By Brian FeesSouthern Tier Sports Report
A few years ago there was a moment where everything kind of clicked for Britney Wheeler.
The Horseheads senior, who competes at Sky Gymnastics in Horseheads, had a moment where she realized that maybe she could do something with gymnastics at the collegiate level.
Now, Wheeler is committed to Division I LIU where she will do collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling.
“I am very excited,” Wheeler said. “That’s something I have wanted to do for a very long time. I have been doing gymnastics for 16 years so it’s very exciting to get to go and tumble and have a scholarship.
“When I was in ninth grade I was in a little lower level so I was thinking I’m not sure if this is something I would be able to do. Then I just kind of had this moment where everything clicked for me and I got really good all of a sudden so probably maybe like 10th grade I started to think maybe this is something I can do in college. Then over the summer like right before junior year I had a lot of coaches for acro and tumbling reaching out to me and I thought okay, I can totally do this now. I worked really hard at it and here I am.”
Wheeler is a level 10 gymnast, the highest level below elite. Going Division I was something that Wheeler had in her mind for a long time.
“I really wanted to go Division I and I had just about every acro and tumbling coach I can think of reach out to me and I was really excited about it. The opportunity to be near the city, and the team was amazing, the coaches were amazing. I went to visit and everybody was super welcoming and it just felt like somewhere I wanted to be.”
There are a lot of different things you can do in acro and tumbling, compared to regular gymnastics. Wheeler is excited for that, though she will miss parts of regular gymnastics.
“I am very excited,” Wheeler said. “For tumbling, we have a lot of different skills that are different than regular gymnastics skills, so I get to tumble and do all these different twists I wasn’t doing before. So, it’s new tumbling passes, new skills, so I’m really excited and I have been working on them now, but I’m excited to do them beside teammates.
“Bars is my favorite, so I’m a little sad I won’t do that in college. I’ll obviously still practice gymnastics in college, but I think just having that team sport. Gymnastics is such an individual and team sport, whereas across and tumbling is really a team sport. I think that is really the biggest aspect I love. Because I haven’t had any girls that were my level in years. I think it’s been seven or eight years since I had teammates (on the same level as her). We haven’t had any other level 10s, we didn’t have anybody on nine, we din’t have anybody on those levels so just having girls that are going to be there for me and be practicing with me is something I like the most about it.”
There are a lot of special things about being the highest level gymnast on her team now. But, there will also be some positives to having people she’s looking up to on the team.
“I love being the highest level here, because I get to help all the younger girls,” Wheeler said. “But, I don’t have anyone to help me, so going into college and having girls who have more experience than me, it’s going to be great, because I feel like I can talk to my coaches for advice and I can also use my teammates to help me progress.
“It’s going to be weird. I have been our team captain for like seen years now, so it’s been a really long time being the captain and having control over these decisions and helping younger girls. But, I feel like it’s helpful now because I’m going to be really pushed to want to be a leader and be a captain when I get to college and to be able to help girls coming in. So, I think having that experience of not really having anyone to help me helps me do better on my own. But, it also gives me the opportunity to work really hard to help other people out when I get better in college.”
At LIU the Horseheads senior knows she’ll get a chance to compete against some of the nation’s best teams, and athletes in the sport.
“Last year they went up against Oregon and I think Baylor, which are the top two for acro and tumbling,” Wheeler said. “They go up against a lot of these bigger schools. They are pretty new to acro and tumbling, so I’m pretty excited about it.
“Some of these girls that are tumbling for them are incredible and Ii’ve watched them on Instagram or Youtube and I’ve seen them do gymnastics, so it’s incredible to see their tumbling and then go up against them myself.”
Wheeler has already met a lot of her future teammates, and is excited to work with them.
“I went and did a visit and got to meet some of the girls that were on the team and they were super excited,” Wheeler said. “They love it a lot, when you are in gymnastics you have to have a real passion for it, you have to, to get this far. But, they are really supportive of each other and they are excited for themselves and there is just so much positivity about it. Then, I met some f the girls that are committed now, that are incoming freshman like me and they are all so kind. They have a lot of love for the sport in their heart, which is really nice.”
And, Wheeler knows she’ll have teammates who are better than her, which will just make here better.
“It’s really hard, when you don’t have people pushing you, who are better than you, you start to feel stagnant,” Wheeler said. “It’s harder to move up. When you have somebody where it’s like I know they are better than me, it makes it easier of you and pushes you, so I’m excited. I feel like it will ignite something in me and make me work harder and push me.”
For Wheeler it’s been a lot of work to get to this point.
“It’s been a very long journey to get here,” Wheeler said. “I have had so many times I thought maybe I want to quit, maybe I can’t do this anymore. But, to be able to get a scholarship for it and go and do it. I love floor and I love tumbling so that’s some of my favorite things about gymnastics. To be able to go and do that in college, I’m so excited because I feel like I worked so hard for so long and now it’s finally giving me something back.”
Wheeler hopes that some of the younger girls at her club see what she’s accomplishing and realize it’s possible for them as well.
“I have talked to a lot of girls about it,” Wheeler said. “Acro and tumbling is still one of those things that’s a bit newer. A lot of gymnasts are in it, and really it’s just a division of gymnastics. I think a lot of girls seeing me being able to go and do that, they are kind of feeling themselves like there are more opportunities for me, and maybe it’s something I can do. Especially because we are in such a small area where I don’t see really anybody from our area going and doing a lot of that stuff, so I think it kind of opens doors for them, and opens their eyes an hopefully it makes them feel like this is something I can do and I can achieve it.”
For some, coming from a smaller area, and a smaller gym would make it seem difficult to get to the Division I level. But, Wheeler always was motivated.
“When I was younger I was like our gym is so small, I don’t know if I can go very far,” Wheeler said. “And, I had coaches tell me it’s really hard to go anywhere from where we are at right now. But, I had so much motivation and drive in myself. I can pretty much work with annoying I’m given. You can pretty much just give me a concrete floor and I’m going to get there.
“It feels really nice now knowing I came from a smaller background compared to most gymnasts. Our gym is relatively small, we have a small team, we only have one coach. Coming from that, I feel like I’ve achieved a lot. It feels good, especially going to Division I from something so small to something so big. I feel really accomplished.”
As someone who coaches the younger girls at Sky Gymnastics, Wheeler hopes a lot of those girls know what they are capable of doing in the future.
“I’m the coach for our lower levels right now and our lower level girls, I know they look up to me a lot and it’s really great to know there parents are seeing me achieve these things and I hope they feel the same way,” Wheeler said. “I hope the kids are seeing that and feeling like I can totally do this and other people from other areas are seeing that and are saying I want to go there.”
Wheeler wants to help her team in college, but she also wants to help grow the sport into the future.
“In college, I really want to contribute to the team,” she said. “But, I also have personal goals. I have specific tumbling passes I want to get. I have awards I might want to receive. Then, I plan to continue practicing gymnastics and coaching gymnastics as long as I can. I was just in a movie that was inspired by gymnastics, and that’s something I really want to carry into the future.
“I’m majoring in film, so I want to kind of include my sport into film and get the word out about it a little bit more. Not, that people don’t know about gymnastics and tumbling, but it’s not this huge, popular sport like football or hockey or things like that. So, I feel like using my sports background I can kind of contribute to film and make it a little bigger.”
The movie that Wheeler was in was called The Gymnast, also starring Ethan Embry.
As Wheeler heads off to college, she hopes one day to see gymnastics grow even bigger in this area. Currently Corning is the only school in the area with the sport, and Wheeler would love to see a day when it’s a sport that’s popular throughout high schools in the state.
“I think a lot of people don’t see gymnastics, and tumbling as a sport,” Wheeler said. “They think it’s just a hobby or.something, but it takes a lot of training and it is so hard. I wish every high school offered it like they offer other sports. Because this takes a lot of practice, it takes a lot of discipline, because this is a sport and I think it’s something that should be assessable for everyone, everywhere.”
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