Gymnastics was one of the first women's sports added at the University of Florida and achieved early success by winning the 1982 AIAW National Championship. Since the NCAA assumed sponsorship of the national gymnastics championships in 1982, Florida has typically earned invitations to the NCAA National Championships (top twelve teams nationally), and advanced to the NCAA "Super Six" eighteen times. Florida won the 2013 NCAA national championship, finished in second-place in 1998 and 2012, and the team has only failed to qualify for the NCAA championships once in the past twenty-eight seasons.
The Gators have won a total of nine SEC gymnastics championships since 1982. The team's biggest SEC rivals are Alabama and Georgia, both of which are also perennial national contenders. Coach Rhonda Faehn's Gator gymnasts are the current reigning SEC champions, having won their conference in both 2012 and 2013.
Faehn has coached the Gators gymnastics team since 2003. Under Faehn, the Gator gymnasts have been nationally competitive and remarkably consistent—finishing seventh, fifth, seventh, fourth, third, fourth, fourth, second and, in 2013, first at the NCAA National Championships over the past nine seasons.
The Gators gymnastics team holds its home meets at the O'Connell Center.
