A Day in the Life of a College Gymnast: Untraditional Student-Athletes

Not every path is the same. Many NCAA athletes have less traditional journeys, both before they arrive in college as well as after they join their teams. There are athletes who decide to attend a service academy like the Air Force, where they have to balance school with athletics, as well as a military schedule. Others are working toward a career in the medical field and are doing required clinical rotations in addition to other academic and athletic responsibilities. There are also student-teachers who teach a full school day and still have to complete the ‘normal’ college student day. 

Then there are the student-athletes whose athletic journeys look a bit different, whether they are actively pursuing an elite path alongside their NCAA careers, like former LSU athlete Aleah Finnegan, who represented the Philippines at the 2024 Olympics, or Jordan Chiles, a two-time Olympian who is currently finishing out her time as a UCLA Bruin. Some athletes take time away from the sport and then come back to finish out their eligibility, like Mizzou’s Helen Hu, who helped lead Missouri to a third-place finish at 2025 NCAA nationals after taking a year off and traveling the world, or JerQuavia Henderson, a current University of Iowa athlete who returned to the program after a taking a year off to rediscover her love of the sport. There are athletes who medically retire, then take on a new role within their programs, as well as international athletes like Stanford’s Ana Barbosu of Romania or Clemson’s Emma Malewski from Germany, who come to fulfill a lifelong dream of competing in the NCAA. 

Every individual’s path is unique. Sideline reports only highlight a few of the stories though, leaving fans with an incomplete picture of all the different ways athletes find their way to their college teams.

Payton Fullmer, a redshirt sophomore at BYU, took a nontraditional route to fulfill her dreams of competing in the NCAA. Fullmer’s introduction to NCAA gymnastics began at Utah as a student manager for the Red Rocks. Fast forward two years, and about an hour drive away at BYU, and Fullmer is on the roster for the Cougars, but as a gymnast. 

Fullmer grew up in the gym her mom owned in Utah and knew from a young age that college gymnastics was her ultimate goal. Being a Utah Ute was always the dream, but competing on a college team was all she really wanted. After a major injury during her junior year of high school, and discouraged by the possibility that her dream might not become a reality, she returned in her senior season with a new mentality. “I was much more determined [after my junior year]. Yes, I was starting late [with recruiting] but I wanted to find a college, and at this point it didn’t matter where, I just wanted to do gymnastics,” Fullmer said. After speaking with coaches and getting pretty far along in the recruiting process with Texas Woman’s University, Fullmer once again had another obstacle in her path–she suffered an evulsion fracture in her shin, requiring her to wear a straight leg brace for the remainder of her senior year. Reflecting on that time, Fullmer said, “At that point, I had to come to terms [with the fact that] this probably wasn’t going to happen for me, and accept being done with the sport.” 

During her junior and senior years of high school while she was being recruited, Fullmer was in conversation with Utah, but never got too deep into the process. After her injuries, she didn’t think being part of a college team was in the cards, until her dream school reached back out to her, just not in the way she could have ever imagined. “The summer after my senior year, Carly Dockendorf [then assistant coach and now head coach for Utah] reached out and said that while they couldn’t recruit me to be a part of the team as an athlete, they still wanted me to be a part of the team and join as a student manager,” Fullmer shared. “At first, I didn’t even know college gymnastics had managers; I didn’t know what the role [entailed] or what this would look like, but I said yes and joined Utah as a student manager for two years.” 

Although Fullmer thought she had made peace with being done with gymnastics from the physical standpoint, being around gymnastics every day, she realized how much she missed it. “I went into my club gym for an open gym they were having one day and started joking around with my club coaches about a comeback, but then thought, ‘Why not?’” Fullmer said. “When I was at Utah watching practices, I realized this was something I still wanted; I still wanted to work hard, to achieve this goal, and at that time my goal was still Utah gymnastics, but really just college gymnastics as a whole.” 

In Fullmer’s second year as a student manager at Utah, she reached back out to Dockendorf as if she was a recruit, not a manager, but knew she had to have back-ups if this plan didn’t work out. When looking at her options, BYU wasn’t even on her radar. “Growing up as a die-hard Utah fan, I was never going to go to BYU because of that. But then I asked myself ‘Why not?’ It has everything I want, it’s close to home, I can do gymnastics, etc. So I reached out to Guard Young [BYU head coach] and started the recruiting process,” Fullmer shared. 

Now in her first year as a BYU gymnast, she is fulfilling the dream she has had since she was little. “At Utah, I definitely felt like a part of the team; they are amazing at including everyone and I felt like I had a place there, I was just missing doing gymnastics. Now that I’m at BYU, I feel like I have a place, just in a different capacity,” Fullmer said. While Fullmer may not have imagined her path to doing NCAA gymnastics looking the way it has—overcoming major injuries, taking on new roles in the sport, transferring universities—this journey is allowing her to fulfill her long-held goal. “One piece of advice I would give to someone who doesn’t feel like this is going to happen for them is that it is so important to not compare your journey to someone else’s; you have no idea what someone is going through,” Fullmer said. “Everyone is on a different path, and it is so easy to compare my start line with someone’s finish line, but everyone is fighting their own internal battle, and your journey is so unique. Your story, what you’ve gone through to get here and how you handled it all could eventually help someone else, so it is so important to just live it how it is supposed to play out because it’s your own story.” 

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Article by Julianna Roland