No one questions the talent of Grace McCallum.
A senior at the University of Utah, McCallum is a household name and not just in the United States.
After making Team USA for the Tokyo Olympics and helping the American women’s team win a silver medal, McCallum is known across the world for her gymnastics. And the many who have followed her collegiate career at Utah after her Olympic experience have rarely, if ever, been disappointed.
Now nearing the end of her fourth and final season competing for Utah — she will be a student-coach for the Red Rocks in 2026 — McCallum has been consistently great, basically from the moment she arrived in Salt Lake City in 2021 as a freshman.
This season, her senior year, may be her best one yet, and she’s only gotten better as the season has progressed.
At the Salt Lake City NCAA regional this past weekend, McCallum was perfect twice, both times on the uneven bars. She also ran away with the all-around title in the regional final thanks to a 9.950 on balance beam, a 9.975 on floor exercise and one of those aforementioned perfect 10s on bars.
It was, in many ways, McCallum at her best.
Her perfect 10s in back-to-back meets were especially notable. Perfection is hard to manage and McCallum did it in consecutive competitions, with four judges scrutinizing her routines rather than the customary two judges per event during regular-season meets.
Those perfect routines were notable for another reason, though. McCallum shot up the Utah gymnastics record books because of them, in a fairly significant way. She now has eight perfect 10s in her Red Rocks’ career, the fifth-most by any gymnast in program history behind only Maile O’Keefe (15), Theresa Kulikowski (14), Kristen Kenoyer (11) and Georgia Dabritz (nine).
When it comes to perfection on bars, specifically, McCallum now has six perfect 10s, trailing only Dabritz and Kulikowski (seven each) all-time. McCallum also is alone in second place in Utah history when it comes to perfect 10s on bars in a single season. Only Dabritz (five) has her beat.
Whether McCallum achieves any more history this season or not, with one guaranteed meet remaining on April 17 in the national semifinals and potentially another another after that, her name is now found alongside some of the best to ever come through Utah.
Which begs the question, is it fair to now consider McCallum one of the best Red Rocks ever?
The argument for Grace McCallum
There are legitimate reasons to believe McCallum warrants mention in the same breath as the greatest gymnasts who’ve come through the University of Utah.
(Who is on the Mount Rushmore of Utah gymnastics is a matter of debate. And narrowing down the many great Red Rocks over the years to only four can feel like an impossible task. Utah does single out Dabritz, Kulikowski, Missy Marlowe and Ashley Postell though, for “Highest Honors” in its 2025 media guide.)
For one thing, her predilection for perfection has only been bested by a few gymnasts.
It should be stated again that the only Utah gymnasts who’ve ever been more perfect than McCallum in competition are O’Keefe, Kulikowski, Kenoyer and Dabritz.
With perfect 10s on bars, beam and floor in her career, McCallum is also one of only five Red Rocks to pull off perfection on at least three events. Marlowe and Kenoyer did it on all four, while Kulikowski (bars, beam and floor) and Dabritz (bars, floor and vault) did it on three.
Making all of that even more impressive, McCallum missed a significant portion of her sophomore season — statistically her best season on a meet-to-meet basis — due to a knee injury.
McCallum’s argument as one of the best Red Rocks ever goes beyond perfection though.
She, Kenoyer, Kulikowski and Melissa Vituj are the only Utah gymnasts with multiple all-around scores of 39.800 or better in their careers. Furthermore, McCallum’s high score of 39.825 (recorded during her junior season) is the fourth best all-around score in program history, trailing only a 39.950 by Suzanne Metz, a 39.900 by Kenoyer and a 39.875 by Vituj.
After being named Big 12 Gymnast of the Year this season, plus winning the Big 12 all-around title at the conference championships, McCallum joined Dabritz and Tory Wilson as the only Utah gymnasts to ever pull off that sweep of honors (Dabritz and Wilson did it in the Pac-12 and prior to joining the Pac-12 in 2012, Utah gymnastics operated as an independent so conference honors didn’t exist).
The argument against Grace McCallum
There are real arguments as to why McCallum will be considered a great Red Rock but not one of the best ever, though.
For one, she has yet to win an individual NCAA title. Sixteen Red Rocks have won at least one in their careers, headlined by Marlowe and O’Keefe who each won an all-around national title, plus titles on bars, beam and floor.
McCallum also has only 11 All-America honors in her career (that number could grow at the NCAA gymnastics championships).
In an era where regular season and postseason All-America honors exists, she trails MyKayla Skinner (26), O’Keefe (19) and Dabritz (16). Include gymnasts who didn’t get the benefit of postseason All-America honors and McCallum still trails an additional seven Red Rocks, namely:
- Ashley Postell; 20 (Postell won every possible All-American award in her career)
- Kristen Kenoyer; 16
- Theresa Kulikowski; 14
- Amy Trepanier; 13
- Kristina Baskett; 12
- Missy Marlowe; 12
- Megan McCunniff (now Marsden); 12
McCallum currently is sitting on 72 all-time event wins as a Red Rock. That doesn’t crack the top six all-time in program history (Postell is the winningest Red Rock ever with 120 career wins), and she won’t get there even if she sweeps the event titles in the national semifinals and in the national championship meet itself.
McCallum does have a shot to crack the top 10 in most event wins in a single season. Currently she has 29 and O’Keefe’s 31 event wins in 2021 are the 10th most in Utah history.
Due in part to her knee injury, coupled with her being in-and-out of the vault lineup at times in her career, McCallum isn’t really in the conversation when it comes to most all-around wins by a Red Rock either.
How should Grace McCallum be viewed?
Statistics, honors and records aren’t everything of course. Gymnastics is a subjective sport and scoring has fluctuated over time, with lows and highs. The level of competition has fluctuated too over the years. Where Utah used to dominate, there is now arguably much more competition, even just to make it to nationals year after year.
When she was co-head coach at Utah, Marsden called Skinner the most talented gymnast she’d ever worked with and Marsden had competed alongside and/or coached almost every great who has gone through the program.
“She (Skinner) does some of the most difficult gymnastics in the country and she doesn’t miss,” Marsden said ahead of the 2019 NCAA gymnastics championships. “She is a freak of nature, unbelievably consistent and consistently unbelievable.”
Yet some would argue that Skinner doesn’t land among the greatest ever to compete at Utah.
Which is to say that McCallum’s status as an all-time Utah great is, quite frankly, dependent on who you ask and what they value. Some will see McCallum as the Olympic silver medalist who is perfection on bars, while others will always see flexed feet on beam and a lack of consistent success (sticks) on vault.
Regardless of where she lands in the record books, or in people’s minds, McCallum’s place in Utah gymnastics history is assured. She has been an integral part of the resurgence of the program, helping Utah return to genuine and consistent national title contention after the program went through an 11-year period with only a pair of top-three finishes.
After the Salt Lake City NCAA regionals final, Utah head coach Carly Dockendorf credited McCallum for coming through when Utah needed her the most, noting that her performances on bars and beam were essential. Utah doesn’t advance to nationals for an NCAA-record 49th time without them. More than that, though, Dockendorf noted that McCallum’s leadership is a major reason Utah is in the hunt for the national title this year.
“It is every day in the gym, with her attitude and her effort,” Dockendorf said. ”She’s just so consistent with that. Our team really looks up to her."
After the Salt Lake City regional final, McCallum noted that she does reflect on her individual performances after every meet.
“I feel like I’m the type of person that I like to reflect after every meet,” she said. “... I do like to look back and see what worked for me and celebrate the little things and use that to build my confidence moving forward.”
She has yet to reflect on her career on the whole, but when she finally does, McCallum will be able to look back on one of the better careers by any Utah gymnast.
