Brynlee Andersen stood alone next to the balance beam, the various shades of blue, white and black of her leo providing a stark contrast to the almost overwhelming ever-present red of the Huntsman Center.
It was evening, a little after 7 p.m. MDT, on April 3 and BYU's women's gymnastics team was competing at the University of Utah in what ultimately proved to be the 2025 season finale for the Cougars.
Andersen was the last BYU gymnast to compete on beam, following five of her teammates, and Andersen knew she had to be at her best.
For BYU, absolutely. The Cougars needed to finish in the top two in the four-team competition if they were to keep their season alive and the other three teams (Utah, Stanford and Denver) were formidable. If Andersen could hit her routine, BYU's hopes of pulling off a major upset or two would remain alive, even if only for a few more minutes.
But Andersen also knew that she needed to compete her best for herself. Scores during the semifinals of the Salt Lake City NCAA regional were going to determine which individuals would qualify to compete at the NCAA women's gymnastics championships (nationals) later in the month, even if their teams were eliminated.
BYU was a long shot to advance to nationals. Andersen not so much.
All-Big 12 and Big 12 co-event specialist of the year on beam, Andersen was more than capable of performing a routine that could clinch her a spot at nationals and she knew it. More than that, she wanted it.
"Going into the meet, my goal actually was to qualify to nationals and I had that in the back of my mind," Andersen told the Deseret News. "But I was trying not to make it my main focus, because I feel like if I let it be the main focus, I was not gonna perform as well as I knew I could."
Andersen straddled that line well. Well enough to earn a score of 9.90 on beam. It was a good score, but was it enough to secure Andersen a spot at nationals?
"Honestly, I wasn't sure if that score was gonna get me there," Andersen said. "But, God's plan, if it's supposed to happen, it will happen."
For the rest of the meet, when she wasn't competing herself or cheering on her teammates, Andersen stole glances at the beam and the scores that were handed out. She wanted every gymnast who competed to do well, just not better than her.
"Just let her do good, but maybe just not above 9.90," Andersen said laughing.
She can laugh now. No gymnast who competed that Thursday night scored better than Andersen on beam. And two nights later, when Utah and UCLA punched their tickets to the national championships as teams, Andersen's spot as an individual was sealed.
The sophomore from Orem did it. She's going to nationals and will have the opportunity to compete for an individual national championship on Thursday, something only 10 other BYU gymnasts have ever done and only two of those in the last 20 years.
Andersen has been involved in gymnastics since she was 5 years old. She wasn't a shoe-in to do the sport, though. She tried out various sports/hobbies as a young girl, including but not limited to dance, soccer and yes, gymnastics.
"It was just, we'll try a few things out and see if she gravitates toward anything," Jenny Frandsen, Andersen's mother, said.
Eventually things were narrowed down to dance or gymnastics and Frandsen was convinced her daughter was going to pick dance, but Andersen went the other direction.
"I was kind of surprised about that, because it seemed like dance was more fun," Frandsen said. "But I think she loved the challenge, even at such a young age."
Once Andersen really got into gymnastics, it became pretty clear it was the right decision.
"Even as a little kid she's had the eye of a tiger for gymnastics," Frandsen said. "She's always been such a perfectionist, so determined and worked so dang hard."
There's a little bit of debate about it, but Andersen contends that the moment she really went all-in on gymnastics (her first club was All-American Gymnastics in Lindon and she later moved to Bold Gymnastics in Springville) she knew that she was going to compete at the NCAA level one day.
"At my gym, that's just what you did," Andersen said. "You watch these older girls and you're like, 'OK, well, they're going to college, so of course I'm going to go to college.' That's the goal."
Current University of Utah assistant coach Jimmy Pratt coached Andersen for much of her life, first at All-American and then at Bold, the club gym he founded with his wife Makenna Pratt. And even when Andersen was a young girl, Pratt knew she wasn't your ordinary gymnast. It was obvious to anyone who watched her compete.
"She just always had that, that 'wow factor,'" Pratt said. "You can't really take your eyes off of her."
Andersen seemed destined for greatness in gymnastics. It was her entire life, as often happens to the best in the sport.
"Her whole entire life, her focus was gym," Frandsen said. "She would leave school early every day, like a half day, would run home, eat some lunch and then run down to gym and spend three or four hours there."
By the time she was in junior high, Andersen started to get attention from college gymnastics coaches and it seemed only a matter of time before her future would be secured.
"Ever since she was a little girl, she's just been so determined," Frandsen said. "When she sets a goal she doesn't stop until she gets it."
A back injury threatened all of it though.
When Andersen was 14 it became clear that something was wrong with her back, but what remained a question. MRIs and X-rays were done, steroid injections were tried. There was even talk about cauterizing the nerves in Andersen's back, which would have effectively ended her gymnastics career.
"Nobody could figure out what was wrong," Frandsen said. "Her career kind of looked like it had ended."
After a great deal of prayer, Frandsen took her daughter to a chiropractor who determined that Andersen's "back was out and her muscles were so twisted and tight that it had become debilitating," Frandsen said. "She couldn't even tie her shoes."
There was a plan to fix things though and when Andersen and her mother left the chiropractor, "it was the first time she didn't walk out (of a doctor's office) sobbing, because there was actually a chance," Frandsen said.
Making matters even more difficult, Andersen switched club gyms at the time and Pratt, who started coaching her when she was 7, was living in Denver working as an assistant coach on the University of Denver's staff.
Fast forward a year or two (during which time Pratt returned to Utah and founded Bold) and Andersen successfully returned to competition.
Not just returned though.
When Andersen was a junior in high school in 2022 she finished second in the all-around competition at the Junior Olympic national championships. She was, for all intents and purposes, back.
"It was the most unbelievable, just the craziest thing," Pratt said. "The lowest lows and the highest highs. But through all of it, she just stayed so upbeat and optimistic. She's the first kid I ever remembered who smiled during a bar routine. ... She hit her (Pak salto) her main skill, and she's just smiling through the rest of the routine. That's how I'll always remember her. She just loves gymnastics for the game and and you can see that when she's performing."
BYU's Brynlee Andersen performs on the beam during meet at the Marriott Center in Provo on Friday Jan. 24, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
The couple of years during which she struggled with her back injury came at arguably the worst time for Andersen when it came to her recruitment. And by the time she was healthy and competing at her best again, most schools didn't have scholarships available.
BYU did though and wanted Andersen on board.
"BYU was like, 'No we are taking her, we want her, we want her," Frandsen said.
Andersen initially wasn't sure she wanted BYU — many of her club teammates had gone to BYU and for a time she was intrigued by the thought of doing something different — but ultimately she decided BYU was the right choice for her.
"When it got closer, and I was like, 'What am I thinking? BYU is the place where I want to be,'" she said.
Now two years into the her career as a Cougar, Andersen doesn't believe any different. In fact, she more committed to BYU than ever.
"It's been so much more than I expected," she said. "At different universities you're going to college and you're doing gymnastics, but at BYU, I feel like there's such a higher purpose. Even just in practice, we're doing beam (training) and that is teaching us about the gospel, teaching us how we can represent God.
"Every day we learn about how we can find joy, and how there's way more to life than just gymnastics. That's one of the things that I love most about BYU, is that we get to do it for a higher purpose than just gymnastics."
None of that is to say the transition to college gymnastics was easy. It wasn't. School was harder than Andersen anticipated and she relied heavily on former BYU gymnast Elease Rollins to help her navigate her freshman season. Rollins helped, but things were made more difficult given Andersen competed with a broken foot as a freshman, which prevented her from competing on floor exercise, arguably her strongest event besides beam.
"For gymnastics, you've never done anything like (college gymnastics) before," Andersen said, "I was used to competing in JO (Junior Olympic), which is completely different. So you kind of just get blindsided. Of course your teammates can help you as much as they can, but you sort of just have to figure it out."
Figure it out she did and as a sophomore this year Andersen was arguably BYU's best gymnast.
BYU's Brynlee Andersen performs on the floor as they compete in the NCAA regional semifinals for gymnastics at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, April 3, 2025. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News
For Frandsen, the most defining characteristic her daughter has is her humility.
"Through all of her years, she's always done pretty well at gym, but she doesn't have a big head about it," Frandsen said. "She's pretty humble as far as that goes. She doesn't like to be a showoff. She doesn't like to be a brat about it."
But Andersen knows what she is capable of too. Ahead of the Salt Lake City regional she told her mom to go ahead and buy tickets to nationals.
"'Because we're going' she told me," Frandsen said, "And I was like, 'Oh, OK. ..' So of course, here we are."
Andersen made good on that promise with her performance in Salt Lake City. And she will enter nationals with legitimate hopes that she can compete for and win a national title.
As an individual competitor, Andersen will rotate with the Missouri Tigers in the afternoon national semifinal (it is slated to start at 2:30 p.m. MDT on Thursday) and will compete during the final rotation of the meet. It will be a tall task for Andersen to win a national title, only because of the sheer number of excellent gymnasts who compete at nationals. She is capable, though. She wouldn't have qualified to nationals if she wasn't.
"I was talking with a former BYU gymnast, Abby (Miner-Alder)," Andersen said. "She just said to make sure that I treat it like any other meet, because I've done this so many times. I don't need to do work to make (my routine) more perfect, because it's already prepared. I've done the work all season. ... She told me, just treat it as another meet, because I already know what I'm doing. Hopefully the outcome will be good."
Simply qualifying for nationals means Andersen has already accomplished as much good as nearly any BYU gymnast before her. And as only a sophomore, there is a real possibility that Andersen only lifts BYU gymnastics to even greater heights from here.
"I assumed at some point she would make it to nationals and I'm happy it's happening early on," Pratt said. "She's only a sophomore, and hopefully she can just kind of bring that team along and see where that leads. What she does, it's similar to what (Avery Neff does). She elevates everyone when she's around. She just makes you feel more confident just by being there. So I think she'll keep it that up."
BYU's Brynlee Andersen performs her beam routine during the Big 12 championship at the Maverik Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 22, 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News
