Every team has someone behind the scenes who keeps the team moving. For the women’s gymnastics team, that person is Grace Gough, a senior who has been a manager and assistant coach for the last couple of years.

“I take on the managerial side of the sport, helping with apparel for competitions, making sure everyone has their bags ready to go with all their leos (leotards) and competition gear,” said Gough. “In the gym, I help wherever I’m needed, whether it’s getting mats for the girls or helping with board settings on vault or if they need any kind of coach. I just do whatever anyone needs me to do to make the girls’ lives easier.”

As a former athlete herself, she’s had plenty of experience with time management, and she’s able to balance her duties with her schooling. She’s also able to connect with the gymnasts, not being far removed from her athletic career.

“When I get a correction from her … it’s more of a conversation instead of an authority figure telling you, which I really appreciate because she has so much knowledge from being a gymnast,” said senior Tessa Phillips. “We all relate to her so well cause she’s on our same intellectual level when it comes to gymnastics … instead of a head coach or one of the assistant coaches telling you what’s wrong and having the pressure to fix it.”

According to head coach Nadalie Walsh, having a bridge between the players and coaching staff is healthy for team culture.

“She doesn’t have an event that she coaches primarily, but she supplements every coach on every event and she’s helped me a lot on beam these last two years,” Walsh said. “She still really helps with the equipment. She helps with simple things that really matter, like playing the floor music. She’s there to play the music for the team and help set up conditioning stations and tear down different mat stacks.

“It’s a lot of the work that maybe feels like a thankless job, but what it really is doing for her is creating a really strong work ethic in her. I don’t think what she does goes unnoticed at all.”

She may be excelling as a coach but it wasn’t her first choice. Decisions are not always in our control.

“My senior year of high school I got a stress fracture in my back and that took me out for the whole season,” Gough said. “Then, I came here in the summer right before my freshman year. I was trying to come back and that following December, I got a concussion and so that took me out for a couple of weeks. And then after coming back from that, I hurt my hand, so I had to get surgery on my hand.”

“Once I was kind of healed from all that stuff, in the spring, summertime, my back started hurting again, so I had to go back to the doctors and I had a herniated disc. That was something that was really painful and it was really hard to do gymnastics with that, so the doctors gave me the option to retire from the sport if it was something that I wanted to do.”

Later that summer, Gough officially retired from competing to preserve her physical and mental health.

She came to Illinois for gymnastics, but her body never gave her the chance to live out her dream.

“All of our hearts just really went out to her because we saw how much she was trying to get her dream of competing, but everything just kept pushing against her with her body,” Phillips said.

Ultimately, after talks with her close friends and family, she decided to retire. It wasn’t an easy decision; she was forced to choose between living in the moment and her future — whether to continue to try and live out her dream or take care of her long-term health.

More than anything, Gough was glad she had so much support from her family and friends. Even with the magnitude of her retirement from the sport, they made it a little easier.

Even with all this knocking her down, she never sulked, never made excuses and didn’t stop herself from returning to the gym or from staying involved with the team.

“I think it’s always hard and sad when your career ends in a way that you don’t want it to or in a way that is unexpected,” Walsh said. “She gained a ton of confidence and had a really big piece about what she was stepping into as far as her new role.”

Taking on a managerial role and an assistant coaching position was something Gough jumped on. Even if her competition days were over, she didn’t want to leave the program and abandon her former teammates.

The biggest reason Walsh offered this role to Gough was because of her commitment to the sport; she loves gymnastics and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“This role has really given me an appreciation and a love for the sport again,” Gough said. “Being on the other side of it, it’s very different and it’s something that I’ve really enjoyed getting to learn.”

Not only can she help with all the gymnastic events, but she has also been able to give advice to players struggling with injuries. She’s there for the women, just like they were for her when she needed the support.

“She is one of my best friends, we’re super close, our whole class is,” Phillips said. “I love her to death, she’ll probably be at my wedding.”

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