Look around any club gym in the northwestern part of South Carolina and you might see a little girl in a purple and orange leotard with a tiger paw on it, or an older gymnast with a Tiger Paw Classic tag tied to their gym bag, harkening back to a club meet that used to be held in Clemson’s Littlejohn Coliseum. Clemson is a center of gravity in the region; everything is purple and orange. Everywhere you go you can find Tigers gear, right down to club gyms.
On June 17, Clemson announced it would add a varsity women’s gymnastics team for the 2024 season. Situated in Upstate South Carolina, Clemson sits in a USA Gymnastics level 10 near-desert. There are clubs in the area—Easley Gymnastics, Upstate Gymnastics Center, Sparkle City, Acrosmith Gymnastics and Electric City Gymnastics—which have had recent level 10 competitors. However, the 2021 state meet had only 24 level 10s total, a higher mark than recent years.
“There’s a good amount of talent, but not a lot of level 10s in our state,” said Ashley Hartman, owner of Easley Gymnastics in Easley, South Carolina. “It’s never been an issue of there’s not enough talent, or there’s not enough great athletes in the state. It’s that there’s not enough motivation to get to a huge level 10 program because there’s not as big a college [gymnastics] scene around here.”
Hartman has noticed that after level seven or eight, the numbers start to decrease; there are fewer level nines and an even smaller number of level 10s because it’s hard to keep young athletes in a sport that takes up so much time and that is so taxing without some extra motivation. She believes having a program in-state could change that.
Another reason for the lower number of level 10s is that some go out of state to train at other clubs in North Carolina or Georgia. Arkansas’ Maggie O’Hara is one example. She grew up in Lexington, South Carolina, just outside Columbia. After beginning her career at Sunburst Gymnastics Academy and rising to level 10 in 2010, she spent a season at Columbia Gymnastics Academy before moving to Southeastern Gymnastics, a club nearly 200 miles away in North Carolina.
O’Hara remembers Southeastern fondly; the level of competition between the large level 10 team drew her in, as did Southeastern’s philosophy that every team member who wants to compete in college will get the chance. O’Hara did the two-hour commute each way for four seasons while also attending public school in Lexington.
“I really spent just my sleeping hours [at home],” she said.
Not all recruitable gymnasts choose to leave the state to train. Upstate has sent two level 10s to college recently: Gillian Fletcher (West Virginia) and Hannah Moon (Lindenwood). Gymnastics and More—a club on the opposite side of the state in Myrtle Beach—has a reputation for sending gymnasts on to college, including two on current rosters in Alaina Raybon (Michigan State) and Grace Hunter (N.C. State).
That said, coaches in South Carolina have anecdotally noticed a trend of talented gymnasts leaving the state. Hartman and Talene Amirkhanian, owner of Upstate, have noticed it. Both have also seen gymnasts either quit the sport to attend Clemson as students or opt to go out of state for gymnastics despite preferring Clemson academically or for its location. Hartman also pointed out that many local gymnasts opt for acrobatics and tumbling since they can stay local and attend one of the seven South Carolina programs. Amirkhanian even coached a gymnast who was in the recruiting process and switched to track and field to be a student-athlete at Clemson.
“She is a very gifted athlete, so she could do that. She just didn’t want to go far,” Amirkhanian said. “[Clemson’s team] would have kept her in gymnastics and close to home.”
While the situation has improved in the last few years, Hartman and Amirkhanian are confident that Clemson’s program will help keep talent in the state, partially because the relationship between Clemson and clubs in the Upstate region is already strong. Amirkahnaian’s club hosted the Tiger Paw Classic for years. My Meet Scores records show that nearly 1500 gymnasts competed at that meet each year. Plus, Clemson’s extant NAIGC team currently trains at Upstate.
The culture around Clemson in the Upstate region is intense. Hartman says everything is purple and orange, and on football game days there are huge amounts of traffic heading for campus. That fervor extends toward O’Hara’s more central hometown; in Lexington, everyone is either a Clemson or a University of South Carolina fan.
Hartman and Amirkhanian aren’t the only excited coaches. College Gym News invited all USA Gymnastics Region 8 (which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee) clubs to participate in a survey about the addition of Clemson’s gymnastics program. Of 28 respondents, 29.6% represented South Carolina while Alabama, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina were also represented.
Responses to the question, “What was your first reaction when you learned Clemson was adding a varsity team?” ranged from “Elation” to “Praising God!!!” and “Beyond thrilled.” A coach from Lake Murray Gymnastics in Irmo, South Carolina, noted that it can be a challenge to be recruited out of “such a small state,” and that Clemson will have a huge impact on the local community, and reciprocally local clubs will support the college team. The same coach mentioned that having such a large program close by will help keep young gymnasts in the sport.
The enthusiasm makes sense given how many Clemson alumni remained in the area. Hartman is an alumna, as are many local gymnastics parents. A coach from Gymnastics Training Center in Georgia noted in a survey response that some of their club parents are Clemson alumni as well.
A number of area coaches have been fighting for years to get a program off the ground. There have been petitions and meetings with the athletic department. Maureen Williamson, who owned Upstate before Amirkhanian, is the coach who started the Tiger Paw Classic, and she used it as a reason to meet with athletic department decision makers each year. It was a decades-long fight led by the local gymnastics community.
O’Hara remembers competing in Littlejohn at the meet and signing the related petitions. “And so, as a little kid, I would always tell my friends, ‘If Clemson gets a gymnastics team, I’m gonna go there,’” she said.
The culture around Clemson and buzz around the program has gymnastics recruits interested. A coach from Legion Gymnastics in Georgia noted that the culture around college football in the South means, “Clemson is a name that resonates.”
“I definitely have girls who have sights set on Clemson because of how close it is,” the same coach wrote. Another coach from Edge Athletics in Florida pointed out the ACC connection as a draw for gymnasts training in the Tallahassee area who are familiar with the ACC because of their proximity to Florida State. Two coaches from level 10 club powerhouses, Tampa Bay Turners and KPAC, both pointed out that another program in the South is a draw for local athletes.
When Clemson announced the program, Hartman texted two of her level 9s, who are in the classes of 2024 and 2025. She said they came into practice that day smiling and with extra motivation, just knowing that Clemson could be an option someday. Five survey respondents also mentioned Clemson’s academic prowess as a draw for recruits, something O’Hara brought up as well.
All of the excitement in the community means Clemson is going to have a dedicated fan base ready to head to Littlejohn in January 2024. Hartman and Amirkhanian will both bring their athletes to meets, and Amirkhanian will have parents volunteer to work at them if it’s an option. Fifteen of the 28 survey respondents mentioned their club gymnasts already attend local NCAA meets as a group, and several said they plan to have their gymnasts attend Clemson competitions when the time comes.
“I can already tell the attitude around gymnastics in South Carolina is a little different than it was when I was a level 10 there,” O’Hara said. Amirkhanian has noticed that, too, pointing out that more and more gymnasts from the state are going on to compete in college.
It seems clear that Clemson’s status as a powerhouse athletic department and its massive local reputation means the relationship between the NCAA program and local clubs will be strong. With high-level gymnastics to watch nearby, and the tangible goal of a gymnastics scholarship at a local program available, gymnastics in Upstate South Carolina is poised to grow. It’s likely that more gymnasts will stick with the sport, and as clubs’ optional teams grow and the level of gymnastics increases, perhaps fewer top athletes will choose to move or commute out of state to train. The future is bright, and South Carolina is ready.
Those little girls in tiger paw leotards can dream big.
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Article by Emily Minehart
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