Brittany Kelley
SAN MARCOS — Beginning in spring 2028, Texas State University will be the first in the state to offer a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 women’s gymnastics program.
The idea to bring the university’s 17th intercollegiate sport began three-and-a-half years ago, said TXST President Kelly Damphousse, when an old colleague reached out to encourage the start of the program. This same colleague — who was the head women’s gymnastics coach at the University of Oklahoma — suggested that Damphousse begin the program during his tenure as chancellor at Arkansas State University, but he was unsuccessful in the endeavor. Now, years later, he’s able to achieve this goal by providing an opportunity for all Texas D1 women gymnasts for the first time.
According to athletics director Donald Coryell, TXST currently has a club gymnastics program on campus, but hasn’t had a NCAA recognized division team since 1986, when its D2 program was discontinued. The new team will consist of students under a scholarship, follow the rules and regulations of NCAA and participate in the PAC-12 conference, which TXST has recently joined.
The conference is one of the oldest in the country, with traditions, history and championships, said Coryell. It features nine other institutions, four of which will be participating in D1 gymnastics — Utah State University, Southern Utah University, Oregon State University and Boise State University.
It is within this conference that TXST will host its own gymnastic meets, as well as travel to other states to participate in competitions. The pair have high hopes for these events to have more than 10,000 attendees and provide a cultural experience for the Hays County community.
But before the university can begin making these plans, it first has to build the foundation of the program, said the president and director. TXST has created a Steering Committee composed of alumni, staff members from the Athletics Department, faculty members, gold medal Olympians and gymnastics community members, said Damphousse, that will guide the institution on funding, infrastructure, staffing and general guidelines for the program.
“We’re receiving a tremendous amount of support, not only in the state of Texas, but across the country right now with this announcement and there is a lot of stuff for us to figure out,” said Coryell. “There’ll be internal support provided, as well as what we need to do as a university to make sure that this program is going to be successful. So, we’ve really got two areas that we’ll focus on: our internal support and then, our external support.”
This internal support will include hiring a new head coach. The perfect candidate, the director explained, will be “somebody that is a great person, somebody that we’re going to enjoy working with and somebody that’s always going to have the best interest of the student athlete in mind when they come to work everyday.” Once this individual is hired, they can begin working on how to recruit a maximum of 20 athletes needed for the team and the direction to move forward in.
The separate factors that still need to come into play is what led leadership to strive for a spring 2028 launch, though this is still an “aggressive” goal, said Coryell.
“We think there’s a chance here to compete for national championships,” Coryell emphasized. “There’s so many unbelievable gymnasts that are competing across the country at other institutions right now — Olympians. The history of gymnastics in the state of Texas — maybe the best athletes in the world come out of Texas — and so, for us, it’s just an opportunity to compete at the highest level and to bring a whole other level of eyes on this wonderful university to see all the great things that we’re doing here.”
The president echoed this same sentiment, noting that TXST has received an outstanding reaction, with this news, allowing him to shed light on its other achievements, including: it’s one of the fastest-growing universities in the state and across the country; it’ll be a Research 1 university by the end of the year; graduation rates are beginning to set records and more.
At this time, the institution is not considering a D1 men’s gymnastics team. Instead, it is focusing on the void it is able to fill for women.
“Women’s gymnastics is one of the fastest-growing spectator sports in the world. When you watch the Olympics, the number one viewed summer Olympic sport is women’s gymnastics. So, as Don mentioned earlier, there’s 40,000 young women who have not graduated high school right now who are competing in women’s gymnastics and wanting to go on to D1 competition and we want to serve those students,” said Damphousse.
“This is a win for us and it’s a win for them,” Coryell concluded.
For more information, visit www.txst.com/sports/gymnastics.
