Fisk gymnast Naimah Muhammad: "This is everything I wanted."
The 20-year-old on making history as the first-ever HBCU gymnast to compete and overcoming obstacles to be able to compete as her authentic self
Artistic Gymnastics
As Fisk University’s Naimah Muhammad stepped up to the floor exercise to compete at January’s NCAA Super 16 competition in Las Vegas, the 20-year-old perhaps appeared calm, but as she prepared to make history as the first gymnast ever to compete for a historically Black college or university (HBCU) in North America, she was anything but.
“I was really nervous and scared,” said Muhammad in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “But after the first tumbling pass, I knew I had the rest of the routine. When it ended, I kinda got emotional because I didn’t even think about it as me making history, I just cared about how I started my team off. I wanted to keep the energy up for my team.”
Her 9.600 score was the second highest of her team’s rotation, but more than the numbers, the routine represented something far greater: a realization of a dream Muhammad had held for years.
She had always wanted to attend an HBCU, she credits Beyonce’s 2018 performance at Coachella which incorporated much of the culture and family ties – her brother and sister both attend HBCU – with fueling her desire.
But until Fisk University added women’s gymnastics for the 2022-23 school year, Muhammad had been forced to choose between her love of gymnastics and attending an HBCU.
Now, she no longer had to choose.
“I realized that this is everything I wanted,” explained Muhammad. “Instead of being on a team that was just me as the only Black girl there, or only two Black girls. I think there are like 14 Black girls or other girls that look like me, coaches that look like me. They’re doing gymnastics with me.
“But the biggest thing,” she continued, “was to be part of something that represented me because I never had that before.”
Fisk University gymnast Naimah Muhammad: "It was important for me being a Muslim woman to showcase my beliefs in the way I want to"
Muhammad is no stranger to not giving up on her dreams. Her sporting career started first in figure skating, not gymnastics. But that was short lived, she says.
“I got bored with it pretty quick,” said Muhammad with a laugh. “So, it was time to move on to something else.”
Something else quickly became gymnastics and with it came another challenge: acceptance.
Muhammad is Muslim and in gymnastics, she encountered an issue she hadn’t faced in skating.
“I partially chose ice skating because when we were looking into it, it was a sport that they wore tights that cover their legs. Their costumes are really modest for the most part,” she explained. “I got into gymnastics and we kind of were trying to figure out how to make it work.
She and her parents decided she would wear leggings to practice.
“No one cared. My coaches never said anything about, ‘Oh, we can’t do that.’ It wasn’t a big deal, and I competed in competitions and it wasn’t a problem,” said Muhammad. “But as I moved up the levels, it clearly became a problem.”
Muhammad was forced to petition USA Gymnastics for special dispensation in order to wear tights in competition, which she received. She’d have to do the same for NCAA competition later.
“It was important for me being a Muslim woman to showcase my beliefs the way I want to,” she says. “I wasn’t going to sacrifice one thing for another, and if that’s the case, I just wouldn’t do gymnastics because what I believe is more important than anything else. And if I really do love gymnastics the way I love what I believe in, I’m going to incorporate what I believe into what I do.”
She hopes her story teaches others a lesson she learned from a young age.
“I was always taught when I was really little to accept your own and be yourself, and I stand by that,” said Muhammad. “The only way you can ever be successful is if you accept your own, which basically means accepting you. You are your own person, so accept your own, what is you is yours, and be yourself.
“When you’re yourself, and you are accepting of who you are and what you represent of a person, then, you go very, very far in life and it’s very possible to do things different,” she continued. “Not all of us have to be the same. We don’t have to conform to doing one thing a certain way forever in order to be successful.
“And I feel like especially in gymnastics, that has been proven.”