LSU Gymnastics
After compiling one of the greatest seasons in LSU athletics history, gymnastics superstar Haleigh Bryant has been selected as the 2024 winner of the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s James J. Corbett Award as the top female amateur athlete in the state of Louisiana.
James J. Corbett Awards
The senior from North Carolina became just the second LSU gymnast in program history to win the NCAA individual all-around title when she posted a score of 39.7125 at the NCAA Championship. She finished as one of the top 10 performers on every event with her scores of 9.900 on vault, 9.925 on bars, 9.950 on beam and 9.9375 on floor in the final four. Susan Jackson is the only other Tiger gymnast to win the all-around title as she accomplished that feat and also earned the Sugar Bowl’s Corbett Award in 2010.
More unprecedented than her individual accomplishments, Bryant’s efforts led the Tigers to the program’s first-ever team national championship.
“My main goal was to win an SEC Championship and a national championship,” Bryant said. “It was good for me to focus on those things, and when that happened, the individual honors followed. This year exceeded my dreams; I’m so thankful for my teammates and coaches. I couldn’t have done any of this without all of them.”
Bryant swept all five NCAA All-America honors after her standout performances at the championships in Fort Worth. This moved her count to 10 All-America honors on the year after taking home five honors in the regular season, making her the first LSU gymnast to record All-America honors on every event and the all-around in both the regular season and the postseason, and just the second to claim honors on every event in the postseason. Bryant’s exceptional 2024 season boosts her career All-America total to 27 (14 regular season, 13 postseason), the most by any LSU gymnast in school history.
She also holds the program record for perfect 10.0 scores with 18, as well as having earned the highest all-around score (39.925) in LSU history.
“I wanted to do everything possible to get this team to where it deserves to be,” Bryant said. “This program deserves everything. That was my main goal. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without my teammates and coaches. We all work so hard as a team; we all supported each other. It means so much.”
Bryant is the fourth LSU gymnast to be recognized with the Corbett Award. She joins Jackson, who earned the honor in 2010, as well as Sarah Finnegan (2019) and Ashleigh Gnat (2017), who is now an assistant coach for the Tigers.
“[The Corbett Award] is such an honor, I’ve looked up to those girls for so long,” Bryant said. “I watched them on tv. To follow in their footsteps is an honor. To accomplish what my idols accomplished feels amazing. Seeing their success is why I came to LSU. It’s an honor to continue that.”
Bryant also earned the 2024 AAI Award, recognized as the Heisman Trophy for women’s gymnastics; SEC Gymnast of the Year; and the Honda Award for gymnastics. The Honda Award makes her a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year honor along with the Honda Award winners from 11 other sports.
“She’s a generational talent, and a generational person,” said LSU head coach Jay Clark. “The excellence she shows on the floor, she also shows in every other aspect of her life. It’s impossible to quantify that. She is the rock that everything else was built around. And she understood that everything she accomplished wouldn’t have happened without the team.”
While she has already completed her undergraduate degree in sports administration, she thrilled LSU gymnastics fans with her April announcement that she will return to the Tiger team for her final year of eligibility while pursuing her master’s degree.
“After talking with my family, my coaches and my teammates, it was just a really good opportunity,” Bryant said. “I love gymnastics. It’s been a part of my life for so long, and I don’t think I was really ready for it to end.”
