FORT WORTH, Texas — Courage.
That is the word — when limited to only one — that Utah gymnastics head coach Carly Dockendorf used to describe the 2025 Red Rocks.
“I just think that it takes a lot to be here and to be a part of this program,” Dockendorf said. “To stand in front of 15,000 fans week after week and carry on the tradition of qualifying to every single national championship, and they just have embraced it and have done it with such pride and bravery. I’m just so proud of them.”
There is, objectively speaking, a lot put on the University of Utah’s women’s gymnastics team. There is a weight of expectation that few other gymnasts in the sport encounter.
The Red Rocks, as Dockendorf mentioned, are the only NCAA gymnastics team that has never missed nationals. Powerhouse programs have come and gone, new ones have taken their place and fallen off again, but Utah has always been there.
Even when Utah was down — from 2010 to 2019, excluding the 2015 season — its low point still meant qualifying for nationals.
It is more than just that streak, though.
Arguably no team in the sport is as followed as Utah is (there is a growing case for LSU to be included in the conversation). The Red Rocks’ fanbase has been built over the course of 50 years, during which time the team has won 10 national championships (nine NCAA titles and one AIAW title) and had 16 gymnasts win individual NCAA titles.
All of that success has added up to a great deal of support for the Red Rocks, nearly unparalleled support, but also no team in NCAA women’s gymnastics is more scrutinized, by fans and media alike.
There might not be a more disliked team in the sport right now, in many ways because Utah is almost always successful.
Utah has finished No. 3 in the country four consecutive years and currently holds the longest active streak (five) in the sport of making it to the national championship meet itself, but because of the long-running success of the program there have been times when those successes were deemed not enough.
Like it or not, it is national championship or bust in Utah because of what the Red Rocks have built over the last half century.
Dockendorf is right. It takes a lot to be a Utah gymnast. Elite talent and mental fortitude, plus enough self-control to stay off social media (the “Gymternet” can be a brutal place), at least some of the time.
There are plenty of perks too, though. Like a NIL collective — Who Rocks the House — dedicated solely to Utah gymnastics. Like being generally thought of as a top three program at the University of Utah, alongside football and men’s basketball.
Women’s gymnastics isn’t a revenue sport, yet in Utah the Red Rocks are often treated like it is, and almost every young gymnast in the state grows up wanting to be a Red Rock.
This afternoon inside Dickies Arena, at 2 p.m. MT on ABC, Utah will compete for the 2025 NCAA women’s gymnastics national championship. Every gymnast on the team has had or is about to get the chance to compete for and win a national title.
Go to Utah, and you are almost guaranteed the chance to compete at the highest stage of NCAA gymnastics.
To be clear, Utah is fully capable of winning the 2025 national title because of the talent level of the team. The Red Rocks have Olympic medalists and national team members from three different countries, plus numerous NCAA All-Americans on the roster, not to mention the highest rated recruit in the history of the sport.
“This team is so, so talented,” junior Ana Padurariu — a transfer from UCLA — said after Utah won the Big 12 Conference championships in late March. “The sky is the limit.”
The staff is also replete with capable and experienced coaches who’ve been involved with the sport nearly their entire lives, from Dockendorf to assistants Jimmy Pratt, Myia Hambrick and Mike Hunger.
Utah may not be the favorite today, though that can certainly be debated. Oklahoma is the higher seed and was more consistent during the regular season, but the Red Rocks were better than the Sooners — better than everyone — in Thursday’s national semifinals.
UCLA may be the national darling, but the Red Rocks have beaten their biggest rival three times already this season.
Missouri is a great team, but Utah has been definitively better than the Tigers all season long.
Will Utah win today? That won’t be determined until around 4 p.m. MT. Can Utah win today? Absolutely.
That hasn’t always been a stated belief for the Red Rocks — that they were capable of winning a national championship. In prior seasons, within the last five years, the team shied away from talking openly about winning a national title.
Not this year, though. From before the season even started, Utah has talked openly and often about how this particular team can do it, how the third-place finishes aren’t enough anymore.
You could go so far as to say Utah decided to be courageous.
“It was kind of always this, like taboo thing,” Dockendorf said. “You didn’t want to talk about (winning a national championship), you didn’t want to jinx it, but this year we really just embraced it.
“That’s what we’re here to do.”
Dockendorf believes that has worked, too, that her team is better positioned than ever to end the program’s 30-year national title drought.
“I think talking about that has created more confidence in (our) being able to do it and go for it,” she said. “I really think the unity of this team and the culture of this team, the care they have for one another, is even deeper than we’ve had, and we think those little things at the end of the game is what’s really going to count.”
Win or lose Saturday, one thing will remain the same — Utah gymnastics is among the very best college gymnastics has to offer and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
