Athlete of the Week: UAA gymnast Jessica Johnson fights through years of adversity to earn standout senior night performance

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - When it comes time to tell the tale of her days as a University of Alaska Anchorage gymnast, senior Jessica Johnson will have quite the story to tell.

The balance beam star’s college career was close to ending before even beginning.

“It was definitely really rocky coming here and hearing that our program was going to get cut. I actually ended up going home my second semester of my freshman year just because of how chaotic things were,” said Johnson, who was one of the many freshman athletes thrust into the effort of saving the university’s gymnastics program amid university budget cuts.

“Even from home, I was still on this team and I was still doing as much as I could to fundraise for this team,” she said. “I wanted to come back and compete for UAA.”

At the time, home for Johnson was Chesapeake, Virginia, a roughly 4,500-mile drive from Anchorage. With such a vast distance between the Old Dominion and the Last Frontier, my next question was simple: “Why UAA?”

“I kind of had a rough recruiting process honestly,” she said. “It wasn’t until [former UAA coach] Tanya Ho, who was actually the UC Davis coach, she reached out to me wanting me to come up here for a visit. And when I came here, I just kind of fell in love with the place — fell in love with the coaches, the team, the atmosphere, everything. This place is just so beautiful.”

Despite the less-than-perfect recruiting process that brought Johnson to a team on the brink of going away, the Virginia native and her teammates persevered. By 2022, Johnson was officially taking part in meets, where she earned Second Team All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation honors in the beam routine, as well as achieving the eighth-best beam National Qualifying Score in program history at 9.765.

It was a promising turn of events for the college athlete, but sadly for Johnson, more hardship awaited the following season.

“I competed in the first two events, and then unfortunately before we traveled, I ended up tearing my ACL. So I was out for the rest of that season,” she said.

Just like that, Johnson, who had already fought for the very right to be on the floor, would have to strap on some gloves and do it again. And if you haven’t picked up on it by now, that’s just what she did.

Fast forward to last weekend’s home meet against Coach Ho — the very coach that first gave Johnson the idea that Alaska was a possibility — and her UC Davis squad.

Before the crowd of a near 700 family and friends in the stands of the Alaska Airlines Center and amid the wave of competitors shuffling to and from stations, there was Johnson with a sizable brace on her left leg. She was not only still cheering on her teammates, but performing near the same level she already had just two years prior.

“First meet of the season she’s back on two events already,” UAA coach Marie-Sophie Boggasch said. “Could have gone the other way.”

In her first meet since the injury, Johnson finished opening night with final scores of 9.525 in bars and 9.675 on the beam, both of which ranked in the top three scores amongst her teammates.

After having Saturday off, the meet resumed on Sunday, and for Johnson, things started a bit more rocky. On senior night, Johnson began the day on the bars. And just like her career as a whole, things didn’t go according to plan at first. Maybe it was the chalk or the support of the bar itself. Maybe it was even just a bit of bad luck. Whatever it was, the result was Johnson missing the bar and falling to the mat in the middle of her routine.

The Seawolves wrapped up on bars, and then it was over to the beam, the routine that has truly been Johnson’s masterpiece since her arrival on campus.

She looked on as her teammates went up, with each routine inching her closer to the moment. The scorecard had her set to go last, meaning Johnson, brace and all, would get one final chance to close things out in the routine that she had dominated.

And as fate would have it, domination is a good way to describe just how well she did.

With one final twirl and a dismount that showed zero hesitation, Johnson had done it. She finished with a final score of 9.775, tied for first in the event on the Seawolves roster with fellow gymnast Montana Fairbairn.

“It was a surreal moment honestly,” Johnson said. “A lot of emotion at the end of that routine. It felt really nice to go up there as a senior and be able to finish out as an anchor spot and do that for the team. It was just great.”

And in that final moment, surrounded by teammates and her ecstatic coach, it was hard to stay composed.

“She just made me cry. She made me realize that I am a senior and these are my last moments doing gymnastics. And to be able to come here in our own arena and to do it in front of this team was really awesome,” Johnson said.

And now, with this meet in the rearview and all the emotions that came with it, Johnson says it’s time to shift the focus back into drive.

“I just want to do everything for the grace of God,” she said. “I really just want to enjoy every moment of this last season.”

Johnson and the rest of this Seawolves lineup will get the chance to do just that this Friday and Sunday in away meets against the University of Bridgeport and Brown University, respectively.

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