earned three additional Scholastic All-America awards, a Pac-12 All-Academic first-team nod, and two Pac-12 Winter Honor Roll accolades during her Oregon State career.
Prior to Oregon State, Dagen started her career as a student-athlete at the University of Florida, where she was largely sidelined by injury: she sat out her true freshman year of 2016, scored a 9.85 on vault in her first appearance as a redshirt freshman, then suffered another season-ending injury soon after to keep her out of the 2017 year. She earned SEC Academic Honor Roll status in each of those two seasons, plus an NACGC/W Scholastic All-America award in 2017.
Originally from Foothill High School in Pleasanton, California, Dagen trained at San Mateo Gymnastics. She received her bachelor's degree in sociology and innovation management in 2020 and her master's degree in kinesiology from Oregon State in 2022.
Jazmyn Foberg - Assistant Coach
Jazmyn Foberg was announced as a new assistant coach for Sun Devil Gymnastics on October 18, 2023.
Foberg, having been a student-athlete herself, brings another perspective to the coaching staff having competed at Florida, helping the Gators to three SEC titles. Prior to her time in Florida, she was a three-time U.S. Junior National Team Member.
During her time at Florida, Foberg competed in all four events throughout her career, specializing in vault in the latter part. Throughout all four years at Florida, she was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll and as a WCGA Scholastic All-American each season. She was also a two-time SEC Freshman of the Week. She was a resilient and persistent individual having come back from three major surgeries during her gymnastics career.
Her coaching experience most recently was being the head gymnastics coach at Apollo School of Gymnastics where she coached their competitive gymnastics teams and took on the responsibilities as the director of competitive teams. She was also previously helped out with Sun Country Gymnastics in Gainesville, Florida.
She graduated from Florida with both a bachelor's (family, youth and community services) and a master's (entrepreneurship). She is from Bayville, New Jersey and trained at MG Elite.