Look closely at the corners of the floor next time you watch a college gymnastics meet. Often, you will see someone standing there — not a coach, not a gymnast, but someone clearly team-adjacent — cheering or gesturing as a gymnast completes tumbling passes.
You will see these same folks adjusting sting mats and measuring corners; setting the vault and springboard; laying specific mats near bars or beam.
They are the team managers (often colloquially referred to as “the mat movers,” though, like the athletes on the competition floor, their job is as mental as it is physical). They do all the behind-the-scenes, off-camera, between-events maneuvering of mats and equipment you see at meets, and they provide a hefty dose of nurturing and support for teams from the sidelines.
Kyla Graba (Jeff Graba’s daughter and Jess Graba’s niece), 21, is Auburn’s head team manager. Graba had never done media before this story, but you would never know it; she sounds as composed and media-trained as anyone on her team. Graba did gymnastics herself until she was 15. “You grow up in gymnastics, you stay in gymnastics,” she said, laughing. Her job is on a volunteer basis. She’s a senior, a psychology major, and is enrolled in a graduate program in…
