On March 21, 2022, Utah State hoisted the MRGC championship trophy for the first time since the conference’s conception in 2015. After a season of rewriting the record book and having its highest ranking since 1999, junior Briana Brooks described it as one of the greatest feelings in her gymnastics career.
Just two months later, things took a 180-degree turn. Head coach Amy Smith and associate head coach Erik Lewis left the program for the same roles at Clemson, triggering an exodus of six Utah State gymnasts, which included 15 of 24 competition routines from that MRGC-winning meet, to South Carolina. Furthermore, assistant coach Stephen Hood took an open assistant position at Denver. The team that only two months prior had won MRGCs was looking nearly unrecognizable.
Enter Kristin White, née Smith, an Oklahoma alumna and two-time All-American who had been coaching at Arizona State for the last two years. While it may seem like a classic “college gymnast to coach” situation, coaching hadn’t always been in the cards for White. While at Oklahoma, she was a nursing major, and it wasn’t until her senior year when Oklahoma head coach KJ Kindler asked her to be a graduate assistant for the team that being involved with the sport after graduation was even an…
