Head coaches come in all shapes, sizes and colors, but rarely do they come as young as Amirah Boyd, 22, the new head coach of Acrobatics & Tumbling at Caldwell University in New Jersey.
Amirah’s path to Caldwell began in Georgia when her parents, who watched her “flipping all over the house,” enrolled her in gymnastics at the age of 3.
Over the next 10+ years, she flipped and jumped all the way to level 10 gymnastics, the highest level in the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics program.
Unfortunately, she suffered a devastating injury in high school that derailed her plans to pursue college gymnastics.
“I could still do gymnastics, but I wasn’t the same athlete that I was before,” Coach Boyd told me when we spoke in January.
Despite the injury, she was still being recruited by many DIII programs. She was also getting messages about acrobatics and tumbling, but she had no interest as athletics were the furthest thing from her mind.
“‘I’m not doing this. I’m just going to graduate,'” she remembered saying to herself. “I wanted to move to the West Coast, do college there and have nothing to do with athletics.”
But then she received a message from Presbyterian College in South Carolina that changed the trajectory of her young life.
Presbyterian’s DI acrobatics and tumbling program piqued her interest. It was less than three hours away and one of her friends played soccer there, so she decided to check it out.
And that’s when thoughts of moving West ended.
“I fell in love immediately. I loved the coach, I loved the atmosphere, and I was actually part of the inaugural team there,” she told me. “I fell in love with the idea of being a part of something new.”
It wasn’t just a new location and environment. It was also a new challenge that rekindled her interest in sports.
She competed in acrobatics and tumbling for the next four years, and during her sophomore year, she developed the coaching bug, a rarity for young athletes still competing and still in school.
That was proof that age didn’t define or limit Amirah’s future or career path.
So she started to learn about coaching, including practice plans and putting groups together. And since her head coach lacked an assistant coach, Amirah filled that void.
When her senior year rolled around, she started looking for jobs. Some suggested she should look for assistant coaching positions but Amirah was determined to be a head coach despite the doubts about her age and experience.
That February, she applied to Caldwell University and had a whirlwind romance with the school.
“I interviewed, I want to say, like four days before I graduated. I kid you not,” she said. “I graduated May 13th, I saw the campus May 15th and they hired me a day later.”
A week later, her bags were packed and she was in New Jersey.
It was a surprising move to many in her circle, but doubts didn’t phase her.
“It’s been the best thing,” she told me. “This is what I wanted to do. I had it on my heart then, so I decided to take it.”
But as the joy and excitement of achieving her goal subsided, the reality of her new situation surfaced.
She was now running a program in only its second year of existence and she was a first-year head coach who had literally just graduated from college.
That meant she would be learning on the fly, recruiting and coaching athletes around her age and the sport was still relatively new.
Believing that transitioning from gymnastics to acrobatics and tumbling is easy is similar to thinking that moving from boxing to MMA is easy.
While similarities exist, they are very different sports.
But instead of letting it overwhelm her, Amirah simplified things to make it easier for her, her team and the uninformed.
“There’s floor, but there’s no bar and there’s no vault. But you are tumbling,” she said. “If you’ve ever seen a cheer routine, they have baskets, pyramids, tumbling and stunts all in a two-minute and 30-second routine. You break up each specific section, and that’s one event in acro [acrobatics].”
But what about the coaching and business side of the sport?
Again, not a problem.
She started with scheduling and focused on local events and local talent. She also kept a tight rein on expenses, which is a challenge for any new program.
Amirah was able to sign 12 players, giving her 20 rostered athletes. By hitting the minimum of 18, the team was eligible for its first full season in terms of meets and events.
Last Saturday, February 24th, the team began the season in the best way possible with a 190.115-189.270 victory over Stevenson University. That was the first win in program history, a goal the first-year head coach told me in January that she wanted to accomplish.
“My biggest goal this year was to come in and have our first program win because they didn’t get to have that last year,” she told me.
So now that she has her first win, she’s focused on the remaining five events, which entail more prep, more coaching and more focus.
And that’s on top of her also being an assistant SID (Sports Information Director).
Amirah Boyd has the program off to a good start and has her eyes focused on everything from coaching and winning to recruiting and becoming an officially sanctioned NCAA sport.
But she has a vision and refuses to be deterred.
“If someone wants to do acro, I want them to say, ‘Oh, Caldwell University.'”
It’s an ambitious goal, but one I have no doubt she will achieve.
“Y’all better watch out for Caldwell,” she told me.
I believe her, and you should too.
