25 Cheers for 25 Years: Gators win first gymnastics national championship
Rhonda Faehn, head gymnastics coach of the University of Florida speaks at the press conference with her gymnast Bridget Sloan, after her team won the national championship during the Division I Women's Gymnastics Championship held at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA. Florida's team score was 197.575 Alex Gallardo/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
For over 30 years, Florida gymnastics had been knocking on the door. Always close, always in the conversation, but never at the top.
That changed on one dramatic night in April 2013 inside UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, when the Florida Gators delivered one of the greatest comebacks in NCAA championship history — and finally claimed the program’s first national title.
Even though it ended like a fairytale, it didn’t start like one.
Florida opened the Super Six finals on balance beam, usually one of its best events, and completely fell apart. Multiple gymnasts slipped or wobbled, and by the end of rotation one, the Gators were in last place.
In the past, that might’ve been the end. But not for this team.
That’s exactly what they did.
Florida’s next rotation — the floor exercise — was electric. Five straight Gators scored 9.90 or higher, capped by a 9.95 from freshman Bridget Sloan, a 2008 Olympian making her NCAA championship debut. The Gators posted a staggering 49.725, an NCAA record for floor at the time, and launched themselves back into contention.
The momentum carried into vault, where Florida kept landing clean and closing the gap on Alabama, the reigning champs. When it was time for their final event, uneven bars, the Gators were just 0.025 behind.
That’s when the nerves started to show. You would’ve expected them to come from Florida, a program that hadn’t won a title. But it was Alabama who folded. As the Gators calmly hit routine after routine, Alabama wobbled on beam. One gymnast lost her balance, and another fell, leaving the door was open.
Marissa King stuck a huge bars routine at the right time. Sloan, sealed it with a 9.90. When the final score flashed — 197.575 — Florida had pulled off the improbable: last place to first in one night.
For Faehn, it was a dream a decade in the making. She had taken over the program in 2003 and come painfully close more than once. This time, she got to watch her team finish the job.
In a sport often built around individual stars, Florida’s win was as collective as it gets. Every score counted and every routine mattered.
The championship was historic in more ways than one. It ended a decades-long championship monopoly held by four programs: Utah, Georgia, UCLA, and Alabama. Florida became only the fifth school to win an NCAA women’s gymnastics title, and they earned every bit of it.
The 2013 team will always be remembered not just for being champions, but for how they got there — from rock bottom in rotation one to the very top of college gymnastics. It is an awesome college sports story that shows the power of adversity.
