Clemson gymnastics' first ACC championship was more than a win: It was a masterclass in women’s sports investment. A look at the environment, the infrastructure, and the people behind the historic trophy.
The Clemson University women's gymnastics team celebrates after winning the 2026 ACC Championship over the No. 7 Stanford Cardinal.Clemson gymnast Quinn Kuhl didn’t know what she needed to score. She just needed to do “her normal.
” The junior doesn’t pay attention to the numbers, but sheIn Clemson gymnastics’ final rotation of the ACC Championship, the team’s uneven bars squad had hit every routine, sticking nearly every dismount. The environment was “electric,” Kuhl told me. Still, to the Clemson gymnast, it was just another day in the gym. “One more bar routine,” she told herself, repeating her team’s motto – “own it”– before saluting the judges in Greensboro.Kuhl had struggled with her release combination in warmups, but the veteran flew between the bars with ease. Swinging into her double-layout dismount, Kuhl was seconds away from securing history for her program – she just didn’t know it yet."I literally had tunnel vision,” Kuhl said, recalling the moments following her routine as the “best feeling ever.” The judges rewarded the junior with a career-best 9.90, securing a program-record score on the uneven bars to close Clemson’s 2026 ACC Championship bid.It all came down to Stanford freshman Ana Barbosu, the Olympic medalist and European Floor Exercise Champion. The star needed a 9.975 to lead the top-ranked Cardinal to their second consecutive ACC Championship, ending Clemson’s surge for the title. Sticking both of her tumbling passes, the Romanian delivered, and the Greensboro crowd stirred. Now, the two programs would wait.The excruciating wait would be worth it. Barbosu received a 9.95 – a stellar score, but not enough to lift the No. 7 Cardinal above No. 16 Clemson. It was over, and history had been made: in only its third season as a program, the Clemson Tigers won the 2026 ACC Gymnastics Championship.Clemson University gymnasts react after winning the 2026 ACC Gymnastics Championship in Greensboro, NC.As soon as the score went final, the Clemson Tigers were airborne again: jumping for joy on the elevated competition surface. “I don’t even remember getting up ,” Clark laughed. “But I was.” Clark was integral to the historic ACC win, posting a season-high score on vault and a team-leading 9.925 on floor exercise. The win was monumental. It wasn’t just Clemson’s first ACC Gymnastics Championship – it marked the fastest rise for a program in gymnastics history. In June 2021, Clemson University announced the launch of a women’s gymnastics program. In 2023, a group of seven athletes spent the year in residence while the university broke ground on its facility. These seven became “Team Zero.” In 2024, “Team One” took to the intercollegiate stage for the first time. Just two years later, the team delivered its first conference title. As original members of 2024’s “Team Zero,” Clark and her current teammates – Madison Minner, Tara Walsh, and Lily Lippeatt – were as intrinsic to the program’s foundation as the university’s Orange and Regalia. Team Zero first saw their new facility through Virtual Reality Simulations, watching it progress from groundbreaking to official practices. Though they knew they had a top-notch facility and resources, the gymnasts didn’t immediately clear space for a trophy. “We knew that at some point Clemson would win ACCs, but we didn’t realize that we would get to be a part of it," Clark reflected.Despite the dreamlike outcome in Greensboro, Clemson’s meteoric rise took flight after years of concerted, intentional efforts from administration, athletes, and staff. These efforts led to the pivotal hire of the husband-and-wife coaching duo, Justin Howell and Elisabeth Crandall-Howell, in 2025. After two years of solid but middling performances under then-coach Amy Smith, the Clemson Tigers were ready to become a national contender. They had the resources – now, they needed the right coaches. When Clemson introduced the Howells as their new head coaches in May 2025, the “stars aligned,” Athletic Director Graham NeffBefore accepting the job, the Howells had led the California Golden Bears to historic heights, including a historic National Runner-Up finish in 2024 and the 2025 ACC Championship. However, when the Howells visited the sparkling-new Clemson facility, they were awestruck.The Howells quickly realized that the university’s state-of-the-art facility just scratched the surface of its efforts.From the basics – properly secured, ventilated, and spaced equipment – to the exceptional, like the automatic lift that allows the team to analyze practice routines from an aerial view, every aspect of the Tigers’ facility is deliberate. “Everything on this campus and in this department is intentional and has purpose," Howell said. From Howell’s perspective, Clemson’s student-athletes’ success isn’t accidental: it’s engineered. He feels that the administration “recognized that all of the pieces of the puzzle have to be there at an elite level if you want elite performance." “They did their homework… then asked: ‘How do we make this Clemson?’” Clemson’s gymnastics ‘research’ included examining programs across the country: the good, the bad, and the ugly.Clemson University Athletics “They took the best parts from around the country" and invested in their inaugural gymnastics program. The result: a multi-million-dollar facility complemented by seven figures’ worth of academic and athletic support. As soon as they leave their dazzling facility, gymnasts have access to an athlete recovery center, which includes red light therapy, massages, dry floats, and wet floats. It’s "everything you could possibly need" for athlete recovery, Howell attests. Academically, athletes can head to the tutorial center, where they can use one of the 50+ glassed-in rooms and access scheduling support.Every student-athlete is issued a MacBook upon arrival on campus, and it stays with them when they graduate, Howell tells me. “The most important thing is the student-athlete experience— wants it to be positive and healthy—but they also want to win." This winning mentality expands beyond the 21,000-square-foot training facilities and internal athlete resources. Clemson University wants gymnastics to serve as a “front porch sport.” That means selling tickets. During its first three seasons at Littlejohn Coliseum, Clemson consistently ranked among the top ten nationally in attendance. In 2026, the program led the entire country in fan turnout through the first six weeks of the regular season. Even with record-breaking turnouts and community acclaim, Clemson Athletics refuses to rest on its laurels. “They’re constantly reevaluating—how can we make this better? Even with sold-out meets, they’re still asking how to elevate the experience," Howell says. Clemson Athletics reported in 2025 that gymnastics was its most attended and revenue-generating women’s sport, behind only football, men’s basketball, and baseball. “Holy cow,” Neff said, reacting to the team’s popularity. “The demand for season tickets is tremendous," he added. The team’s popularity extends beyond the arena walls and deep within the surrounding community. Clark, one of the team’s stars, tells me that she is regularly recognized and approached at local establishments by fans and supporters. After multiple collegiate programs cut their gymnastics programs in recent years, Clemson stands as a powerful counter-narrative to the sport’s perceived instability. “People genuinely want to help each other succeed,” Howell said of his coaching and administrative colleagues. And succeed they have.For the highly-successful Howells, Clemson’s first ACC Championship is their second conference title after leading Cal to the same success just a year prior. Though the pair has coached countless talents over the years, this team stands out. “I think this whole season has been one of the best coaching years that I’ve ever experienced," Howell says. There’s no drama, just joy. "This group, they’ve been through a lot, they’re so grateful… we just get to come in every day and coach gymnastics," Howell says. Clemson Gymnastics' team pillars, "Empower," "Purpose," and "Joy" loom above the 21,000-square-foot facility.The team is a “melting pot” of talent, Clark tells me. From" Team Zero" stars like Clark and Kuhl to top-ranked transfers and a European champion, the roster alone had a resume destined for greatness.at their first team retreat. When they arrived in their new facility, “there were a lot of words on the walls and signs that the team didn’t choose.” They tasked the athletes with redecorating those walls.The gymnasts agreed on five core values: Empower, Purpose, Joy, Growth, and Respect. “Joy is right in the center of the facility—you see it every day,” Howell reflected. When I asked Quinn Kuhl what made this team special, her answers were almost identical to her coach’s. Joy was at her team’s core. "It all comes down to the core values that we chose," Kuhl said, referencing the same formative retreat. “The center of it all being joy.” After a 2025 postseason overshadowed by the firing of former head coach Amy Smith, joy was needed. From the athletes to the coaches to the support staff, “joy has been the biggest change." For storied coaches Justin and Liz Crandall-Howell, joy might have been the element that leveled this championship above the rest. “When we got second at Cal at the national championships, that was a fantastic moment," Howell said, reflecting on his former program’s historic 2024 result. “But that Saturday and ACC championship topped it.”When asked about what’s next for the rising Tigers, Brie Clark was in giddy disbelief. “It just keeps getting better and better," Clark said, with a laugh.For the first time in program history, Clemson is a seeded team headed into the NCAA Gymnastics postseason tournament. The No. 15-seeded Tigers head down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the hopes of qualifying for the NCAA National Championship. Clemson University gymnastics Head Coaches Justin Howell and Liz Crandall-Howell celebrate with the 2026 ACC Championship trophy in Greensboro, North Carolina.Their goal remains the same as it was in January: get “one day better.” If the Tigers can qualify among the top eight teams in the country, they will make more history. “Never count the Tigers out,” Clark declared. Build it and they will come—the fans, the athletes, and eventually, the hardware. In just three years, Clemson University transformed a nonexistent gymnastics program into a national contender. Now that the dust has settled on a historic rise, a new question arises: Which university is next?
Team Zero Clemson Gymnastics Justin Howell Clemson Head Coach Clemson $21 Million Gymnastics Facility NCAA Gymnastics Conference Title Brie Clark Floor Exercise Quinn Kuhl Bars Stick Clemson Vs Stanford Gymnastics 2026 Building A College Gymnastics Program Clemson Women’S Sports Complex Investment
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