Since 1974, UCLA gymnastics has been among the greatest in the nation, having claimed 19 Top 5 national finishes, 15 regional titles and 11 Pac-10 championships. The Bruins have won five NCAA titles, all in the last eight years - 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004.
The women's gymnastics program was one of 10 new varsity teams sponsored by the Department of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics (DWIA) formed in 1974. That year, Kirby Weedin, along with co-coach Jennifer Shaw, helped UCLA place first at the Southern California Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Class II Championships. In 1977, the team, behind coach Lee Ann Lobdill, began competing solely in Class I competitions. The Bruins, a member of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), the counterpart to the NCAA, had relative success in its first years of existence, with Laurie Donaldson becoming the first Bruin to achieve national recognition.
A new decade brought in a new head coach for UCLA and a new winning era for the Bruins. With the emergence of Sharon Shapiro, Kim Hamilton, Tanya Service and Jill Andrews, the UCLA women's gymnastics program was transformed from a collection of tumblers to a group of national-caliber gymnasts. Sharon Shapiro, with her innovative style and explosive performances, rocketed to national stardom. As a freshman, she made history at the 1980 AIAW Championships by becoming the first female collegiate gymnast to capture national titles on all four events and the all-around - a feat no one has duplicated since. Shapiro continued her success in 1981 by winning the AIAW vault and all-around titles. This paved the way to UCLA's second-place team finish, the first of three runner-up finishes in the 1980s. Shapiro won the Broderick Award in 1981, given to the country's top female gymnast. The next year, the NCAA encompassed the AIAW to form one intercollegiate athletic association for both men and women.
The following years, under head coach Jerry Tomlinson, UCLA placed no lower than sixth at the NCAA Championships, including a runner-up finish in 1984.
In 1987, the Bruins joined the Pacific-10 Conference and won the first of four consecutive Pac-10 team titles. At the conference championships, Service captured the all-around, bars and a share of the beam title en route to 1987 Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year honors. The Bruins finished first at the NCAA West Regionals and third at the NCAAs. Hamilton collected her first national floor title.
The next year, UCLA went undefeated in the regular season for the first time, compiling an 18-0 record. The team finished third once again at NCAA's, with Hamilton recording her second-straight floor title. Andrews garnered her own national title on the vault.
The Bruins nearly won the NCAA Championship in 1989, falling short by a mere five-one-hundredths of a point to Georgia. However, Hamilton won an unprecedented third consecutive national floor title and also won the vault title. Andrews tied for the beam championship, and Service became the first gymnast to win Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year honors twice. Andrews was the second, earning the title in 1988 and 1990.
At the end of the 1990 season, Valorie Kondos and Scott Bull were named the new co-head coaches of the Bruin program. UCLA returned to national form by claiming the 1993 Pac-10 and NCAA West Regional team titles and posting its best finish (fourth) at NCAA's since 1990. On Feb. 13 of that year, Amy Thorne became the first Bruin to score a 10.0 on any event with her flawless floor routine. One month later, Megan Fenton reached perfection by scoring a 10.0 on the uneven bars to take the Pac-10 title.
In 1994, Kareema Marrow became the third Bruin gymnast to score a 10.0, this one coming on vault. The Bruins went on to sweep the all-around standings at the Pac-10 Championships, with Leah Homma becoming the fifth Bruin to become the all-around champion, and Marrow and Karen Nelson placing second and third. The Bruins took home their second consecutive regional championship and a fifth-place showing at NCAA's.
After the departure of Bull, Kondos became the Bruins' sole head coach in 1995 and earned West Regional Coach of the Year honors. She also led her team to a fourth-place showing at the NCAA Championships. The Bruins were backed by a dazzling performance by Marrow, who scored a 10.0 on the floor exercise. Freshman Stella Umeh capped the Bruins' successful season by winning the floor exercise title and becoming the first Bruin freshman to win a national title since 1987, when Hamilton accomplished that feat.
The Bruins achieved a breakthrough year in 1996. Not only did they place second at the NCAA Championships with a school record 197.475, but Kondos was named the National Coach of the Year, and Dee Fischer scored the fifth 10.0 in school history by hitting a perfect vault to help the Bruins win the West Regional title for the fourth consecutive season.
After years of watching Utah, Alabama and Georgia dominate the leaderboards at the NCAA Championships, UCLA finally made the jump to the top, winning the 1997 NCAA team title, as well as the Pac-10 and West Regional titles. Homma earned Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year honors for the second time in her career and scored the first 10.0s of her career, on vault and bars. Kondos again won National Coach of the Year honors.
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In front of a home crowd, two Bruins won NCAA individual titles in 1998 - Umeh (floor) and Heidi Moneymaker (bars). Also at the NCAAs, Umeh scored her first 10.0 on floor in the final team competition of her career. In addition, Umeh won three of five titles at the Pac-10 Championships and earned Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year honors.
The year 1999 saw two more NCAA individual titles come to Westwood, as Moneymaker won the vault championship, and Kiralee Hayashi, the Pac-10 Gymnast of the Year, tied for the beam title. Moneymaker's NCAA title was a fitting end to her outstanding season that saw her win the all-around titles at the Pac-10 and Regional meets. Also in 1999, Shapiro became the first female gymnast to be inducted into UCLA's Hall of Fame. She would later be joined by Hamilton and Andrews.
The new millennium saw UCLA continue its dominance, as the Bruins won back-to-back NCAA titles in 2000 and 2001 and had another back-to-back run in 2003 and 2004. UCLA won 11 NCAA individual titles during this five-year period, including the school's first-ever NCAA all-around crown by Onnie Willis in 2001 and a three-event (all-around, vault and floor) crowning of Jamie Dantzscher in 2002. Mohini Bhardwaj and Willis won the Honda Award as the nation's top gymnast in 2001 and 2003, respectively.