Gymnastics is often seen as the ultimate individual sport—one where gymnasts, much like swimmers, golfers or skiers, push themselves to perfect every move, striving for personal bests and higher scores to edge out the competition.

But at the University of Denver, gymnastics is more than an individual pursuit. Here, gymnasts don’t just compete; they become part of a team, a culture and a community. Over the decades, DU Women’s Gymnastics has become like a finely crafted wheel, with each athlete, coach, alum and fan serving as a vital spoke. Together, they are the driving force, propelling the program to new heights of success.

And success they have had. Founded in 1975, the team had two Division II championships under its belt when it was elevated to Division I in 1984, DU’s first women’s team to do so. Since then, they’ve made 25 consecutive trips to regionals, winning twice; had six team appearances at the NCAA national championships, including making it to the final in 2019; crowned two individual NCAA national champions; and, in 2021, won the Big 12 championship.

But, as anyone associated with DU Gymnastics will tell you, success doesn’t come easy. It’s the result of a relentless focus on core values, a drive to be the best and 360-degree support that elevates the team to reach their fullest potential.

It starts and ends with three magic words 

Character. Teamwork. Excellence. You can’t miss these three words, spelled out in large, capital gold letters on the wall of the team’s practice gym.

At the heart of those three core values is Head Coach Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart, who has helmed the team for 27 years and celebrated her 500th career win this past February. A former Division I college gymnast and 2019 National Coach of the Year, Kutcher-Rinehart says she thought long and hard about what the program’s “North Star” should be.

Academic and gymnastics excellence were non-negotiable, of course, but there was something more.

“In gymnastics and in life, things don’t always go your way. There’s always adversity,” she says. “We started asking of our gymnasts, are they going to make good decisions? Are they committed to pulling back the curtain on what’s going wrong? Are they going to learn and grow from that experience and not make the same mistakes over and over?”

If athletes embrace a “growth mindset,” Kutcher-Rinehart believes the rest will fall into place. A focus on these values starts long before a gymnast steps on the mat at DU.

“Our recruits hear about these years before they even come here,” says Kutcher-Rinehart. The coaches talk about them in detail during the recruiting process, and once a gymnast is on the team, she meets with them weekly during their first year to talk about what they mean and how to implement them in practice and competition.

Assistant Coach Mia Sundstrom (BA ’21, MA ’23) competed on the team from 2018 to 2022 and officially came on board as an assistant coach in 2024. When she thinks about character, which is also one of DU’s Four Dimensions, she sees it as not only the values each person brings to the team, but also the team’s ability to work together and make an impact on others’ lives.

She recalls one time when she was still competing and the team was at the Big 12 conference championship in Oklahoma. During breakfast at the hotel, a family of six was looking for a table, and her teammates instantly got up and offered their space. They even wiped off the table and helped the kids get breakfast.

“These are high-level Division I athletes on a competition day, who could easily be thinking only about themselves and feel entitled to do so,” she says. “Instead, they looked outside of themselves to see how they could help someone else.”

That kind of character, Sundstrom says, is closely entwined with the core value of excellence, which she defines as “bringing 100% of what you have that day, recognizing that not every day is going to be your best, but that you will continue to strive and improve yourself.”

Assistant Coach Stephen Hood echoes this. In a sport where the goal is a 10.0 on the vault, bars, beam or floor, he says they try to avoid the word “perfect.” “We talk about the difference between perfection and excellence, and in a sport where perfection is the gold standard, excellence is almost a step down—but it’s an achievable step. You can achieve excellence every day,” he says.

The third value, teamwork, is something the coaches expect the gymnasts to “live and breathe.”

“If you see somebody moving a mat in the gym, you’ll see somebody else running over, grabbing the other side of the mat to help move it. I think that is the epitome of being a good teammate. Nobody moves a mat by themselves,” says Hood. It’s a simple act, he adds, like putting your cart away at the grocery store or picking up a piece of trash, but from a teamwork standpoint, that’s where it starts.

The challenge is to live those values day in and day out, at practices, competitions and outside the gym—through good times and bad. It’s not easy to do year after year and team after team, but, Kutcher-Rinehart says, it’s more important than ever in today’s constantly changing athletics landscape.

“We want our athletes to capitalize on all the potential opportunities that are available to them, but at the end of the day, it’s still about being humble and hungry and staying true to our core,” she says.

Teamwork is the dream work

“We want our athletes to capitalize on all the potential opportunities that are available to them, but at the end of the day, it’s still about being humble and hungry and staying true to our core,” she says.

While it only lasts a few minutes, the dance has been a part of the program for at least a decade. It’s so engrained in the culture that alumni will dance alongside current gymnasts at the annual alumni meet, and the routine has made appearances at everything from weddings to school assemblies. It’s one of the many ways the athletes create a sense of team unity—along with team retreats, book clubs, pre-meet dinners and game nights.

Every season, the team also chooses a theme: This year, it’s “adventure,” which, according to graduate student Rylie Mundell, means they are living one step, one practice and one meet at a time.

“It’s about having fun and taking big risks to get big rewards. When I step onto the competition floor, I’m going to be aggressive, and I’m going to go for my handstands and take it up higher on my series. And if something goes wrong, it’s not going to stop me from trying it again. I’m going to ground myself in that, and then do it again on floor.”

This is on top of the core values of character, teamwork and excellence, which, Mundell says, are so familiar that she’s “almost adopted them as part of myself. Outsiders may see it as something revolutionary, but for us, it’s what we live and embody every day. It’s like eating breakfast; it’s a very normal set of standards we operate by.”

For co-captain Bella Mabanta, what makes DU Gymnastics special is how connected the team is every year, even as people graduate and newcomers arrive. “We’re very close-knit, to the point where if one person is feeling one way, it radiates throughout the whole team,” she says.

The team also comes together to give back to the community for the annual My Ribbon, My Reason meet. Each gymnast chooses a cause to support, and they all wear colored ribbons representing their causes—which this year ranged from childhood cancer and Alzheimer’s disease to ADHD awareness and climate change. DU partners with associated campus and local organizations to raise awareness, with some of them distributing materials during the meet or setting up a table to encourage fans to learn more.

Graduate student Abbie Thompson says the event is an opportunity to compete for something bigger than themselves. “Gymnastics is so small, really,” she says. “You have four, maybe five years at this level, if you’re lucky, and then it’ll be over. An event like this just helps you remember the bigger picture.”