College Sports
Fisk University’s gymnastics team to disband in 2026
Being the first is one thing. Being the only one is something else, something even more challenging. Fisk University came to understand that difference in the three years since it launched its women’s gymnastics program, the first at an HBCU. During that time, the GymDogs, as the team was known, produced a bona fide star, […]

Being the first is one thing. Being the only one is something else, something even more challenging.
Fisk University came to understand that difference in the three years since it launched its women’s gymnastics program, the first at an HBCU. During that time, the GymDogs, as the team was known, produced a bona fide star, gained a measure of pop culture notoriety and added to the school’s trophy case. Administrators, however, also wrestled with the financial realities of the sport and endeavored to find the proper level of competition for a program that was an outlier even within the school’s own athletics department.
Thus, the 2026 season will be the last for Fisk gymnastics.
In a release last Friday, the university noted that “(t)he decision to halt the program comes after a comprehensive review of the gymnastics program and its alignment with the HBCU Athletic Conference (HBUAC). … Currently, gymnastics is not an HBCUAC-sanctioned sport, resulting in considerable challenges for the university to schedule competitions and build a robust recruiting pipeline.”
This past season, Fisk was one of 85 women’s college gymnastics programs in the U.S. The other 84 were at schools where athletics are a part of NCAA Division I (62), Division II (four) or Division III (18). Fisk’s other varsity programs, on the other hand, compete in the NAIA, which has its own set of rules and financial limitations.
Fisk’s 2025 campaign ended at the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics National Invitation Championship, an event for non-Division I programs, where seven team members earned the right to compete and one, Morgan Price, stole the show. Price won her second individual all-around national championship and then finished first in all four individual events – vault, balance beam, uneven parallel bars and floor exercise — an unprecedented sweep.
Along the way, the GymDogs beat NCAA Division I and Division II opponents, including two D-Is in a single meet. Price scored a perfect 10 on the uneven bars and was ranked among the top 35 in the country, regardless of classification, in the all-around. She and three of her teammates earned first-team All-American recognition.
Ultimately, though, no other HBCU wanted to, or thought it could do what Fisk had done. The first college gymnastics national championship was contested in 1982, and over more than four decades, no HBCU had — or has — its own gymnastics team.
Price was a highly recruited athlete from Texas who had originally committed to the University of Arkansas, where her family had close ties to the gymnastics program. Yet, she changed her mind and chose Fisk, where she immediately became the face of the program.
“Growing up in gymnastics, I rarely had teammates who looked like me,” she said when she enrolled at Fisk. “I wanted to be a part of history and inspire younger girls who want to attend a HBCU as well.”
In 2024, she was named the HBCU Sports Female Athlete of the Year. This year, College Gymnastics News named her its 2025 Women’s College Gymnast of the Year.
Now, however, she will have to inspire others in a different manner. Early last month, Price announced that she planned to transfer out of Fisk for her senior season, and the school wished her well. Eight days later, she officially signed with Arkansas, where she will compete alongside her older sister.
From a talent perspective, replacing Price seems impossible: She is an elite college gymnast who can compete with the best in the sport. To convince another like her to come to Fisk for just one year is improbable, to say the least.
Yet from a roster standpoint, it is imperative. Fisk’s 2025 lineup included five seniors and one grad student, and it’s likely that at least some remaining team members will decide to transfer out, as Price did.
If Fisk can’t field a whole team or something close to it — remember, school officials already have publicly acknowledged the challenges associated with recruiting for the program under normal circumstances — the 2025 season will stand as the last.
“While we are tremendously proud of the history our gymnastics team has made in just three years, we look forward to focusing on our conference-affiliated teams to strengthen our impact in the HBCU Athletic Conference,” Valencia Jordan, Director of Fisk Athletics, said in last week’s release. “Fisk is grateful for the hard work, dedication and tenacity of its gymnasts, staff members, and coaches who made this program possible.”