“We want to bring back the culture that UCLA is known for.” Brooklyn Moors Shines Early in her Senior Season

“We want to bring back the culture that UCLA is known for.” Brooklyn Moors Shines Early in her Senior Season

By Megan Roth
Editorial Contributor

By Megan Roth

After finishing her Elite career as an Olympic All-Around finalist, a 3-time World All-Around finalist, and a 3-time World Floor finalist, Brooklyn Moors came to UCLA in 2021 with a diminished love for gymnastics and plagued by injuries that kept her limited to floor the majority of her NCAA career. Now in her senior year, Moors is competing on three events and says she truly loves gymnastics.

“We’ve been through lots here, whether that’s gymnastically or not. It’s helped me develop as a leader, and I’ve just found my love for gymnastics again, which was not there when I came here,” she said. “It’s been really special for me. Despite everything that’s gone on, we have our core group of girls and awesome coaches now, so it’s been really special.”

Heading into this season, Moors and UCLA’s trainers didn’t know if it would be safe for her to compete. “[In the preseason], we were just slowly dipping our toes in the water and building on doing lots of PT and things like that,” she said. Once it became clear that she would be able to do floor, Moors was able to add beam back in. She also tried out bars again, but wasn’t able to regularly train them with her injuries. Halfway through preseason, Moors had a conversation with Head Coach Janelle McDonald about returning to vault. “We had to ease in, and we’ve come up with a great plan with a bunch of parts – coaches, myself, trainers – to keep me healthy and strong enough to compete the three,” Moors said.

Success in her Senior Year

Moors is currently ranked second on floor with a season average of 9.933. While floor has always been her event, this season, she is especially locked into her landings and her performance quality. She says her routine this year is different from her routines in the past because it’s less character based. “This one is more a journey through my gymnastics career, starting out young and happy, going through all of the drama, and the ups and downs,” Moors said. “I loved my last routine so much, and I didn’t think I’d be able to top it, but this routine, I feel like is on another level, and I absolutely love performing it. It’s so fun. I can just give the drama, but also give power.”

On January 21, Moors was named Big Ten Co-Specialist of the Week, which to her, feels like a long time coming. “I just feel like the last few years, I’ve worked so hard and I hadn’t quite gotten it because of things holding me back. It feels so good this year,” Moors said. “I feel like my work is finally paying off. It feels really special, and it’s giving me confidence every week – like I do belong in the beam lineup, and I do belong in that vault lineup. I have to fight for those spots every week, but it’s been good.”

Beam Team

At their last two meets, UCLA showed they are a beam team, scoring 49.475 at the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad and 49.550 at Maryland, the highest team beam score of the season so far, and Moors owes some of that success to Assistant Coach Lacy Dagen. Dagen is a former Florida and Oregon State gymnast who before starting at UCLA this season, most recently coached at Arizona State, helping the Sun Devils break program records on beam.

“Lacy was honestly the best addition to this team,” Moors said. “She could relate to us a lot, so she had a lot of knowledge with injuries and how to train beam, just being an athlete herself so recently. We developed such a strong relationship with her right off the bat. We trust her with everything and she trusts us. We’ve built this great connection.” 

This year, Moors is competing a new beam series: a front aerial to back handspring, replacing the front aerial to front handspring she competed previously. No matter how many times she tried to do it, the front aerial to front handspring was just not consistent. The front aerial to back handspring has been “game changing” for her consistency, but it brings a different kind of challenge. 

For years, she’s struggled with a mental block of going backwards. “Adding the back handspring in my series has been very helpful with my confidence, but it’s still a battle everyday, just to go through my mental block of going backwards,” Moors said. “I can have a full week of training with no problems, and then I can run into issues again where it’s just hard for me to go for the skill mentally. I have a really good support system with my teammates and Lacy, and we’ve figured out what works for me.”

Bruins Build Back

As a team, UCLA is focused on building back after some ups and downs the last few seasons. “We want to give it our all and bring back the culture that UCLA is known for and the legacy we’re known for,” she said. “We want to bring back some consistency and have fun with our gymnastics while we’re doing it.” 

Individually, Moors wants her 10.0. “I want to get a 10.0 on floor,” she said. “It’s coming, I’m doing literally everything I can to try and get that.” She also knows 2025 will be her last year of gymnastics, and she wants to make every moment of it count. “This is my last year of gymnastics ever, so I’m really giving it my all,” she said. “I’m trying to do everything I can to be the best athlete I can, but also enjoy my last few competitions and year in the sport.”

Back to Pauley

Heading into this weekend, UCLA is ready for their first home meet of the season. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this, it feels like, but we’re really just looking forward to getting back in there and feeling that Pauley energy with the students and all the fans,” Moors said.

UCLA will also be donating 1000 tickets to Saturday’s meet to individuals affected by the recent wildfires in Southern California, something Moors said helps the team see a bigger purpose in their gymnastics. “Our team does our best when we do it for a bigger purpose. That’s what we try to put first – gymnastics over ourselves. Doing it for others is what we do it for,” she said.

Watch Brooklyn and UCLA compete this Saturday against Illinois at 5:00 ET / 2:00 PT on BTN+

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