When people think of winter sports, basketball, indoor track and wrestling are often the first that come to mind. This means that gymnastics tends to be overlooked. In fact, many are unaware that Alexandria City High School even has a gymnastics team, as it didn’t always exist but was pioneered by students in recent years.
“This was before I got here, with the previous athletic director…some young ladies came in and proposed starting a team. It kind of evolved from there,” said Executive Director of Athletics and Student Activities James Parker.
This year’s team was built from the ground up, finishing their season at the district tournament with 10 total members, although multiple were injured.
“I think our biggest accomplishment has been recruiting people,” said senior and co-captain Katherine Connelly. “Last year, our team was 17 girls, and a majority were seniors. The only underclassmen were me, Piper [MacCubbin] and Kaia [Brown], so we started with three.”
This commitment to building a team has not gone unnoticed. “The gymnastics team’s always been a very strong group of young ladies that have represented the school very well,” said Parker. “Gymnastics can be a tricky sport because some of the girls that are really good only do club so they don’t ever get on the school team. But, they’ve done good recruiting.”
In addition to a member shortage, the team has also faced challenges with meet locations and transportation. “One of our struggles is we don’t have the equipment here at school, but we also don’t have the certain type of gears in the floor, so we can’t have a practice facility here. That is challenging,” Connelly said. “Practice is at 6 p.m. and we have to go all the way to Thomas Jefferson. It takes about 30 minutes to get there, so it’s inconvenient.”
Parker added that due to the team’s small size and practice locations “outside the city limits of Alexandria,” they often aren’t provided transportation for practice. This poses a concern because these gymnasts have to transport themselves to and from practice.
ACHS has a lot of sports to accommodate for– 19 to be exact, most composed of freshman, JV, and varsity teams– so meeting every need is difficult. “Obviously, you can’t be everything to everybody. We don’t always have all the money in the world or all the time in the world to do certain things,” Parker said. “The hardest part of the job is having to say ‘no’ to certain things, because ultimately, we want to say ‘yes’ to everything.”
Despite the setbacks, members of the team are positive about their experiences as Titan gymnasts. “In my past, I honestly had negative experiences with sports…gymnastics completely changed that for me. It was an environment where I felt supported,” said senior Madesen Lynch.
She continued, “Every sport I’ve done, I’ve always done it at a really competitive level, and so in my senior year, I wanted something where I could still be active, but also have fun and [experience] community.”
Sophomore Kaia Brown also shared her love for the team. “It’s really fun. You meet new people. And a lot of people are worried about not having certain skills or having any prior gymnastics skills, but [to join] you don’t really need any skills at all,” she said. “You could come not being able to do, I don’t know, a forward role, and you could learn. It’s low pressure. It’s approachable.”
Similarly to how her team members feel, Kaia knows that the team has the potential to thrive, but it would require more participation. This is especially true now, given the fact that the seniors just wrapped up their last season. “We are a close knit group of girls, but in order for the team to be supported, we need more people,” said Piper MacCubbin.
