Golden Bear alumnus and former Team USA member Donothan Bailey has joined the California men's gymnastics staff as an assistant coach, head coach Bryan Del Castillo announced Tuesday. Bailey, a three-time All-American at Cal and a U.S. pommel horse champion, joins the Bears from Kinetic Gymnastics in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he has spent the past two-and-a-half years as team coach of its boys' and girls' programs.
 
"I'm incredibly excited to have Donothan on our coaching staff," Del Castillo said. "He brings elite gymnastics experience, energy and the kind of leadership that will have a meaningful impact on our student-athletes and culture. As an alum of this program, Donothan understands and shares our values – he is ready to help guide our student-athletes toward success in both the gym and the classroom."
 
Bailey's tenure at Kinetic Gymnastics has resulted in his gymnasts collecting over 40 individual state titles, as well as eight individual regional championships and an individual national title. During that time, he also spent one year (April 2024-25) as an athlete fellow with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), where he created five Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs for National Governing Bodies and was selected as the USOPC ambassador for the Chinese Olympic Committee's Ninth Annual Youth Camp in Beijing. Bailey acted as interim head coach (and later assistant coach) for the USA Gymnastics Resident Team from 2021-22, with his gymnasts earning two national team berths, a national title and a Pan American title.
 
He competed as a professional gymnast through 2021, which included several international assignments for Team USA. In Bailey's first post-collegiate season, he took bronze on pommel horse at the Winter Cup and went on to represent the United States at the FISU World University Games, earning gold on pommel horse while finishing fifth in the all-around, before taking pommel horse silver at the U.S. Championships. The next year, he improved his pommel horse finish at both the Winter Cup (silver) and the U.S. Championships (gold). He also medaled for Team USA at the 2017 World Championships, taking bronze on high bar, and claimed two runner-up finishes (parallel bars, high bar) at the 2018 U.S. Championships.
 
Bailey attended Cal from 2010-14 and helped the Bears to three consecutive top-five team finishes at the NCAA Championships (2010-12), also earning individual All-America honors in 2011 (pommel horse) and 2014 (all-around, pommel horse) while earning bronze with Team USA at the 2011 Pan American Games. He is the most recent Cal gymnast to win an MPSF title on pommel horse, doing so in 2012 and again in 2014. As a senior in 2014, he was named a finalist for the Nissen-Emery Award, which is presented each year to the nation's finest senior collegiate gymnast. Prior to his collegiate career, Bailey was a member of the U.S. Junior National Team from 2007-09 and a three-time national champion on pommel horse (2006-08).
 
"I'm very excited for the opportunity to come back to Berkeley and work alongside a lifelong friend and teammate in Bryan," Bailey said. "Bryan is someone I've looked up to and learned from since I was a junior gymnast, so it feels like I've come full circle to get to coach with and learn from him again. I think what this team is doing is special, and it is truly a privilege to be part of its story and witness its greatness. This sport gives me so much joy, and I hope to share that passion with the young men that come through this program."
 
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