Almost five months after the injury that nearly ended her freshman season, Avery Neff still couldn’t tell you exactly what happened.
Being in an environment like the Huntsman Center had caused some nerves for her on floor in her first meet, tallying a fall. But after hitting her first two passes in the second home meet of the season, she was feeling good. As she headed into her third pass, however, that’s when things took a turn.
Lying on the floor after a punch gone wrong, the first thing Neff did was ensure her safety. Her upper body was okay, but her ankles were in the worst pain she had felt in her life.
Then, away from the crowds and with her family in the tunnels of the arena, the tears began to flow. “I was anticipated to bring so much to this team and to the legacy of Utah Gymnastics,” she recalled, “and [now] it’s probably over.”
Prior to her arrival at Utah, the former five-star recruit earned the notoriety of being the highest-rated recruit from College Gym News. Neff described it as an honor, but she didn’t want others to perceive her any differently because of it. She went on official visits to Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU, and Florida– the maximum she was allowed at the time due to recruiting rules. Each program, Neff explained, looked past the label of “Avery the five-star recruit” and showed why it wanted her as a person, but also a gymnast. After committing to her home-state Red Rocks, head coach Carly Dockendorf knew exactly what to expect.
“She’s way more than just a phenomenal gymnast,” Dockendorf explained. “Knowing her over the years, there was [never] any second guess that we were going to get anything less than what we believed.”
As Neff began the 2025 season, she looked set to deliver on those expectations. Heading into week three, she was the reigning Big 12 freshman of the week after a 39.600 at the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad, the highest score in the all-around for the conference at that point in the season. Prior to her injury, Neff was coming off a season-high 9.925 on beam. Then came the injury, a moment that Dockendorf described as a reminder of how sports can take dreams away in an instant.
“I felt for her deeply in that moment,” Dockendorf recalled. “You could see all this anticipation and excitement of [Neff] being here and getting the chance to compete in the Huntsman for Utah and be a part of a national championship caliber team, and you could just see it in her face that [she thought] it was gone.”
But Dockendorf, ever the optimist, didn’t agree. “I just felt like that’s not how the story was supposed to be written for her this year,” said Dockendorf.
Neff’s parents insisted on taking her back home to South Jordan, a short drive from the Huntsman Center. Stubbornness took over initially, but eventually the pleas from her father to “let me be a father for just one moment” won, and Neff found herself at home to recover. The next morning, she couldn’t move anything in her feet and after seeing how she landed, doctors were anticipating that her shins, among other things, were broken, further adding to fears that her season was over.
But to everyone’s surprise, nothing was broken, a moment that Neff said made the situation a bit harder to swallow. She didn’t need surgery, but was she going to be able to recover in enough time to return this season? Should she redshirt? With directions from her doctors and training staff in hand, Neff began her recovery that night. “She sent me a picture of her laying in bed [with] her feet all wrapped up and elevated. She didn’t waste a second,” Dockendorf recalled.
Neff spent six hours a day doing physical therapy with her athletic trainer. She used every resource available to her, from an underwater treadmill to treatment from football’s athletic trainers. Every direction she was given, Neff followed through with the intention of trying to get her back before season’s end. “I essentially had to relearn how to walk,” she explained, “I couldn’t stand and carry my body weight. I didn’t have enough flexion in my foot to actually stand.”
It was during the rehab that Dockendorf told Neff that she needed a goal; she needed something to shoot for during this arduous time. For the freshman, it wasn’t trying to get back to competing or to even heal. It was to wear a leotard. Specifically, the Legacy leotard. A special debut for the 50th anniversary of Utah gymnastics.
“I wanted to wear [it] for the legacy and [Dockendorf said], ‘who’s telling you you can’t? No one’s telling you no, and if they are, show them that you can.” From there, the rest was history.
When Neff was given the all-clear to resume training, her routines had to be reworked to ensure her ankles weren’t re-aggravated. She was already competing higher difficulty in her routines than was necessary, so the question became what was going to feel best on her ankles moving forward. After some trial and error, Neff’s dismount on bars was changed to just a double layout, taking out the full twist initially – she added it back later on. She took out her side aerial to two feet and replaced it with a cat leap to side aerial to Shushunova on beam, a combination that Neff said was the safest for her ankles. Her floor routine had to be completely reworked. Due to her inability to back tumble, she went from a three-pass routine to two and added a roundoff back tuck to fulfill that requirement and adjusted her passes to keep her start value at a 10.0.
February 7, three weeks to the day that Neff was injured, she mounted the uneven bars. Watching Neff back in competition after seeing her suffer an injury that should’ve ended her season taught Dockendorf just how resilient she was. “Nothing is ever going to stop Avery Neff from accomplishing what she wants to accomplish,” she recalled. “She was going to help our team give us the best shot at accomplishing what we were trying to do this year. Nothing was going to get in her way, and she was going to make it happen.”
By early March, Neff was back competing in the all-around, helping Utah to its first conference championship as members of the Big 12. The individual accolades continued to roll in as Neff was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman team, crowned the Newcomer of the Year by the conference, and earned second-team regular season All-American honors on balance beam.
Neff and the Red Rocks ended their season at nationals for the 49th straight season, where she claimed two additional All-American honors on bars and beam. While the team didn’t reach the ultimate goal of a national championship, Neff said that all the blood, sweat, and tears that the Red Rocks experienced made them grateful to just be there.
Looking to the future, Neff is optimistic that after 49 straight appearances and five straight final four berths, the ultimate goal of a team championship is within reach for Utah. Going through the adversity she did this year gives her confidence that she can achieve her goals, whether it’s winning an individual NCAA title or winning the Honda Award like her inspiration, Trinity Thomas, did.
Dockendorf believes that the adversity showed Neff’s character and that she is ready to step into her role as a leader on the team heading into 2026. “I’m really excited about watching her grow as a leader on this team and continuing to bring our program in the direction that we want to go.”
READ THIS NEXT: Recruit Spotlight: Tyler Turner
Article by Savanna Wellman
