4 Up 4 Count! John Roethlisberger Shares His Take

By John Roethlisberger

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, the NCAA season is right around the corner! Undoubtedly, it will be an exciting season filled with drama and, I’m sure, some surprises we didn’t see coming. This will be a very exciting season for NCAA Men’s gymnastics. Coming off an incredible Summer Olympics where the sport got a big bump from the team bronze medal, they now head into the 2025 season knowing their NCAA Championships will be broadcast on ESPN. 

This is huge for the sport that has been looking for a boost for some time, under pressure from universities to either cut men’s programs or severely reduce their budgets. This is another chance for a nationwide audience to see one of the most physically demanding, spectacular sports in the world. We all got a taste of what men’s gymnastics is about when America witnessed one of the most exciting moments of the Paris Olympic Games, when the “Pommel Horse Guy” Stephen Nedoroscik, clinched bronze for the men on the last routine of the night. Many of those same athletes that won that bronze medal will be competing in the NCAA this coming season. 

In addition to being featured in ESPN’s line-up this spring, the championships themselves will be getting a slight makeover. There has been much talk within the sport to change its format and scoring to help make it more appealing to viewers. In 2025, the men will take one step towards doing just that. They will move to a 4 up 4 count format. This means that each team will put four athletes up on each of the six events, and all four of those scores must count. If there is a fall or an extremely low score, the team can’t drop that score and they must count it. The Olympic Team Finals has a 3 up 3 count format and last year’s NCAA’s for men had a 5 up 5 count format. Moving to a 4 up 4 count format will shorten the competition, while also maintaining the drama of every score counting and every great routine and every mistake going directly to the team score.

This format can also help create more parity within the men’s programs. In recent years, it seems we get to championship season, and there’s really only two or maybe three teams that can contend for the title. With some of the major talent in the NCAA consolidated to a few teams, it is hard to compete with them. However, with 4 up 4 count, a team doesn’t need the depth of the top teams to potentially compete with them. As long as they have three to four great routines, they can be in the hunt. 

I think this is a step in the right direction for the collegiate men’s programs. Some of us still think an actual change to the scoring system would also make for a more understandable and competitive sport for spectators. However, for now, this change is a great step, and something the fans can really get behind.

Inside Gymnastics has an advertising and promotional partnership with the Men’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association and is proud to sponsor the 2025 All-Star Meet

Broadcast on YouTube January 3, 2025!

The CGA, in partnership with Virtius, is excited to announce the third annual CGA All-Star meet to kick off the 2025 NCAA men’s gymnastics season. Each year this contest acts as a preview for the upcoming season. The NCAA will be split into two divisions, East and West and the athletes will compete head to head to crown the top division in NCAA Men’s gymnastics.

This year, fans were able to vote on who they wanted on the 2025 All-Star teams through social media interaction and polling on the CGA website to select the teams!

The Teams

EAST

PAUL JUDA – CAPTAIN 

LANDEN BLIXT

BRANDON DANG

PEYTON CRAMER

FREDERICK RICHARDS

JAVIER ALFONSO 

KAMERON NELSON

JOSH KARNES

EVGENY SIMINIUC

TATE COSTA 

CADEN SPENCER 

NATHAN WHITAKER 

JADEN BLANK 

WILL HAUKE 

BOBBY ALESSIO

WILL WILSON 

RITHIK PURI

GARRET SCHOOLEY

LANDON SIMPSON 

SAM PHILLIPS 

WEST 

TAYLOR CHRISTOPULOS – CAPTAIN 

JEREMY BISCHOFF

PATRICK HOOPES 

AIDAN LI 

ASHER COHEN 

MAX BEREZNEV 

COLT WALKER 

ERICH UPTON 

ZAC TIDERMAN 

MAX ODDEN 

CHASE MONDI 

BEAU BICE 

MATT ROTH

IGNACIO YOCKERS 

ALEX CAMPBELL 

CHRIS HISER 

BRAXTON JONES 

BRANDON NGUYEN 

KOBY CANTU 

JAKE SMITH 

CARTER KIM 

ARUN CHHETRI

For more, Click Here!

Follow the CGA Here!

Mens NCAA Season Goes to 4 Up 4 Count

Stay tuned to InsideGym.com for all of your 2025 NCAA news!

In Related News

Frederick Richard Is Ready to Bring the Noise

Fresh off their bronze medal finish in Paris at the Olympic Games – the first team medal in 16 years – Frederick Richard sent a message to men’s gymnastics around the globe: “My goal was to make a statement that the U.S. is getting stronger and stronger and we’re only going up,” Richard said. “I think a lot of young boys watching are inspired by us. I was like five feet in the air jumping. I was incredibly thankful and just proud of us.”

With the post Olympic hype still in full swing, there’s also a sentiment from Richard, and the rest of the team, that while winning the medal was historic, incredible, and absolutely a dream come true, it’s really only the beginning of where he believes the U.S. men’s team could be by LA 2028. Gold is on his mind, and Paris was the first step.

At the Games, the team of Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Stephen Nedoroscik, and Richard hit 18 for 18 routines during the Team Final, chants of ‘USA! USA!’ filling the arena like a home game. It brought the capacity crowd to its feet, many in tears. It created a media sensation that’s continued and can be felt in gyms across the country as the team – brothers united in one quest and believers from the start – became heroes and shot to stardom overnight.

Five men, all from NCAA programs, won an Olympic team medal. Five men, who were down after Qualifications, but who never counted themselves out, saw their flag rise. The medal ultimately validated the long-time Olympic podium dreams of those who came before, and those who built back the program. It also fuels the next generation who will be inspired long after the chalk settled inside Bercy Arena.

Richard lit up the crowd in Paris and rocked the house in Team Finals just as he had all season long in the States, and at the 2023 World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium where he took bronze in the All-Around there. He’s ready to get back to Michigan – he was the Big 10 All-Around Champion in 2024 and 2023 All-Around, parallel bars and high bar champ as a freshman – and compete for an NCAA team Championship in 2025, and of course continue to build upon the U.S. momentum and hype as the road turns to Los Angeles.

“It’s the first step, the catalyst of hopefully going in that right direction of building the sport,” he told us. “I think we have a lot to do this year to keep moving.”

First though, he’s on the road with the Athleta Presents Gold Over America Tour alongside an all-star cast including his Olympic teammates Brody Malone and Paul Juda. We spoke with Richard on day one of GOAT rehearsals to catch up on Paris, his impact on the sport so far, and what he’s looking forward to most on tour.

Let’s start with this mini-reunion! How was it getting back together with everyone after Paris to start rehearsals for Gold Over America?

It was a fun little reunion after we all got our little disconnect and breaks in different areas. So, it’s fun to come back and see how everybody’s doing and what they’ve been doing. We got right into it on day one of rehearsals – my body was sore by the end of it – but it’s fun! This is a whole different mind challenge, because in gymnastics, we’re always trying to learn new skills and put it together. But now, we’re learning new skills, but small skills and 100 of them in sequence! I think it’s very fun and it’s a good, healthy way to stay active and get back in shape before the season starts while having fun with the whole crew. 

It was such a special memory for all of us there watching and covering Paris. So for you, having this time to reflect now on what you accomplished, how has it set in? And what impact is finally having that team Olympic medal going to make?

When we were going into the Olympics, for years, we always said, ‘you know, we want to bring more eyes to the sport. We want to show our program is building and it can be big and successful, too.’ After getting the medal, I feel like we hit that first checkpoint. People loved our story. I think whenever someone was watching the full meet start to finish, they never forgot about us, because they saw the teamwork, the sportsmanship and the energy we showed. They were so supportive of it, and they loved watching that. So, I feel like we got a lot of people loving our stories in the sport.

On this tour, I feel like all of us have that subconscious feeling to capitalize and keep pushing us forward, because we still have a long way to go. But it’s exciting because we’re in it finally. We’re not standing outside saying we wish something would happen to start it. It has started, and now we have to keep the ball rolling.

I took a minute yesterday to go back and watch the Team Final. When you all were going through the competition, did you sense that the medal was going to happen for you guys, or were you just laser-focused on the next routine, the next skill? 

That’s the crazy thing. Of course, we’re focused on the next skill, the next thing, the next routine, but I could feel it… like, you can kind of just feel when everything is working out right, and everything is going to work out right, you know? You still have nerves, but you can just feel the next routine is going to be great, and the one after that is going to be great. It’s all going to come together. It almost felt bigger than us, like the universe was just pushing us that direction. And all we had to do is just trust it because our bodies knew how to do it and it’s kind of like we all were intertwined in the universe. It was helping us go through smoothly, enjoy the moment, because it’s going to all work out. 

What does it feel like now to have the next generation, all of the younger kids looking at you and saying, ‘I want to be the next Frederick Richard’?

It’s still unreal, honestly. I’m just someone, of course, I’m a normal person, also, I was just obsessed with the sport, and now somehow I’ve reached the top and I have the power to actually help these kids and influence them and inspire them. So that part, I’m grateful for. When I decide I want to do something, when I actually do it, it has an impact. And that’s amazing. And it’s funny, when I was growing up, I’d see the pictures of the last Olympians that won medals, which was 16 years ago, and I’m like, ‘dang, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on a team like that.’ And now, there’s gonna be that same picture with us five at gyms. 

What was it like seeing your family after getting the team medal, and then also the reception coming home? 

Seeing your family is great, and it’s fun, because they’ve seen the whole journey all the way from, obviously, birth, to everything behind the scenes. They really got the win, too. They’ve sacrificed a lot, and it’s fun to come back to them with the success and see the pride in their eyes and the tears and all of that. Coming back home is like a little fun party. It’s like the people that you haven’t seen or talked to in five years come out to see you. Like my first grade teacher, second grade teacher, third grade teacher – all the people that were a part of your life –  and honestly who did say, ‘you’re gonna be an Olympian one day.’ They all came back. So that’s very funny to see them and think, ‘I know the last time you saw me in person was when I was 8-years-old, and now you’re looking at an Olympian.’

What are you most looking forward to about the tour?

I’m just excited to get close with us gymnasts on the road, and meet new people along the road. I just love the connections that these events bring. Every night we’re just celebrating in front of thousands and thousands of people, and that energy that’s going to just be flowing into my body is going to be really, really fun.

I think celebration is the perfect way to describe it – just showing everyone your excitement…

I feel like that’s my thing. I think I’m going to thrive in that environment and just let it all out. The showmanship part is fun.

For you, balancing tour with training, being a student-athlete at Michigan, talk about organizing everything over the next couple of months… 

The last three days, I’ve been keeping up with schoolwork while doing the rehearsals, while doing media, and I’m just definitely working my brain a lot more on organizing, keeping things written down and paying attention to every detail so I don’t fall behind. But, it’s kind of fun. Usually, my challenge is, you know, doing the hardest gymnastics possible, trying to win. Now my challenge is organizing and getting everything done in the day while my body heals a little bit from the hardest difficulty.

When I spoke with Brody, one of the comments that he made was about the NCAA camaraderie that you all have had over the last few years and its role in helping achieve that goal of winning the team medal. He believes it could really have an impact on helping save men’s NCAA gymnastics in the States. Do you have similar thoughts on that and that this is hopefully going to speak to some of these administrators who look at men’s gymnastics as the program to cut?

I’m also hoping that we did spark that. But, I do strongly believe hope isn’t going to be enough. It’s like we need something in place, we need to do something about it, and I’m trying to figure out where our role can come in. Yes, we did the first step of doing that performance that might inspire people, but just like, what can we do right now to get in their faces stronger and push it harder? Because I think it’s going to take a lot more than that. We might have helped the programs that are in, you know, have a reason to stay, but it’s like, how do we get 50 more programs into college gymnastics? 

I think that’s a whole different beast. I’m hoping to start building something to push and start getting the right people involved where this is a movement. There needs to be more, and maybe I need to start it, because something needs to be put together where we’re actively, every day, pushing these colleges. Because no one said anything to these colleges that never even thought to have gymnastics. They might have watched the competition and be thinking about it, but no one’s pushing them to do it, you know? I mean, so we’ll have to see where that goes.

Live men’s gymnastics is the most exciting, most amazing thing, and we want everybody else to feel that, too. With all this momentum behind you now, are you hoping one of the things that comes out of this tour is that ultimately more boys sign up for the sport and people start watching every year as opposed to every four years?

That’s what’s very, very important to us. So I think we’re going to push to make sure it has that effect. You know, if we need to stop in a city and visit a school or do something to just get kids to see this and get kids to be interested, that’s the stuff I’m willing to do. 

I think we’re going to be loud on this tour. I think we’ll try to be everywhere, in all places, and everywhere on social media. We’ll be loud, you know, as the best gymnasts in the world.

Photos by Jessica Frankl, Ricardo Bufolin and John Cheng