Dynastic Baylor coach Felecia Mulkey pioneered new opportunities for women with acrobatics and tumbling

At the beginning of each new season, Baylor acrobatics and tumbling coach Felecia Mulkey — affectionately called Coach Fee by her student-athletes — asks her team members the same question: When did you first hear about acrobatics and tumbling?

Answers usually range from "I came here for one of your camps when I was 5" to "I've known about it for as long as I can remember." It wasn't long ago, however, that Mulkey remembers when nearly all her student-athletes had not heard about the sport until their junior year of high school, sometimes later.

The difference in responses is just one of the ways that Mulkey gauges just how much acrobatics and tumbling has grown since she started coaching the sport more than 15 years ago. In January, the NCAA elevated acrobatics and tumbling from an emerging sport to a championship sport, with the first NCAA championship taking place in the spring of 2027. 

Acrobatics and tumbling is a fast-paced, team-based discipline in which athletes perform a series of synchronized skills in events such as acrobatics, pyramid, toss, tumbling and team routines. Meets feature six events and typically span 90 to 120 minutes, with skills scored on difficulty and execution. 

Just six schools sponsored the sport in 2011, the first year of competition under the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association. For the 2025-26 school year, 48 schools planned to sponsor acrobatics and tumbling, according to the most recent NCAA sport participation data. And more schools are planning to add programs.

The role Mulkey has played and continues to play in the sport's evolution goes far beyond the 14 titles she has won since the NCATA's inception or even her role as the association's director of expansion. The legendary coach was instrumental in creating a sport that gives more opportunities for women to compete in sports, become leaders and accomplish their dreams.

Creating a sport

Mulkey knew she wanted to be a coach before acrobatics and tumbling even existed.

After graduating from Kennesaw State in 1998, she became the school's sports marketing director and cheerleading coach. Despite not having the adequate space or funds to compete at the level she wanted for her student-athletes, she knew she had found her calling as a coach.

"What I loved about it was bringing these women from all different backgrounds in all different parts of the country, bringing them into one space and creating this really healthy environment so they could excel and feel like a million dollars," Mulkey said. "What I found through that is so many young women wanted this opportunity. They wanted to compete on behalf of their universities. They wanted to be recognized as a sport. And so that's really the impetus for the beginning of acrobatics and tumbling, the desire for these young women to have an opportunity."

Things began taking shape in 2007, when Mulkey heard that Maryland took an all-female group of cheerleaders and created a new roster that gave them scholarships. Oregon followed suit the next year — calling it team stunt and gymnastics — and inspired Mulkey to try and create something similar at Kennesaw State. When Mulkey reached out to Oregon to learn what its process was, she was told the school hadn't filled its head coaching position and she should consider applying. 

"I don't even know where Oregon was on the map," Mulkey said when she consulted her brother for advice. "I can't tell you if it's touching Canada or California."

"You should do it," her brother said with a laugh. "The Grateful Dead played in their stadium."

Still unsure of how she would do it, Mulkey knew she didn't want to continue coaching cheerleading, and this was the best opportunity to pivot. A few months later, Mulkey was heading across the country to Oregon. Once she arrived, however, she was met with some critiques and skepticism of her new sport. Where would her team compete? What kind of uniforms would they wear? How long would the competitions be?

Though it originally just felt like resistance to more opportunities for women, Mulkey later realized that her hesitant colleagues only wanted to strengthen the program if the sport was ever going to take off the way she hoped.

After having a long conversation with one of those colleagues, Mulkey boarded a flight to Southern California the next day for her first recruiting trip. With ideas swirling in her head and her journal tucked away in her checked bag, she took out a napkin and jotted down her thoughts.

"My thought process was, 'How can I make a competition?' because they weren't called meets yet," Mulkey said. "'How can I make a competition last as long as a basketball game?' So, I took what I could think of as a team event, which encompassed all of the skill sets of the sport, and I broke them out into different events and drew an outline of what is now the acrobatics and tumbling meet."

Creating a culture

When Shayla Hutchins, then Shayla Moore, stepped foot on Baylor's campus as a freshman in 2015, she had no clue what to expect. The coach who had recruited her to be an acrobatics and tumbling student-athlete wasn't there anymore, and in came a new coach she knew nothing about.

That new coach was Mulkey, who had taken the opportunity at Baylor after a successful tenure at Oregon. Since the NCATA was established in 2011, Mulkey had won the first four national championships with the Ducks to go along with a Coach of the Year award.

"My first impression that I got from (Mulkey) was this really long email that was color coded with different things expectation-wise that she had for us," Hutchins said. "It was really intimidating because it was like, 'Oh my gosh, I don't know who this coach is.' I didn't sign up for this woman, and she has a lot of really high standards that I'm sure I can meet, but it was just a lot different than the previous coach that we had, and I didn't really even know that coach either outside of the recruiting process."

Nevertheless, Hutchins was committed to learning and giving things a chance to work themselves out. Her collegiate career at Baylor did more than work out — it transformed the trajectory of her life. 

Hutchins went on to win NCATA Freshman of the Year and have an undefeated championship season in her first year as a Bear. She completed her career as a four-time champion, losing only one meet throughout her four years. Today, as a Baylor assistant coach under Mulkey, she can't imagine what life would be like had she not made the choice to stay at Baylor.

"I think she just really taught us that we can do hard things," Hutchins said. "I think a lot of coaches like to say, 'Oh, I'm going to teach you how to do this, and we're going to build you up into this kind of athlete and do all these things.' I think that first year especially, she proved that without saying it."

Current Baylor acrobatics and tumbling student-athlete Alyiah Thomas feels the same way about her experience. She grew up competing as a cheerleader and acrobatic gymnast and was set on being a cheerleader in college until she was recruited by Baylor to try acrobatics and tumbling. The Pennsylvania native watched one practice and had a conversation with Mulkey in her office before realizing she was meant to spend her next four years in Waco, Texas.

"She was just explaining to me how I would fit in on this team and what I could bring," Thomas said. "That's when I was like, 'This is it for me. I'm gonna go here.' I remember calling my dad right after, being like, 'Dad, I have to come here.'"

While moving over 1,500 miles from home wasn't scary for Thomas, there was an adjustment period when she first arrived on campus in 2023.

"The first few days, I was like, 'Dang, this is hard. This is harder than anything I've ever done before,'" Thomas said. "And Coach Fee warned us. She let us know it's gonna happen, but she also told us she would coach us through this. She would get us through the year."

Things got harder when Mulkey told Thomas she wanted her to be a top, who is lifted or tossed in the air during stunts.

"I looked at her and I was like, 'Ain't no way. There's no way I'm doing that,'" Thomas said. "I wouldn't even do them in cheer I was so scared. But coming here, I do tosses now. I've grown out of that fear because of how she's coached me and how she made me feel confident in myself."

Creating a dynasty

The success of Mulkey's programs began with building confidence within her student-athletes individually, but that success has continued for so long because of the confidence and love that her student-athletes grow to have for one another.

After Hutchins won her first national championship at Baylor in 2015, she thought back to something Mulkey had told her team all season and reminded them again going into the finale.

"She always talked about this feeling that we would have … where you finish the team event, and no matter what the score says, no matter what the officials have to say about what we did, it didn't matter because we knew that we put our hearts out there," Hutchins said. "It's just a moment that you're reaching for where it's like, 'We've done all of this work, and we've gotten to be able to show it, and now the work is done … and it just feels complete.' So then whatever the trophy is or whatever the placement we get at the end … I don't care what we get. I know we killed it."

It's the same philosophy that Mulkey preaches to Thomas and the rest of her teammates over a decade later. It's not about the destination; it's about the journey. More importantly, it's about the people who are on the journey with you.

"As soon as we come in, she's like, 'It's a new year. Last year, that team won a (championship). This team didn't win anything yet,'" Thomas said. "I feel like that really sets you in the mindset of we can't take into account things that have happened in the past, and you can't look too far ahead when it's just the first day because this is a new team. These are all new people. There's new relationships, there's new skills and everything. And I feel like that keeps us very levelheaded."

Like any student-athlete who has competed under Mulkey before this season, Thomas knows what it feels like to win a championship — in her case, three. What continues to be the best part about winning for her is doing so alongside her teammates.

"The energy on the sideline … it's just so fun," Thomas said. "Everyone truly comes together, and we hit a stride. I think that's my favorite part, watching the entire team come together to achieve that goal."

Creating a legacy

If looking at Baylor's success isn't enough to see the impact Mulkey has made on acrobatics and tumbling, look to the rest of the programs across the NCAA. Several coaches across the sport are protégés of Mulkey's. Iona's Jacquie Eshleman competed for Mulkey during her tenure at Oregon. Kaelyn Dillon of Augustana (South Dakota) and Raffaela Scotto of Mary Hardin-Baylor are Baylor alums. Canisius assistant coach Cam Bryant also competed for Mulkey at Baylor. 

"The recruiting process was really unusual for me, as I was coming off an injury and all that kind of stuff," said Bryant, who was an acrobatics and tumbling student-athlete at Baylor from 2017-21. "But Coach Fee, she saw something in me, which I was very thankful and grateful for, and I still am to this day, because I wouldn't be where I am today without her support and her guidance."

After missing her freshman year due to injury, Bryant competed on the 2018 and 2019 national championship teams before gearing up for her final season in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic and another injury seemingly ended her chances of finishing her collegiate career on her terms, Mulkey helped Bryant decide whether she was ready to move on.

"I sat down and had a serious, real conversation with her, and I told her I had some unfinished business, and I wanted to figure this out," Bryant said. "She goes, 'You can't do it for me. You can't do it for next year's team because we don't know what next year is going to look like, right? You have to do it for yourself. Figure out what you want for yourself, and we'll make it happen either way. You're going to get my support no matter what.'"

Even after Bryant and her teammates won the 2021 national championship, Mulkey remains a source of support. Throughout her time as an acrobatics and tumbling coach at Texas Lutheran and an assistant at Canisius, Bryant has regularly received calls from Mulkey. She is not alone in receiving Mulkey's support. Whether they are seeking advice on recruiting or just life in general, her former student-athletes know Mulkey is there for them.

"Between now and the end of next month, I'll become a new mom," Hutchins said. "I'm going to be a coach, and this new hat that I'm going to be wearing is going to be so difficult to do, but she just makes me feel like I can do it. And obviously there are a lot of other people and factors like my own parents and people that I've grown up with, but as my boss and my former coach, she has shown me this is a hard thing that you will be able to do, and I'm going to help you do it."

For Hutchins, Bryant, Thomas and all the women that Mulkey has empowered through acrobatics and tumbling, the sport's continued growth reflects the impact their coach has made and a calling to make an impact of their own.

"I remember after I went to my first coaches summit … I texted (Mulkey) and our old assistant coach and I just said, 'Thank you so much,'" Hutchins said.

"As an athlete, you just see that we're getting these new uniforms, or we're gonna be able to travel to Hawaii for this competition, and all the different things that she would tell us she was fighting for. But now I understand what fighting for that truly means." 

Thomas and other current student-athletes are also grateful for their coach's work to elevate acrobatics and tumbling to an NCAA championship. 

"I've heard all the stories of how hard Coach Fee has worked, and everything she's done to put this sport on the map," Thomas said. "She's sacrificed so much, put so many hours toward the sport and just giving female student-athletes opportunities all around the country. And I think it just validates all of her hard work, and it validates all of the student-athletes' hard work as well."