Addison Fatta: Pure Joy

At the NCAA National Championships in 2024, the Oklahoma Sooners finished in a surprising sixth place after multiple falls and uncharacteristic mistakes kept them from qualifying to the final four. In the 2025 season, the Sooners returned with vengeance and were considered underdogs. The squad introduced many newcomers that elevated the program. Part of their freshman class was former U.S. National Team member, Addison Fatta. Fatta’s high-flying gymnastics and picture perfect form led her straight to being a consistent member in every Sooner lineup. Throughout her freshman season, Fatta set career high scores of 9.925 on vault and bars, and a 9.950 on beam and floor, and was a major factor in helping the squad return to a National title in 2025. She entered Oklahoma with an already lengthy resume from her time in Elite gymnastics. She competed at the Olympic Trials in 2021, won gold at the Swiss Cup in 2022, helped Team USA to a team gold at the 2023 Pan American Championships, among other outstanding achievements. Her past success helped her ease into the busy world of NCAA gymnastics. 

“It was very different for me, not necessarily the gymnastics part, but the competing every weekend part,” Fatta said. “In Elite gymnastics, you compete about five times a year, maybe. In college gymnastics, you obviously compete every weekend, so that was the biggest adjustment for me. And routine-wise, I did keep a lot of my skills that I was doing in Elite.” 

Fatta is known for bringing big difficulty to her NCAA routines, including a Church+Pak combination on bars, and this year she plans on competing a challenging front full step out + back 2.5 twist on floor. She continues to compete these difficult skills for the love of the sport, and because……… why not? 

“I love gymnastics, and I love the different parts of it, and I think if I’m able physically, to be able to do it, then why not?”

Many fans theorize that Fatta keeps the high level skills in her routines to keep the door open for a potential return to Elite gymnastics. 

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’ve been getting that question quite a lot,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.”

Sophomore Ready

Winning a National Team title and being a consistent member of each of the four lineups was a dream way for Fatta to begin her NCAA career, but she is already looking to create more incredible moments during her Sophomore year. She feels more prepared for the upcoming season because she knows exactly what to expect, and what it takes to be at the top. Last year, she was known for her engaging and expressive choreography on floor exercise that brought a unique and creative style of dance to the gymnastics stage. She oozed with confidence and put on a show each time she performed the routine. Fatta tells us her new floor routine may top her previous one. 

 “I love it more than my last year’s floor routine, which is saying a lot, because I loved my last year’s floor routine. I think it kind of has the same style to it, but it’s just a little bit different,” Fatta said. 

Oklahoma head coach, K.J. Kindler, also serves as the head choreographer for the Sooners. She cuts the music, and ensures that each athlete has a routine that is perfectly suited for them. Kindler’s choreography process has helped Fatta enjoy competing on floor more than ever before. 

“The process is very intentional,” Fatta said. “She really takes the time to understand each gymnast’s personality, strengths, and performance style, and builds the routine around that. What I enjoy most is how detailed and intentional the choreography process is. I love dancing, and KJ has a true passion for it, which shows in every routine she creates. Every movement has a purpose, and the level of detail she puts into each routine makes floor something I genuinely love performing.”

The current Sophomore is excited for the opportunity to step into a leadership position, and help the freshmen class navigate their first NCAA season. Being a team leader is one of her biggest goals for this season. 

“This year, I do really want to step into that leadership role,” Fatta said. “I want to be there for others, and I want to make sure that others know that they can come to me with any questions, if they’re silly or not, if they’re serious, they’re silly, whatever it is. But I just want the team to know that I’m always there for them.”

Fatta has many future Oklahoma teammates that will be coming off of competing in Elite gymnastics, she hopes she can help them make that transition easier just like her teammates did for her. One of the biggest challenges she faced was competing every week instead of five times year like she did in her Elite career. This was something that her older teammates were able to guide her through, just like she does now for her younger teammates. 

“Once I finished preseason last year, I obviously knew season was coming up,” Fatta said. “I knew I was competing every weekend, obviously, but I didn’t know how to actually do it. And you can’t really prepare somebody until they just do it, you know. But being in that mindset, obviously all the seniors have helped me. Jordan [Bowers] competed All-Around, almost all four years she was there, so she was definitely very helpful with that. I’m willing to do whatever I can to help them.”

Pure Joy

It was evident throughout the duration of my interview with Fatta that she has a deep love for the sport of gymnastics, and even greater love for her Oklahoma teammates. Whenever a question was posed about her team, her already big smile grew wider when talking about the team that she respects so much. 

“We’re together all day in the gym, morning conditioning, recovery, rehab,” she said. “The only time that we’re really apart is during class and when we go to bed, which half the time, actually all of the time, we’re roommates with the people that are on our team. It’s really nice to have that comfort and trust within a team, because you’re away from your family, but you build a new family here. That was something that was really important to me, before I even came here. You can see it all over our faces, how much we adore each other and we love each other and we trust each other. I think that’s something everybody can see, and it’s something that we can feel.”

What exactly do these National Champions enjoy doing outside of the gym? “Shopping,” she said while laughing. They also enjoy getting together to watch Dancing with the Stars, cracking inside jokes, and just simply spending time together. Fatta tells me that the coaches and staff surrounding them make it easy to build and harness these relationships. 

“Staying together as a team, trusting one another is really, really important, building that trust within the team, which is something we had a lot of last year, and I think it was very helpful. Keeping that team chemistry, I know K.J. talked about that a lot last year, of how good our team chemistry was, and it truly does help,” Fatta said. 

The Sooners are stacked with high class gymnastics in every corner. From fellow sophomores, Elle Mueller and Lily Pederson, to seniors like Faith Torrez, there is no shortage of incredible gymnastics surrounding Fatta. She feels all of these athletes are able to motivate each other in many ways. 

“There’s motivation everywhere you look, whether that’s the work ethic or how people are speaking up,” Fatta said. “Just being there, being in the gym, looking around is motivational itself. I mean, all these girls work so hard, they’re so talented, and just being here is pretty amazing.”

While high class gymnastics is a constant in the Sooners’ gym, so are smiles, laughs, and pure joy. Fatta attributes their success in competition to the joy they create in the gym. 

“We do have so much fun in the gym, I feel like that’s something that is really important to us,” she said. “We’re always laughing, we’re always smiling, we’re always cracking jokes, and it’s just a pure joy to be in the gym.”

Not Backing Down

If there is one goal the Oklahoma Sooners want to accomplish in the 2026 season it is to win the NCAA National title…. again. The squad has won seven National Championships throughout the program’s history with the most recent trophy coming in 2025. 

“We still have the same end goal and we still want to win another National Championship,” Fatta said. “It kind of just gives us that drive to want to get to the end goal, and keeping the end goal in mind at all times is something that has been really helpful to us.”

The team will open their season at the Sprouts Farmer’s Market Collegiate Quad, a quad meet that will feature Oklahoma, Utah, UCLA, LSU, and will air on ABC. Fatta tells us this is the meet she is most looking forward to, along with returning to the vibrant SEC arena. Competing with the SEC crowds was a highlight of her freshman year. 

“Going to all the different arenas was so fun because they were all so different,” she said. “The atmosphere in the SEC arenas is no joke. It’s loud. It builds our energy up as a team. The amount of energy that is put in from the crowd, we use it as our fuel, whether it’s your home crowd or your away crowd. You just use that energy. It was something that was really, really fun.”

The Sooners will take the joy they create everyday in the gym to their 2026 season. Enjoying each moment and having fun is just as important to the team as winning is. For Fatta, the coaches and team have helped build her confidence, and make competing simple. 

“Just being here has built my confidence in the biggest way possible,”she said. “The coaches want what’s absolutely best for you and they’re a legacy, and you want to learn and grow from them, and they don’t want to make you a better gymnast, they want to make you a better person and a better student.” 

Catch Fatta’s big gymnastics and bright smile every week throughout the 2026 season.

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