Gymnastics coach Rob Survick reflects for a moment as coach Brian Kern, directly behind him, briefs a group of young athletes before an afternoon workout. Aspire owner Scott Barclay said Survick is one of the main people who kept the gym and its athletes connected to high levels of competition as the gym reaches its 30th birthday with a daylong Saturday, Sept. 13 celebration.
Independent Newsmedia/Jason W. Brooks
Gymnastics coach Rob Survick advises a young gymnast during an afternoon workout. Aspire owner Scott Barclay said Survick is one of the main people who kept the gym and its athletes connected to high levels of competition as the gym reaches its 30th birthday with a daylong Saturday, Sept. 13 celebration.
When Rob Survick was finally diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, he was still able to move around, make videos on his own and was a staunch supporter of more federal funding for ALS research and treatment.
He still believes in all those causes, and still wants government to do right by patients who have the rare motor neuron disease. But the progressive nature of his illness mean these days, he needs a lot of physical help.
“This is what’s keeping me alive,” Survick says, gesturing across the Aspire gymnastics training center in west Chandler. “My focus now is just to try and have a good day, contribute and fight for what I can.”
Survick grew up in the Valley and attended Arizona State University in the late '90s and early 2000s, competing with Sun Devil Gymnastics, the club that evolved after ASU dropped men’s gymnastics as an NCAA sport in the early '90s.
Fully self-sustaining now, Sun Devil Gymnastics won three national team collegiate titles, the most recent one this year. In fact, the squad has won three of the first five crowns in the recently formed, 16-team Gymnastics Association of College Teams, or GymACT.
Aspire, the Chandler Fashion Center-area gym where the Sun Devil men and a junior team train under Survick’s tutelage, is celebrating its 30th anniversary Saturday, Sept. 13 with family-friendly activities and games and live demonstrations from Aspire athletes, starting as early as 9 a.m.
These days, Survick still makes it to practice, and while he’s made it past the typical five-year window since diagnosis of ALS, for which there’s no cure, he has handed off most coaching to Aspire owner Scott Barclay and former student, turned-coach Brian Kern.
“One of the big keys to keeping this thing going for 30 years has been people like Rob, who’s been with us as long as we’ve been in this building (in about 2005),” Barclay said. “You wouldn’t see all those champions' names on the wall without their hard work and the work of coaches like Rob.”
ALS often presents in its early stages with gradual muscle stiffness, twitches, weakness and wasting. After Survick noticed some symptoms and doctors finally determined in 2020 that he had ALS and not a pinched nerve or another problem, he began to slowly lose the use of his arms and legs.
By the time the Arizona Diamondbacks reached the 2023 World Series, in October of that year, that’s about when he started to need a wheelchair full-time to go anywhere, he said.
And 2024 marked the end of out-of-state trips. Eventually, he’ll lose his ability to speak.
After Survick was picked up by a gymnast and moved, via wheelchair, from one old recliner chair in the Aspire gym to another on a September afternoon, Survick pointed out that nearly every ALS patient finds themselves in a dark place once they’re first diagnosed.
“It’s important to think of this as a disease we live with, not that we’re dying of it,” he said.
Most cases of ALS, or about 90–95%, have no known cause, and are known as sporadic ALS. While genetic and environmental factors are believed to be involved, Survick’s children have been tested and don’t appear to have the genes for ALS, he said.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
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