Random Thought While Watching SEC Gymnastics Championships
 

I'm sitting here watching the SEC Women's Gymnastics championships and had a thought: How many of these gymnasts are sorority members?
fyi Florida has the lead after the 3rd rotation.

AOII used to get a lot of the gymnasts at UGa--maybe they still do?

I would guess that not many of them are members. Gymnastics takes a ton of time and a lot of them are coming from the elite gymnastics world where they weren't overly involved in school activities because the gym was their life. I had an elite gymnast in my newspaper class a few years ago and it was one of the only school activities in which she participated because we had a class period for it. She got most of her work done during the school day because evening and weekends were training, working out, classes or meets.

^^Great point. I thought about that too.

Alabama's coach, Sarah Patterson, was ZTA's convention initiate last summer! :-)

(PS - I LOVE NCAA gymnastics. Especially floor. It just seems more lively and fun than Olympic-level.)

I'm betting that the sororities who have these girls as members are very forgiving when it comes to missing events because of meets or practices. Several fraternity and sorority chapters have been thrilled to have varsity athletes--they can be big recruitment draws! (And some, of course, are wonderful people anyway.)

We had two gymnasts in my chapter while I was there, and one was our chapter president!

Some schools have rules against athletes joining Greek orgs--I know this is the case at my school, at least for football players and fraternities. I knew a couple of female varsity athletes in sororities, and my sorority had a former swim/dive team member, but the previous posters are correct in that the athletic training tends to take up so much time that members can't see themselves joining another org with a major time commitment. The teams also tend to act like Greek orgs themselves, with the team members forging sister-like bonds just because they spend almost all their free time together and are working as a team.

We had girls that were cheerleaders, on the tennis team, golf team and several on the synchro swim team (national champs). I remember the Tri Delts had a couple of swimmers, but I don't remember any chapters having gymnasts.

I know that some coaches at my college don't like their athletes to go through recruitment during the season. For something like gymnastics, especially at that level, I would think a coach like that would want them to never go through recruitment and just keep training and competing.

The chapter I was an advisor for, most of the girls were on a sport of some kind. It is a small university, so the girls are involved in a variety of activities across the campus. 2 of the previous chapter presidents were cheerleaders at the university.

I took my daughter to this event, since she is a gymnastics fan. She was thrilled to "high five" Bridget Sloan :)

Back to the topic at hand, I also think depends on the coach. When I was at Arkansas, we had a women's basketball player who was active in the chapter. Sure, those members will need additional excuses for chapter events, but their involvement is an asset to most chapters - I would think.

We didn't have gymnastics at TCU, so I can't speak to that specific sport. However, members of the soccer, golf, tennis, basketball, swimming and diving teams were all sorority women. In addition, virtually all of the cheerleaders and dance team were as well.

Greek Life was/is so big at TCU that I think the coaches have come to terms with the idea of their athletes doing both. I don't remember any coach creating any sort of friction.

My chapter had members from most of the above listed groups and we were just a little more lenient with some of the requirements, especially things like study hall and pomping the homecoming float.

I played tennis freshman and sophomore years and we had a couple of cheerleaders and a swimmer. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

A girl I went to high school with was a gymnast at Alabama and she pledged DZ but I don't think she initiated.