For Bailey Lovett, her fifth year of college gymnastics has been a major balancing act.
Lovett is currently pursuing a Juris Doctorate degree at the University of Arkansas School of Law while completing her COVID year given by the NCAA in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Lovett’s decision to pursue law school didn’t start out when she was younger. In fact, it was only a couple of years ago that the thought entered into her mind.
Lovett’s desire was to stay in the sports world, an area that had become familiar to her due to her time in gymnastics. Her main interests were in the behind the scenes duties, specifically contracts. Lovett had the opportunity to meet with people working behind the scenes in college athletics and it was during her meeting with the General Counsel, the legal representative of the university, that she knew that was her ultimate career path.
Her first step to making that happen was taking the LSAT. The fall semester of her senior year was spent studying for the exam, which Lovett called the hardest part. “[It’s] lots of training your brain to think in a completely different way,” she described of the process. Luckily, it only took her one try to get the score she desired.
The second step was to submit her applications. Besides the University of Arkansas, Lovett applied to two other schools: UNC-Chapel Hill and Arizona State. The latter had the exact degree program she desired, so when the acceptance letter arrived, Lovett thought the decision was made. However, a month later she found out she was accepted to the University of Arkansas’ law school, and she was at a crossroads. She didn’t think she would be able to start fresh on the other side of the country and compete in gymnastics, so the decision came down to her desire to take her fifth year.
“Being hurt [with an elbow injury] my freshman year and then having COVID happen my sophomore year, I didn’t feel like I was ready to be done. I knew I wanted a little bit longer doing gymnastics.”
When head coach Jordyn Wieber found out Lovett wanted to take her fifth year while starting law school, her initial reaction was one of shock, but then she immediately agreed to help Lovett figure out if it would work. The two worked together to create a to-do list of people she needed to talk to and questions she needed to ask to find out if gymnastics and law school at the same time would even be possible. Once she got all the information and a tentative schedule created, Wieber and the coaches agreed to do whatever they could to make it happen because of how determined Lovett was to be a part of the team for her fifth year.
“I give a lot of the props to [Lovett] because she did all of the legwork of figuring out and asking a lot of questions and setting up meetings with people, and that takes a lot of courage and a lot of maturity,” Wieber stated.
Once the semester began, the true balancing act began. Lovett quickly realized there were going to be lots of jam-packed days filled with training, lifting, classes, and homework. Her coaches insisted on monthly check-ins on her physical and mental status and how she felt she was handling everything. It was during one of those meetings that the decision was made to give Lovett additional rest on Tuesdays.
“[She] felt like as she started law school, she was sacrificing sleep, and as coaches, we understand that more important than that practice on Tuesday was her sleep and her ability to maintain her health physically and mentally,” Wieber said.
With the new adjusted schedule in place, Lovett got to work. Practice began at 7:30 a.m., thirty minutes earlier than her teammates, and finished by 9:30 a.m. Her first class was from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and some days she would go back to the gym and lift. The days she wasn’t lifting, she would eat lunch at the law school and then spend three hours working on schoolwork until her second class of the day at 2:00 p.m. Once that class ended at 4:00 p.m., Lovett would head home and get things done there, including taking care of her dog and doing more reading for the next day. At 9:00 p.m., regardless of whether everything got done, she stopped schoolwork for the day and either relaxed or headed off to bed to repeat the schedule all over again. It wasn’t hard to get a handle on it all because it’s how she’s been her whole life.
“I was never a procrastinator growing up. If you gave me an assignment in high school and told me I had three days, I was going to do it on the first day [because] I didn’t like to think about things longer than I had to. When I came to college, it became easy to set what was going to be done each day and then stick to it,” Lovett said.
The adjusted schedule didn’t impact Lovett’s contributions to the team, but her role with the group changed simply because she spent fewer hours in the gym. Wieber, however, knew that the change would not affect Lovett’s determination to help her team succeed.
“She’s just as excited about this program as she was before, even though her mental energy is a little more split. What fuels her is the fact that this was her choice and it came from her love for the team [and] for the sport of gymnastics.”
Now that the season has started, her schedule is a little bit lighter. She gets to start practice with the team but leaves earlier a couple of days a week to head to class. Her coaches continue to be supportive, but her biggest worry entering the spring was her professors. At the start of this semester, she contacted them to explain her situation and asked what she had to do to make this work. Their response was surprising.
“They were amazing. I could not have had better luck with professors. They [said to] watch the recordings [and] stay caught up with everything. If you don’t, that’s only going to hurt you at the end of the day. If you need anything, let me know, but just follow along with the syllabus. I was really worried about it, but it just worked out very well.”
Moving forward, Lovett wants to finish out her gymnastics career with no regrets while transitioning to the next phase of her degree. This summer, she will be working with the General Counsel who inspired her career choice to learn more about what he does. After finishing law school, Lovett wants to focus on sports law and use her platform to give back to other athletes. Wieber expressed her pride for Lovett and her growth not only as an athlete but as a person through her four years at Arkansas.
“The way that she’s represented our team, in and out of the gym, has been incredible. She’s left a legacy on Arkansas gymnastics, and she’s proving that anyone could do really hard things.”
As she concludes her final season, Lovett wants to make sure she is adjusting to her busier schedule and taking everything day by day. “I want to ultimately find the ways every day to put myself first so I can learn as much as possible from this journey that I chose to do this year. When I’m done, [I will feel] like I made the most of it. I learned everything I could, and now it’s time to move on.”
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Article by Savanna Whitten
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