Since she was five years old, Katie Simpson’s idea of fun is spending countless of hours a week flipping through the air.

The road to a college gymnastics career was not an easy one, but she persevered through injuries and setbacks to make it to where she is today. However, not everyone thought Simpson could make it as a gymnast because of her late start.

“I started when I was five, but my mom wouldn’t let me compete until I was twelve,” Katie Simpson said.

Ever since Simpson decided she wanted to focus on gymnastics, she has been working hard, spending up to 23 hours a week in the gym on strength training and performing on each apparatus. She has been preparing for college and everything to come until a recent injury threatened her years of effort.

“I recently landed a vault wrong and ended up breaking my ankle. That’s put me out for a couple months now,” Simpson said.

In addition to breaking her ankle, Simpson also broke her toe in eighth grade resulting in a surgery that set her back a whole year. Even though her gymnastics career has been riddled with setbacks, SImpson was able to persevere and was rewarded an athletic scholarship from Texas Woman’s University for gymnastics, where she will be attending in the fall.

“I’m really looking forward to the team atmosphere I’ll be able to experience for the first time at TWU in the fall,” Simpson said.

With many exciting new experiences ahead of her, Simpson can not wait till school starts in the fall- or even better this summer when she can start doing gymnastics again. As everyone gets pumped for summer Simpson simply can’t wait to feel the uneven bars under hands again. Along with that she looks forward to help coach a gymnastics camp this summer.

“I’m excited about being able to spend the summer with the other girls on the team and getting to know them, while teaching little kids gymnastics at TWU,” Simpson said.