For Ellen Barker, newly hired head-coach of Calvin’s Women’s Acrobatics and Tumbling program, this emerging sport is an opportunity for former gymnasts and cheerleaders to continue competing in college. Barker is a former competitor and an experienced coach in the sport, which will launch at Calvin in spring 2024.

A sport “by women, for women”

Barker started gymnastics when she was three years old, but when she started her freshman year of high school the sport shifted. 

“I hit high school age and my options were: Be an Olympian or quit,” Barker said. Another alternative was competitive cheerleading. But because of the stigma around cheerleading, cheerleaders often don’t get the recognition they deserve, according to Barker. “I cheered at Davenport [University]  for two years,” Barker said. “We brought back a National Championship, and no one even batted an eye.”

After that, Barker left Davenport to go to Azusa Pacific University to compete in acrobatics and tumbling for three years. Upon graduating, she was offered the position of head-coach for acrobatics and tumbling at Adrian College and coached there for the past six years. 

When Calvin Athletics began exploring adding an acrobatics and tumbling program, Barker was tapped to be a consultant on the logistics. As she was consulting, Barker became interested in the job, submitted an application and was offered the head-coach position.  

Acrobatics and tumbling is a sport created “by women, for women at the collegiate level,” Barker told Chimes. The sport was created to be a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) opportunity for young women with a cheerleading and gymnastics skill set. 

“To be an NCAA gymnast, you have to be in the [top] 3% of gymnasts in the country. [W]hen there are millions of girls with that skill set, you face what I went through in high school; you cheer without an NCAA opportunity, or you quit,” Barker said. “This sport was created with [that statistic] in mind.”

In 2020, the NCAA granted acrobatics and tumbling “emerging sport” status. Emerging sport status is a probationary period in which the NCAA gives a women’s sport 10 years to have a minimum of 40 teams competing with a minimum of 18 participants per team, with the goal to eventually get the sport “championship status” — that is, the opportunity to have a sanctioned NCAA Championship. Other current emerging sports for women include equestrian, rugby, triathlon and wrestling.

What is acrobatics and tumbling?

When most people think of gymnastics, they think of what they see at the Olympics, which is properly known as artistic gymnastics. But gymnastics is actually a whole tree of athletic pursuits with a number of branches. “Think about [acrobatics and tumbling] as the evolution of different kinds of gymnastics,” Barker said. “Think of acrobatics and tumbling like team gymnastics with Cirque Du Soleil.” There are six events in acrobatics and tumbling meets: a compulsory event, acrobatics, pyramid, toss, tumbling and a team event.  

Acrobatics and tumbling draws upon a wide variety of skills, so for recruiting purposes, Barker has a lot of options. “We recruit gymnasts, competitive cheerleaders, sideline cheerleaders, divers and dancers,” she said. “I had a former teammate who was in the literal circus.”

Barker plans to start recruiting in 2023 for the spring 2024 season. The team needs a minimum of 15 women to be able to compete in the 2024 season. “I’m hoping that there is a lot of on-campus interest because currently there isn’t an NCAA sport on campus that serves this skill set,” Barker said. Interested students can contact Barker at [email protected].