Beam coach bids farewell
On Monday, LSU assistant gymnastics coach Ashleigh Gnat announced she would be stepping away from the program to “pursue personal goals and new opportunities.” According to The Advocate’s Scott Rabalais, she’s taking a job with leotard company GK Elite. The beam coach and former LSU gymnast had spent all but one season in Baton Rouge since her freshman season in 2014 either as a gymnast, graduate assistant coach or full-time assistant coach. In 2020, she worked at Penn State as a floor coach.
Bugs, as everyone calls her, is one of the greatest, most accomplished athletes in LSU athletics history. She was a 17-time All-American, a four-time SEC individual event champion, a key contributor to LSU’s 2017 SEC team championship, the 2016 SEC Specialist of the Year, the 2017 AAI Award winner and the 2017 NCAA floor champion who finished her career with a program-record nine career perfect 10s (since lapped by Haleigh Bryant).
Bugs earned the job as LSU’s beam coach following D-D Breaux’s retirement prior to the 2021 season. Her tenure as beam coach included being named regional assistant coach of the year in 2024, a year in which LSU set a program record for beam NQS. That season culminated in a program and NCAA finals-record 49.7625 to secure the first team national championship in LSU program history.
While the announcement itself may be sudden, she’d already indicated this would be her last season to head coach Jay Clark in January according to Rabalais. According to WBRZ’s Michael Cauble, LSU is expected to announce her replacement soon.