Auburn gymnast Gabby McLaughlin 'forever grateful'

AUBURN, Ala. – At the onset of her official visit to Auburn, junior gymnast Gabby McLaughlin confided in her mother that her mind was made up.

“’Mom, there’s something about this place that just feels homey,’” McLaughlin said while strolling Samford Lawn. “This place is just beautiful.’ Walking down the street, people were saying, ‘hi’ and ‘War Eagle’ to me. That’s when I knew this was the place.”

From her first meet at Auburn, McLaughlin has excelled on beam, routinely scoring 9.9 or better. Like all aspects of gymnastics, that expertise developed over time.

“Me and beam, we were not good friends,” she said, recalling overcoming her fear and mental blocks on the apparatus. “Working through that made me a lot stronger as a gymnast. That helped me develop my love for beam and how now it comes so naturally to me.”

“Beam is about attitude,” Auburn coach Jeff Graba said. “She has this confidence and this air about her that makes people around her better.”

“You definitely have to be fearless,” McLaughlin said. “And lots of confidence. Working, being consistent, lots of repetitions over and over again.”

With a career high on beam of 9.975, McLaughlin is one judge away from her goal of scoring a 10. So reliable is McLaughlin, Graba positions her No. 5 in Auburn’s beam lineup, with only Olympic all-around gold medalist Sunisa Lee behind her.

“When you go to beam, you need confidence in yourself, but you need confidence in the person ahead of you and behind you,” Graba said. “When you put someone like Gabby into the beam rotation, she makes three or four people around her better. She’s setting up Suni. That’s a pret

“You never look nervous there, which is what I admire,” said Lee, the reigning NCAA beam champion, to McLaughlin in a media session after Auburn scored 197.500 in a Jan. 20 win over Arkansas. “I feel like the best beam workers are the ones who look comfortable up on the beam, and that’s exactly what Gabby looks like every single time.”

During McLaughlin’s three seasons on the Plains, Auburn gymnastics has ascended in the rankings, making program history last season by reaching the Final Four at the NCAA Championship.

“That’s something I hold very close to my heart,” she said. “That’s something that no one can ever take from me.”

As a sophomore last season, McLaughlin choreographed her floor routine, impressing teammates who asked Gabby to help design theirs this season. Lee, Cassie Stevens, Aria Brusch, Sara Hubbard and Morgan Leigh Oldham all entrusted Gabby to help craft their routines.

“With Cassie’s and Aria’s, I know how they dance, and I know their personalities,” McLaughlin said. “I wanted to create a routine that fits them and looks beautiful when they perform it.”

Last summer, McLaughlin traveled to gyms in Montgomery and Georgia, choreographing routines for young gymnasts while working camps to help her parents pay for Gabby’s summer classes at Auburn.

In addition to her stellar beam work, McLaughlin trains and competes on bars and floor as well.

“Her contribution is immense,” Graba said. “The scoring potential she brings, that’s huge. Couple that with the fact that she’s choreographing for our athletes, our girls trust her and she’s a leader in the program. She’s a huge cog in our wheel.”

A media studies major, McLaughlin aspires to combine her sport with her degree, mentioning War Eagle Productions videographer Andrew Aaron, who uses video to tell the story of Auburn’s gymnastics program, as a potential career to emulate.

During Auburn’s season-opening meet in Las Vegas, the Tigers attended a Cirque du Soleil show, sparking another potential post-gymnastics opportunity.

“I was really interested in that,” she said. “They’ve hired a lot of gymnasts to be part their shows.”

That’s down the road. For now, Gabby McLaughlin, a ‘huge cog in the wheel’ of a top five program, hopes to help the Tigers return to the Final Four this spring.

“It’s such a special opportunity,” she said. “I’m forever grateful that I picked Auburn and to be a part of this program. The love from the coaches and the staff is unconditional. I constantly feel the support, in and out of the gym, and in life and in school.”

Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer