Rene is the Co-Head coach at the University of Arkansas. Seven years ago, she and husband Mark Cook took on the challenge of moving to Fayettville and starting up a program at the University of Arkansas. Remarkably, they were able to field a team that qualified for the NCAA Championships just 4 years later, and their program has been rising in the national rankings ever since.
Rene is a former Penn State gymnast and held her first coaching position at Penn State for one year before becoming the assistant coach at UMass. After 3 season in Massachusetts, Rene was an assistant at Stanford along with husband Mark Cook. Together they led Stanford to its first Pac-10 championship in womenÂs gymnastics in 1998 and repeated the feat in 2001. Under the Cooks tutelage, the Cardinal had its first national champion gymnast, Larissa Fontaine.
