Denver's Lynnzee Brown after loss, hardship: "I really learned how to let people in."

The University of Denver’s Lynnzee Brown has been one of the NCAA’s best women’s gymnasts of the last half decade.

The America-born athlete soared to No. 2 nationally in the all-around rankings in 2021. She set the school’s all-around record score with a 39.825. She captured Denver’s second-ever NCAA title, taking the floor crown as a sophomore. She helped her squad to its highest-ever finish, fourth, at the NCAAs in 2019.

But, all of it almost never happened.

“I honestly didn’t plan on going to college, I didn’t really know it was a thing,” Brown told Olympics.com in a recent exclusive interview. “I visited one school, and it was not super fun. After that Linas [Gaveika], our associate head coach [at Denver], kept calling and calling, and my coach was like, ‘You've got to call this man back!’ So, I did, reluctantly, because I didn’t think I could make it in college in any sense – athletically or academically.”

Instead of just ‘making it,’ Brown thrived. In every sense.

The 24-year-old admits that training in Kansas City’s Great American Gymnastics Express (GAGE), which has produced elite gymnasts for decades including 2004 Olympic silver medallists Terin Humphrey and Courtney McCool, clouded her vision of her own abilities.

“Coming out of GAGE that has Olympians like almost every quad, I just didn’t feel like I measured up,” Brown said, before adding, “To hear that people wanted me was super rewarding and exciting.”

In the classroom, Brown was also a success, crediting the university and her freshman year roommate, Mia Sundstrom, for shaping her approach to studies.

"I kind of modeled my studying time after her, like when she would study, I was like, 'Oh, I should probably study, too,' and just learning that behavior by observing really helped me," she explained. "And if I had a roommate that wasn't so diligent in their studies, I don't think I would have had as much success in school."

A family affair for Brown

Brown’s rise to the top of North American collegiate gymnastics world has been far from easy.

It took sacrifices, Brown says, including from her brothers who she says prioritized her gymnastics ahead of their own sporting careers.

“I think I kind of won the lottery in that sense,” Brown said of her brothers. “I had these three awesome role models that would do anything for me, and did do everything for me. Nothing short of giving up their own athletic dreams and careers so I could out mine.”

Raised by a single mother, Tamela, with three brothers, she almost had to quit the sport in the fifth grade.

“My mom had some health issues back then, and I had to quit because she was hospitalized. We couldn’t afford it,” Brown recalled. “My club coaches called her and were like, ‘She’s too good to quit.’ So, they offered to pay my tuition from fifth grade till I graduated high school because we couldn’t afford it.”

“That was definitely a moment when I realized that I was good [at gymnastics] and that people cared enough about my success to do tremendous favours for me and my family,” she said.

It all made Brown’s eventual success a reality, including that historic fourth-place team finish at the NCAAs in 2019.

Those championships were the last time Brown would see her mum, as weeks later, Tamela Brown suffered cardiac arrest and passed away.

Forging ahead in gymnastics

As Brown dealt with the loss, the 2020 season began in earnest with the junior picking up where she ended the 2019 season.

But, then came the setbacks: a torn Achilles tendon in February 2020 just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down. Though Brown returned to competition for the 2021 season, her 2022 campaign was cut short by a second Achilles tear in her other leg.

“Leaning on people, that was the hardest for me, accepting that I can’t do it on my own,” Brown said of the turbulent time in her life. “I would always try to put up a wall between gymnastics, school, and home. That was too hard.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the expression that people say, like, ‘When you hold things in, you let it out on people who don’t deserve it.' I was having a lot of that happen.”

Motivated by watching her teammates enjoy the remainder of the season, Brown announced she’d return for a sixth season in May 2022 with a clear objective:

“I already got to see what it was like to be one of the best individually, and now, my mission is just how far can we go as a team,” Brown explained of her decision to return for a final season.

Despite having already rehabbed one Achilles injury, Brown says she’s been surprised this time around. She admits it’s been harder than she had expected.

“I wish people knew that every injury is different, mostly because I didn’t know that,” Brown said. “My first injury was so successful coming back and I had the season of a lifetime. I expected that going in this time and I was shocked to see how even the same injury, same timeline, basically, it was a lot harder this time around mentally, physically.”

Still, Brown has returned to competing on all four events, making her all-around debut a few weeks ago against West Virginia on 12 February where she notched a 39.450 total.

A weekend later, she hit 39.575, including a 9.900 on the floor exercise.

As Brown prepares for the end of her collegiate career (there’s a chance she will make a run at competing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, representing Haiti, but she hasn’t decided yet), she has a lot to look back on.

Her six years at Denver, from which she’ll graduate in April with a master’s in communication management, in addition to her bachelor's in media studies, have given way to a total transformation.

“I really learned how to let people in, to celebrate the wins. I had this misconception that if you celebrate the good things, they’ll stop happening. That’s not necessarily true,” Brown says of her evolution. “From my freshman year, I’m a completely different person, different mindset, attitude, beliefs. But the biggest change is just that I believe I can do anything.”

And she’s certainly shown that’s the case.