NCAA Programs Make Impact  

Collegiate gymnastics appears to be making more headway in diversifying its athlete and coaching pools, though both are still a work in progress. 

Flip the television to an NCAA gymnastics meet, and you'll see an array of diverse talent competing, including Trinity Thomas (Florida), Jocelyn Moore (Missouri) and Chae Campbell (UCLA), as well Olympians like Chiles (UCLA) and Sunisa Lee (Auburn).  

According to the NCAA demographics database, representation for Black coaches is still disproportionate to the percentage of Black gymnasts, which was 8% of women athletes and 8% of men in 2023. 

Excluding HBCUs, there are 85 women's NCAA gymnastics programs around the country. Yet only 7% of women's gymnastics head coaches across all three NCAA divisions in 2023 self-identified as Black, up from 2% in 2012, when data was first collected. Black coaches accounted for 4% of assistant positions in 2023, down from 5% in 2012. 

Men's NCAA gymnastics, which counts only 15 programs nationwide, is even further behind. Former longtime Ohio State coach Miles Avery, the first and only Black coach for USA men's gymnastics at a world championship or an Olympics, was the first Black NCAA Division I coach when he took over the Buckeyes program in 1997. After he resigned in 2010, representation dipped.

Men's college gymnastics did not have a Black head coach from 2012 to 2023; in any one of those years, no more than two assistant coach positions were held by Black people. 

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Corrinne Tarver, a national team member in 1985 and 1986, was the first Black gymnast to win the NCAA all-around national title at Georgia in 1989. Now, she is pioneering once more as head coach at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., which last year became the first HBCU to compete in NCAA gymnastics. This year, Talladega College in Alabama became the second. 

Tarver can still easily count all her fellow Black head coaches on two hands. 

"It's a shame that it's that easy for us to be able to do that. It really is," Tarver said. "It's sad, but that's what it is."

In January, Fisk was set to host a meet with all six college teams led by Black female head coaches before winter storms forced its cancellation. The meet would have been the first of its kind. 

When Rutgers head coach Umme Salim-Beasley took that job in 2018, she was the only Black woman in a head coaching role in NCAA gymnastics. Six years later, that's no longer the case, but Salim-Beasley said the movement toward more representation is "still really in its infancy." 

"I think people are starting to take notice, but you definitely do stand out, and I think when you see that, you're under the microscope when it comes to competition," she said. "People are paying attention to what you're doing because you don't really blend in. So yes, in a sense, I would say that we have more visibility being in the collegiate setting and people do pay attention to what we're doing, which can be really positive and really negative as well." 

There are also fewer coaching jobs available at the college level, and in fewer regions, than at privately owned clubs spread throughout the country. And if you do land a college coaching gig, it might not be paid. This year, the NCAA approved universities adding a third assistant coach for gymnastics, but it is at each individual school's discretion whether that position is paid or volunteer. If it is paid, the program cannot also have a volunteer coach.

In an acutely specialized sport like gymnastics, it is common for college programs to hire former student-athletes as assistant coaches and then recycle those coaches among schools. Since the athlete pool is mostly white, those hires tend to be mostly white.