Al Scharns will enter his twelfth season as an assistant coach at Western Michigan in 2025-2026. Scharns was a standout gymnast at WMU (1980-1985) and was inducted into the WMU Athletics Hall of Fame in the fall of 2023. He has owned and operated Branch Gymnastics in Kalamazoo since 1988.
Since returning to Western Michigan athletics, Scharns has helped the Broncos break the program’s meet scoring record ten times, with a high of 197.100. Under his watch, twelve WMU student-athletes have made 25 regional qualifying appearances.
He has worked with 13 individual MAC champions including Payton Murphy (beam/2022 & floor/2022 & 2023), Amanda Gruber (beam/2024), Dani Petrousek (floor/2024) and Cassie St. Clair (floor/2024), Halle Faulkner (Vault/2022), Sarah Moravansky (all-around/2021), Alexis Olivier (2019/bars), Stacie Harrison (2018/bars), Jessie Peszek (bars/2017) and Anna Corbett (all-around/2015 & vault/2017).
Within the WMU record book, a Bronco coached by Scharns is tied for the top score on the all four events and in the all-around. Cassie St. Clair (2023) and Anna Corbett (2017) are tied for the top score on the vault (9.925). On bars, Amelia Mohler ((2018 & 2019), Stacie Harrison (2018) and Jessie Peszek (2017) with a score of 9.925. Broncos Amanda Gruber & Payton Murphy are tied for the top all-time score on balance beam (9.95). Murphy and teammate St. Clair are tied for the school record on floor (9.975). Murphy owns the school record in the all-around (39.55) which she broke herself five times.
Scharns was a four-year Pennsylvania state champion, earning a full scholarship to Western Michigan and serving as a co-captain on the 1982 and 1983 men’s gymnastics team. He held several WMU school records, including the rings, and he broke the all-around record three times.
He won several Collegiate Conference (Great Lakes League) championships awards from 1980-85 and was also an international competitor in 1982 and 1984.
Scharns was hired by Branch Gymnastics in 1985 and three years later he made the company his own, growing it from 50 students to over 1,400 since 1985. Scharns has over three decades of experience in the gymnastics industry and has been involved with USA Gymnastics on several levels. He has served as a USAG state and regional administration committee board member (men’s & women’s respectively) since 1990. He is the USAG Michigan state administration committee secretary and a member of the USAG men’s competition format committee. He was the USA Gymnastics-Michigan 1991 Coach of the Year and recipient of the 2014 USA Gymnastics Service Award.
Scharns and his wife, Cindy, have developed and offered numerous gymnastics camps, clinics and competitions. They are the proud parents of six children.
