It’s Friday night in the SEC. There’s vibrant energy on college campuses as fans pour into stadiums for a night of thrilling gymnastics. Hitting a remarkable milestone, the iconic Friday Night Heights franchise on the SEC Network embarked on its 10th season last Friday, January 5, when a packed Pete Maravich Assembly Center (affectionately known as the PMAC) saw LSU defeat Ohio State in a close meet and set the stage for a record-breaking nine consecutive weekends of SEC conference action this season.
There’s a world beyond the hard work in the gym that goes into creating a competitive and fun atmosphere for gymnasts and fans alike. Let’s pull back the curtain and delve beyond the spectacle to explore the behind-the-scenes rituals of the gymnasts who compete on these stages week after week. We’ll unravel the untold stories behind the gymnasts’ hair, makeup, and tanning routines that contribute to their polished appearances. We’re going to get to the bottom of how these world-class athletes prepare for the electrifying meet nights in the SEC.
Friday night meets hold a special significance for LSU gymnasts KJ Johnson and Aleah Finnegan. “These nights you only get for four years of your life, so those are the ones you want to enjoy the most,” Johnson emphasizes. Behind the glittering performances that fans see on television, it’s easy to overlook that these athletes are also students with academic obligations. Friday’s with home meets are busy days; the gymnasts head to class in the morning and have to finish their classwork and homework by 1:45pm when the team meets at the gym. “We’ll do a power circle and our whole team goes to the arena to walk through our routines and do mental sets before coming back to the gym and having lunch,” said Johnson. “We try to keep the energy super light” she said “we listen to a bunch of music,” curated by teammate Sierra Ballard. “She always has the jams,” added Johnson.
The routine is similar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where junior Lilly Hudson and fifth-year Mati Waligora shared that music and dancing are a big part of their pre-meet hype. For Waligora, visualizing her routines and praying for “peace, strength, and safety” are key parts of her preparation for a meet. Hudson also shared that saying a quick prayer before each event “grounds me and calms my nerves, knowing I’m competing for the audience of One.” Hudson also noted that a favorite activity in the locker room at Alabama is a team game of Spikeball. “It really sets the vibe and gets our competitive juices flowing – you’ll see that pregame this year,” Hudson said.
One of the most time–consuming tasks on meet days is managing the team’s hairstyles. Jillian Procasky, one of the athletes tasked with hair duties at Kentucky, notes the efficiency gained by having multiple hair braiders “We have a few braiders on the team which definitely helps getting ready go by a little quicker than only having one girl who can braid”. In contrast, LSU relies heavily on Bree, one of their gym managers, to handle most of the braiding responsibilities.
A notable enthusiast of distinctive hairstyles, KJ Johnson, famed for her ‘space buns’ on meet nights, finds the process both iconic and challenging. Aleah Finnegan shed some light on the locker room scene, describing how Johnson strives to perfect her space buns before the athletes hit the floor. “We’ll all be ready to go in the locker room, and KJ is still trying to get her buns in place before we go out,” said Finnegan. Johnson’s preference for this style stems from its functionality, effectively keeping her hair secured and out of her face during all four rotations, something she found wasn’t always the case when she put it in a single bun.
Reflecting on the widespread popularity of her unique hairstyle, Johnson recalls the initial excitement it generated. “The very first meet that I did it, everyone went crazy about the hair,” she shares, noting how it became a trend among young fans who would turn up to meets sporting matching buns. “I try to do it now to indulge them and match them, even though it’s very difficult and stressful, I’m not going to lie! It can be the most stressful part of my day versus competing, or doing a certain event.”
Finnegan has also toyed with an iconic hairstyle of her own, having the letters LSU braided into her hair for the 2023 SEC conference championships and emphasizing it with purple glitter. The idea came from the LSU softball team who do glitter in their hair for their games. Finnegan watched a TikTok video of one of the girls on the team and said, “They did the braids and they put glitter in it and I was like, that’s such a good idea. They do it for the games, Why can’t we do it for our meets? I probably should have tried it beforehand because there was a lot of glitter everywhere but it was fun and I’m glad I was able to do it.”
Another crucial aspect of meet preparation, especially for televised events, is tanning and makeup. At LSU, Finnegan notes that the majority of the team opts for spray tans, often scheduling sessions together on Thursday nights. However, she occasionally prefers self-tanning for the convenience of being able to do it in her own apartment and having it fit more easily into her busy schedule.
Johnson had not experienced spray tans before joining LSU. During her freshman year, she relied on self-tanner but found it unsatisfactory. “Things like tape and Biofreeze spray would make it patchy on my skin.” She added that she “couldn’t get the spray tan to set correctly,” so in her sophomore year, she decided to use tanning beds instead. “I just haven’t really used a spray tan since. If I ever do one, I’ll just do a self-tan on my legs from my hips down to my knees because that’s the only part of my skin showing throughout the meet. I wear compression sleeves on my legs, so that’s covered. I have a long-sleeve leotard, so my body and arms are covered, and I wear wrist guards and wristbands, so my hands are covered.”
At Kentucky, Jillian Procasky prefers to tan a “few days in advance, just to make sure that if there is a tanning disaster I can try to fix it before the meet.” Her teammate fifth-year Raena Worley also elects to tan in advance telling me this is usually, “the night before we leave prior to a competition. This allows for the tan to fully set in and allows me time to get rid of any orangey tones that could be on my skin.” Her favorite brand is “Loving Tan,” and she uses their platinum line.
Makeup is another important routine for many gymnasts. If Johnson knows the meet will be on TV, she spends a bit of extra time on her makeup, to make sure she’s “looking sharp.” Worley shared how her ability to do her makeup for meet nights has evolved over the years. “I used to have one of my teammates do my eyeshadow for every meet. But now I do it myself and try to do something different for each meet. It always makes me chuckle to think about it, because we will start to get ready and my roommate will ask what look I’m planning to go with, and I never know.”
There are some things that she keeps the same each week before a meet though. “I listen to the same playlist before each competition. I like to wear a certain pair of socks during warm-up or while getting ready. I have a necklace I always wear, and I hang it in the same spot for every meet.”
All the athletes I spoke to talked about the importance of the energy in the locker room before heading out into the competition arena. At LSU, Johnson said, “It’s really fun in the locker room right before we’re getting ready. A lot of us take pictures and just try and do whatever we need to do to get into that mental headspace of getting ready to go and compete and have fun.”
For Finnegan, keeping the energy up is important. “I think it’s good for each person on the team to collectively know that we all have each other’s back and we all trust each other to just go out there and hit our routines like normal,”, she said. “It’s a party: like we go out there and we have fun, vibes are up, energy is up because sometimes it can be a long day and we don’t compete till like 8 p.m. but we’re still trying to be energetic and be on the move.”
It’s a similar story for Wildcat Raena Worley. “I think the team dynamic is super important leading up to a competition. I think it goes in waves; at first, when people are getting ready it’s calm and people are focused on getting prepared. Then leaving the hotel or locker room it’s super hype and lots of energy, then getting to the meet is always a party vibe. Once we’re at the meet the locker room is bursting with energy and excitement. The last 15-20 minutes are still energized, but more individually which is nice so we can hone in and prepare. Then once we start to walk out to warm up it’s all party vibes.”
These athletes compete week after week under the SEC’s slogan “It just means more,” and there certainly is so much more behind the scenes than the amazing performances we see across the conference each weekend. Worley loves competing in the SEC because of the passion of the fans and the level of competition. “There is nothing like a Friday night adrenaline rush,” she said. “It’s always so fun to see the gymnastics community come together for a meet. I also love the atmosphere of the competitions. I think the SEC is such a competitive atmosphere to be in, so when you’re competing at one of the meets you know it’s going to be fun.” Finnegan echoed a similar sentiment. “Everybody is good in the SEC, we’re all constantly battling each other out to be better and that’s how competition builds. That’s how we, as a conference, get better because we’re all constantly pushing the other teams”.
As the 10th season of Friday Night Heights unfolds and we continue to see some of the best gymnasts in the country take to arenas in the SEC week after week, it seems that the gymnasts of this conference contribute to a spectacle that transcends mere competition, embodying the true essence of “it just means more” in the rich tapestry of collegiate gymnastics.
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Article by Katie Couldrey
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