When Liberty Mora stepped into the gym at the Super 16 gymnastics meet in Las Vegas with her Fisk University teammates to compete for the first time in 2023, the crowd rose to its feet before they even began. For a moment, the significance hit all at once: They weren’t just competing — they were making history as the first historically Black college or university gymnastics team.
“A lot of us started tearing up … like wow,” Mora recalled. “People say, ‘Oh, you have no idea what you’re doing for the Black community,’ ‘You have no idea how you’re changing the sport.’”
After months of practicing, training, and reading the headlines about the team’s potential impact, she could finally physically see and feel how important the Fisk gymnastics team was to the sport. It wasn’t just about being the first; it was about visibility and representation for Black gymnasts.
But three years later, the team is disbanding and will compete in its final competition this weekend. Last summer, the university announced that the 2025-26 season would be the team’s last because of scheduling and recruiting challenges.
Still, Fisk gymnasts and coaches told Capital B their legacy in Nashville, Tennessee, and beyond proves nontraditional sports have a place at Black colleges. Other nontraditional sports such as wrestling, lacrosse, and even golf have sprung up at other HBCUs.
“HBCUs matter so much,” said Mora, who is a four-time national qualifier and team captain. “All of this means something, and it’s so much bigger than, you know, one specific sport, and I’m just so honored to have had a part in this journey.”
Becoming the first
With each year, it felt like a different team, Mora said. The first year the senior described how 16 personalities had to get used to each other and a brand-new program.
The team began practices in 2022 for its 2023 season. After its creation, two other Black colleges – Alabama’s Talladega College and Ohio’s Wilberforce University – started gymnastics programs. Although Talladega’s team disbanded in 2024, citing financial issues, Wilberforce’s program is still thriving, with one of the team’s gymnasts qualifying for this year’s National Invitational Championships.
Then, last year, Fisk announced that the 2025-2026 academic year would be the final year the gymnastics team would compete.
Gymnastics isn’t a recognized sport within the HBCU Athletic Conference, in which the university competes, making it harder to schedule meets. Over the years, however, the team has done more than just compete. Last summer, the team hosted a gymnastics camp, where members worked with community members in Nashville at varying skill levels.
For one attendee, a young Black gymnast, this meant the world to her. She came dressed up with the same leotard as Fisk gymnast Zyia Coleman, who also qualified for this year’s nationals in the floor event.
“She even dressed up as her for Halloween,” Mora reflected.
The team understood that it comes with the sport. On social media, young gymnasts often create similar floor routines to those of two-time Olympian Jordan Chiles and the “GOAT” Simone Biles. But seeing it in person gives Fisk’s gymnasts an extra boost to always put their best foot forward on and off the balance beam.
“There are always eyes and young girls watching us,” Mora said. “We want to make sure we’re always having smiles on our faces, having good times, showing up for ourselves as well, but also for them.”
Before and after the announcement of Fisk’s gymnastics program in 2022, other Black colleges started sports programs that weren’t the usual basketball, football, and track.
In 2021, Morgan State University in Baltimore set out to revive its wrestling program after billionaire philanthropist Mike Novogratz and the HBCU Wrestling initiative donated $2.7 million, according to the university. The school’s wrestling program was founded in the 1950s and officially relaunched in 2023 after a 24-year hiatus. Last week, Eugene Harney, a redshirt freshman at Morgan State, made university history and advanced to day two of the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Ohio.
In 2024, the university also became the first HBCU to have a Division I acrobats and tumbling team.
An uphill battle that’s been worth it
When Lyndsi Callier was recruited for Fisk’s inaugural gymnastics team, it wasn’t what she was expecting. She was initially planning to stay in New Orleans and attend Louisiana State University, but not for gymnastics.
Callier, who is now an assistant coach for the team, had undergone surgery before her freshman year of college. When then-coach Corrinne Tarver invited Callier to the team, she jumped at the offer.
“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” she said. “Going to meets and seeing gymnasts of color who thought this would never happen, being able to represent … it’s just absolutely amazing.”
Recruiting isn’t as easy as it was when the team first started. Last year the team beat two colleges with better facilities and better offerings, but a spokesperson from the athletic department said that only made recruiting more difficult.
Fisk doesn’t offer full-ride scholarships for sports, especially gymnastics. The university is a smaller college, with fewer than 1,000 students enrolled at its Nashville campus. The gymnasts trained at an offsite gym, while other colleges had in-house resources, making recruiting difficult, said Scott Wallace, Fisk’s assistant athletic director.
“It is difficult in any sport to put a schedule together when you aren’t a member of a conference,” he said. “There are only two programs that are NAIA and independents in gymnastics, Fisk and Wilberforce University.”
Wallace said the team competed against Wilberforce six times this season alone.
Leading up to its final season, the team faced injuries.
Toward the end of last year’s season, Mora tore the labrum in her hip. Her recovery was supposed to last at least seven months. Instead, Mora returned to the sport early, beginning training last fall. Along the way, her teammates cheered her on at every small step of her healing, including when she started running and cartwheeled again.
After seeking off-site physical therapy and support from her teammates, Mora will get to compete at this year’s nationals in the floor event alongside Coleman and teammate Aliyah Reed-Hammon.
For Callier, she said, although the Fisk run was short, she hopes their team’s story gives others the faith to start teams that aren’t just basketball or football.
“Go in with an open mind,” she said. “Be prepared for unexpected twists and turns just because it’s a nontraditional sport.”
Ahead of the season, Mora hoped that something would change and the university would continue the sport. Today, she hopes the team’s legacy can inspire another college to pick up the torch as Fisk leaves behind the legacy of being the first.
“I am so proud of the legacies that we’re leaving,” Mora said. “I hope that someone else can, you know, pick up this torch and another HBCU picks up gymnastics or even a different sport they don’t have at their school.”