ITHACA, N.Y. -- After more than a quarter-century playing a pivotal role in the success of the Big Red program, Melanie Hall has been named head coach of the Cornell women's gymnastics team it was announced today by Andy Noel, the Meakem*Smith Director of Athletics and Physical Education.

Hall has been involved in every aspect of Cornell gymnastics under her former collegiate coach Paul Beckwith since 1994 and has been one of the most decorated coaches - head or assistant - in the nation over that span. The five-time USA Gymnastics Collegiate National Assistant Coach of the Year (2001, '06, '07, '08 and '10) was also the 2002 NCAA Regional Assistant Coach of the Year and a seven-time ECAC Assistant Coach of the Year. She became associate head coach in 2013 and has been primarily focused on balance beam and floor exercise routines.

The 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 ECAC Assistant Coach of the Year, she has been instrumental in helping the team break record after record and developing 99 USA Gymnastics collegiate All-Americans and seven NCAA Regional competitors. The 2009 squad became the first-ever non-scholarship program to claim a USA Gymnastics collegiate national title. Individual records have been set on all four individual events and the all-around, and every team record has fallen under her tenure. The team has won seven Ivy Classic and two ECAC team titles while working on South Hill.

Hall is currently a member of the WCGA Board of Directors and the USAG Nationals Coaches Committee. She served as statistician of the ECAC Committee from 1999-2018 and was the NCAA Regional Score Coordinator for the Northeast from 2012-18.

She spent two seasons as an assistant coach and choreographer on floor and beam at her alma mater, Radford, under Beckwith and in 1992, helped lead the squad to a third-place finish at the United States Gymnastics Federation sponsored NCAA Division I National Invitational Tournament in Springfield, Mass. A former NCAA competitive gymnast at Radford University (1988-1992), Hall was a four-year letter winner and a record-holder on bars.

In 1999, Hall began her career as an Olympic weightlifter. She took second in the 58-kg weight class with a 110-kg total in the snatch and clean and jerk that year at the Empire State Games. In 2000, she again placed second with a personal-best total of 112.5-kg. She repeated that performance in 2003, 2004 and 2008.

Hall is a safety certified professional member of the USAG and a current member of the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA).

A native of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Hall has two daughters, Maren and Ava.