WILLIAMSBURG — Jazmyn Johnson, a Williamsburg resident and gymnast, will continue her academic and gymnastics career at Fairmont State University.

Johnson began competing in gymnastics at an early age, and knew she wanted to earn a scholarship to compete in college. She also knew that for a chance at a scholarship, her skills would have to wow the judges.

“When I would see other people at different gyms get higher scores than I would, it would motivate me, because I knew I could get those scores too, but only if I worked hard,” Johnson said.

After switching gyms, Johnson began training at World Class Gymnastics in Newport News.

“When I first got to World Class, I was training level seven, and I got moved up very quickly to level eight. I did one year of level eight and did very well and got very high scores. Me and a couple of my other teammates were on the Virginia state team that year. That’s basically when they chose a group of level eight gymnasts at states to represent your home state,” Johnson said.

While training for level nine, Johnson faced a few setbacks with injuries. Due to a torn ligament in her foot, Johnson had to take time off training.

“It really wasn’t my best year because I didn’t get my skills as quickly as everybody else did because of my injury. My coaches were training me for level ten after that season. I did one competition and I really wasn’t very confident during the one competition. I didn’t have as many skills as I wanted to and I’d never really been in that position before,” Johnson said.

As a senior at Lafayette High School, Johnson began looking at colleges as the recruitment process began. When she stepped foot on the Fairmont State University campus, she said it felt like home.

“My call with Fairmont felt very different. I knew that I wanted to visit and see how the experience was. When I went to visit, it was something I wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t too big, it wasn’t too small. It was 100% something that I wanted to do. It just felt like home when I was there,” Johnson said.

Johnson signed on to Fairmont State to compete for the school’s acrobatics and tumbling team. She says that acrobatics and tumbling is a mix of cheerleading and gymnastics.

“Acro is kind of like cheerleading. They do stunting, they do a whole bunch of tumbling, and I think they even have, like, a little dance section. It’s very, very different from gymnastics with the cheerleading aspects included,” Johnson said.

As she prepares to head to Fairmont State in the fall, Johnson wants to leave behind a piece of advice for future gymnasts.

“Trust the process. There will be days where you aren’t 100% sure that you want to do gymnastics anymore. You will go through those moments of stress in life. Believe in yourself and show up for yourself,” Johnson said.

The 2026 Fairmont State Acrobatics and Tumbling season will kick off in February.

Beth Hanrahan joined the Brown women’s hockey program as an assistant coach ahead of the 2022-23 season.
 
A graduate of Providence College, Hanrahan returned to Rhode Island after previously serving as an assistant coach at Mercyhurst University for four seasons.
 
At Mercyhurst, Hanrahan led recruiting efforts, video sessions and on-ice skill development. During her tenure, the Lakers made three appearances in the College Hockey America conference tournament, capturing the 2020 CHA tournament title to earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Elite 8.
 
Prior to Mercyhurst, Hanrahan spent one season as an assistant at Lindenwood University, assisting the head coach in recruiting and evaluating of prospective Division I student-athletes, providing film analysis and scouting reports, and running the team’s social media accounts.
 
Hanrahan began her coaching career during the 2016-17 season at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota, one of the most successful girls’ hockey programs in the country. She helped develop elite talent at the U16 level to prepare players for the college level by implementing both on-and-off ice training, monitoring academic progress, and coordinating practice and travel plans.
 
Prior to embarking on her coaching career, Hanrahan played one season for the New York Riveters in the inaugural 2015-16 season of the Nationals Women’s Hockey League.
 
Hanrahan spent four seasons as a student-athlete at Providence, the last three years of which playing under current Brown head coach, Melanie Ruzzi. Hanrahan totaled 75 points in her career, scoring 45 goals, including a team-leading 15 during her senior season in 2014-15. As a senior, she served as team captain and was named the winner of the ECAC Sportsmanship Award. Hanrahan was voted the team’s MVP following her junior and senior seasons.
 
Hanrahan graduated from Providence in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in health policy management and a minor in sociology. She went on to earn her master’s in applied intelligence from Mercyhurst.

COACHING TIMELINE

Season	School/Team	Title
2016-2017	Shattuck-St. Mary’s	Assistant Coach
2017-2018	Lindenwood	Assistant Coach
2018-2022	Mercyhurst	Assistant Coach
2022-Present	Brown	Assistant Coach

Arkansas won’t have to worry about being left out of the SEC Gymnastics Championships moving forward.

The 2025 Southeastern Conference Spring Meetings concluded Thursday, with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey addressing several topics, including conference athletic directors approving including all nine SEC schools that sponsor gymnastics to participate in the SEC Gymnastics Championships starting in 2026.

After a season that saw the Razorbacks beat LSU and Florida – teams ranked No. 2 in the nation at the time of competition – during the regular season, Arkansas still ended up as the ninth place team in the SEC by National Qualifying Score (NQS) and was subsequently eliminated from competing at the conference championship meet. This, despite being the No. 16 team in the country at the time (the Razorbacks would finish No. 12 overall after the NCAA tournament). The team also lost out on an away meet score to potentially include in its NQS, which could’ve impacted postseason seeding.

With the addition of Oklahoma to the SEC gymnastics ranks, the conference changed the format of the meet for 2025, opting to leave one school – whoever finished last in the regular season rankings by NQS – out of the conference championship, including individuals. This decision faced backlash from fans, athletes, and coaches throughout the season, especially as Arkansas proved it was capable of wreaking havoc on the conference’s top teams.

Part of the hang up on having nine teams was the issue of having five teams in either the afternoon or evening session, which would mean adding a bye rotation and increasing the runtime of the meet by approximately 20-30 minutes – a potential obstacle for the meet broadcast as networks continue to try to optimize the viewer experience. According to Whole Hog Sports, the 2026 SEC Gymnastics Championships will see the bottom four teams compete in the afternoon session and the top five teams compete in the evening session.

“All nine [teams] will be invited,” Sankey said. “Noting just the high level of competition and the impact on some of the score opportunities, it’s important for all of us to compete together.”