Acrobatics & Tumbling
Favorite athlete: Shawn Johnson
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Traveling and meeting new people
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: While practicing my floor routine at my house, I rolled my ankle over my dog.
Music on Playlist: Meek Mill, Eminem, Zac Brown, Thomas Rhett
Future plans: To attend the University of Oregon on the Acrobatics and Tumbling team, with an academic and athletic scholarship
Words to live by: “There’s no snooze button on life”
One goal before turning 30: To help the University of Oregon win a national championship
One thing people don’t know about me: I’ve always grown up with dogs, however, I’m scared of them
By GORDON GLANTZ
It will be less Meek Mill and Eminem and more Zac Brown and Thomas Rhett for self-described “country girl” Brynn Mortimer, who primarily used rap to pump herself up before gymnastics competitions.
Now, with her college decision made, the University of Oregon-bound Mortimer will be chilling more to country music.
“I’m very relieved to know where I’m going,” she said. “It was stressing me out for the last two years. To have this out from under my belt, just takes a lot off my chest.”
Mortimer, who will be joining the Ducks on their Acrobatics and Tumbling team on a combined athletic and academic scholarship, still has a competitive season ahead with Ricochets Gymnastics of Hatboro, but she is no longer feeling the same kind of pressure in a sport where it can get best of you.
“I think it will make me better,” said Mortimer, who measures in at 5-feet tall. “I won’t be as nervous or stressed out about my performance. Now, I’m settled in. My goal is to just have fun. I’ve been so stressed out these last few years. I just want to let loose and do the best I can do.”
Fighting Fear
It all started out before Mortimer could comprehend stress, as she was just 3 when she began classes at Ricochets.
Within a few years, she was picked from the chorus to engage in more intensive training, at which point she pretty much gave up other activities (cheerleading, dance, softball).
As the competitions grew more intense, so did the pressure and the fear.
For all the physical training, Mortimer sees the sport as being much more mental, in terms of obstacles.
“I have had so many mental blocks I have had to push through over the years,” she said. “It’s 50-50, maybe more. It’s very mental.”
Sarah Lang, her longtime coach at Ricochets has seen her wage, and win, these inner battles.
“She’s a determined kid,” said Lang. “Gymnastics has a lot of fear in it. You are asking them to do a lot of flips on small things. Fear is a huge part of the sport, and she has hit fear at many points in her career. The average kid would have bailed a long time ago.
“She has persevered through a ton. She tries very hard to stay positive. Even when it’s hard to be positive, she tries.”
Crossroads
There came a point where Mortimer found herself at a crossroads, in terms of how intense she wanted to continue with her training and competing in order to be a college gymnast.
“That was always a goal of mine,” she said. “Freshman year, I knew I could either go all-in for it or I could just have a life outside of gymnastics. I decided to just go all-in and just go for it.”
What that meant was working out a program with the Centennial School District. Ever since 7th grade, Mortimer had study hall last period in order to go to practice early and was already taking some online classes before she started to attend Tennent.
By getting onto Oregon’s radar, Mortimer will be the first collegiate gymnast from Ricochets since Lang and Chris Zimmerman became co-owners.
And they know, better than anyone, how much she has earned it.
“It does take a lot of time,” affirmed Zimmerman. “She’s been in our more competitive program for around 11 years now, I believe. When she started, she was just in our regular class program, which is one day a week. Then, you know, it built up from there and has been training around 20-25 hours a week.
“We tried to put some extra time in, getting to a college scholarship. That’s certainly not an easy thing in our sport. She’s very dedicated and has put a lot of time into it.”
Shifting Focus
When it came to college gymnastics, Mortimer realized she was likely to fall into a situation where she was going to compete on the Division III level.
Wanting the feel of a larger campus, she starting looking into shifting gears to Acrobatics and Tumbling (i.e. acro-and-tumbling, as it is commonly referred).
“That’s kind of a newer NCAA sport,” she explained. “It’s a mix of gymnastics and cheerleading.
“I was, pretty much set on doing gymnastics, up until maybe August, like a few months ago. I knew I really needed to figure out what I was doing for college. I was going to go to smaller D-III school for gymnastics or a bigger school for acro-and-tumbling.
“It was always my goal to go to a big school and get to travel, so that was the route I decided to take.”
The route was not necessarily an easy one, as she spent time making herself known to the approximately 50 schools that had programs.
“You email coaches,” she said. “You just get on the phone. I had to send videos, videos and videos.
“I didn’t even know there was a thing until the last five years. I found it on social media. I was, like, ‘Oh, what’s this, no bars or beam?’ So, I started looking into it. I got on calls with coaches. It was, like, ‘What is this sport? Explain it to me.’ It’s a smaller number, but it’s definitely growing. There are four D-I schools, and I always wanted to go D-I. I visited all four, and I narrowed it down to Oregon and Baylor. I ended up choosing Oregon.”
Mortimer’s final choice was a matter of feeling more at home with Oregon, where she will major in human physiology, for a variety of reasons.
“I really loved the environment,” said Mortimer, who takes honors classes at Tennent and sports a 3.7 GPA. “My cousin lives out in Oregon. So, if I can’t come home, I’ll have a family member close by. I loved the school. I fell in love right away.”
While Mortimer did a lot of legwork, her coaches were part of the process.
“We went to a NCAA recruiting event in July,” said Zimmerman. “There were regular gymnastics coaches -- along with acrobatics and tumbling people -- there. We sat and talked with some of those people at that time. It kind of piqued her interest a little bit, and we kind of ran with it and ended up with a scholarship.
“They were immediately interested in her. They were, like, ‘Yes, we’d love to have her in our program.’ Tumbling was already one of her strong events. Honestly, from there, she did most of the research and legwork on it herself. She just kind of ran with it and talked to coaches. That’s just the kind of a kid she is, and she got people to offer her scholarships.”
From her perspective, Lang believes Mortimer has found the perfect competition.
“She will fit right into that ‘cheerleading’ side of it,” she said. “She’s really cute and super bubbly. I can, 100 percent, see her getting out on the floor with her big smile and watch her moving and grooving. It will be fun watching her transition into that.”
No ‘Snooze’ Routine
Despite her time-consuming schedule of academics and gymnastics, Mortimer has found time to be in the National Honor Society. She also plays powder puff football and takes part in Gym Night.
She is able to do it all with a simple-yet-effective approach.
“Ever since I have been setting my own alarm and getting myself up, I have never hit snooze,” she said. “You have to just get up. You can’t just keep hitting snooze.”
In addition to her parents, Pam and Daniel, and her older sister, Brianna, who was also a gymnast and works at Ricochets, Mortimer wanted to thank Oregon coach Taylor Susnara for welcoming her.
And then there are her coaches, Zimmerman and Lang, at Ricochets.
“They have been there since I have been there,” she said. “I kind of grew up with them, and I’m super-close with them.”
The feelings are mutual.
“We definitely saw the talent, the ability and the drive early on,” said Zimmerman. “She was always a very focused little child, very hardworking.”
Added Lang: “She has been fun to watch, from our little 3-year-old Brynn to going on 18.”
