Early this month, the NCAA announced the addition of acrobatics and tumbling as a championship sport. Acrobatics and tumbling is a strength-based sport for women to compete together on a team and perform synchronized skills in events.
Back in Jan. 2024, Simpson College announced acrobatics and tumbling as Simpson’s 26th varsity sport for the 2024-25 academic year, and would begin competing during the 2025-26 academic year. Students were open to accepting the new sport, but worried that it would take up space.
Assistant athletics director and senior women’s administrator, Tara Rehmeier, said she was excited to see acrobatics and tumbling voted on at the NCAA convention. Yet, acrobatics and tumbling aren’t on campus.
“In the two years since the original announcement that Simpson was adding acrobatics and tumbling, several factors have caused us to pause on adding the new sport,” Rehmeier said.
Rehmeier said the athletics department is focusing on supporting existing programs. A decision on continuing acrobatics and tumbling will be made after the next director of athletics is hired.
Sports administration professor Matt Garrett said he has mixed emotions about the NCAA announcement.
“I believe it is always exciting to see dedicated athletes rewarded with increased viable championship opportunities, and the addition of acrobatics and tumbling creates deserved additional opportunities for female student-athletes,” Garrett said. “However, I worry that colleges now have another avenue to add sports as a way of leveraging undergraduate enrollment that, according to Dittmore, contains significant institutional risks.”
Garrett’s concern stems from an institutional perspective, in which students and colleges are both involved in the aftermath. He said having more student-athletes can impact campus culture. He also mentioned how space can become limited when teams already have long rosters, and athletes will bring in less money to support the sport’s high costs, especially at a time when schools are facing greater financial pressure.
Simpson’s new athletic director will need to consider the college’s ability to add acrobatics and tumbling in the future, which has already been delayed longer than anticipated since the Jan. 2024 release.
Incoming students are supportive of the NCAA announcement and the opportunities it offers to increase visibility for acrobatics and tumbling, as well as other sports.
Tzar Lyons, a first-year member of men’s gymnastics, said, “I think that’s a great idea. It’s pretty similar to gymnastics, which right now is a growing sport, especially for the men. It would bring more attention to what we do.”
Routines in dance and cheer can be satisfying and entertaining to watch. The same goes for all competitive artistic sports like diving.
Tri Fricher, a first-year diver and manager for swimming and diving, said, ”I love getting to watch artistic sports; it’s so much fun and cool to see what people can do. I’d love to get to watch it on TV or at meets. I’m always for adding sports because people do them, and they go to college to do sports.”
Recruitment can be stressful for students looking to play their own sport, given the limited availability at colleges nationwide. Adding acrobatics and tumbling opens new doors for students.
Noah Doiron, a first-year member of men’s gymnastics, said, “We only have a small amount of schools with gymnastics. A lot of times, recruitment gets really hard, and a lot of people transfer over to acrobatics and tumbling or trampoline and tumbling to continue doing a sport. So by adding it as an NCAA championship sport, it would give a lot of people the opportunity to come do more sports in college.”
