BJ Das of UCLA gets a well-deserved promotion

UCLA announced Thursday that BJ Das had been promoted from assistant coach to associate head coach. 

Das is a former gymnast and a professional dancer who is well known for her floor exercise choreography on a team that has made the “floor party” part of its identity. In her five years on the Bruins’ coaching staff, Das has choreographed two NCAA championship routines — Brooklyn Moors’ in 2025, and Jordan Chiles’ in 2023. Four of her routines have won conference championship floor titles for UCLA athletes and seven have scored perfect 10s. For three of her six seasons with UCLA, the school has finished the season ranked number one on floor.

Gymnastics is seeing a bit of an artistry revolution in recent years. Elite gymnasts are held to an artistry checklist. NCAA has always been a place where gymnasts are supposedly more free to cut loose and let their personalities shine on floor, but the reality is that some gymnasts are Brooklyn Moors, and others are … not.

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The genius of BJ Das is that she can give an entire team, with many personalities, styles of gymnastics and dance abilites, memorable floor routines that take every gymnast’s essence into consideration. When you see a BJ Das floor routine, you are seeing a gymnast, not choreography, and that’s incredibly rare in this sport. 

The genius of UCLA, and of head coach Janelle McDonald, is recognizing that Das is not merely a choreographer, but worthy of being an associate head coach for a team that was national runner-up in the NCAA this year (and was the runner-up in large part thanks to Das.) 

If artistry is to become as much a part of modern gymnastics as throwing difficult tricks, we need more coaches like BJ Das.

Other gym news

The Balance Beam Situation this week brings us precious GIFs from the Koper Challenge Cup as well as a liveblog of the Mixed Team Final at the European Championships. 

The Gymternet has liveblogs of all the happenings at Euros. 

College Gym News has a roundtable on the 2025 transfer portal, some surprising moments from the 2025 season, and a Data Deep Dive on leo trends to get us through our long national nightmare that is the offseason with no leo rankings. 

eMjae Frazier, previously of Cal, has transferred to Florida for her final season of eligibility. 

For all those freaking out that Frazier is giving up the power of a Cal degree, don’t fret — she graduated early. Such a gymnast move.

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Zoe Miller had shoulder surgery — on her OTHER shoulder. 

Germany’s Eli Seitz retired. She also announced that she is pregnant and due at the end of 2025! Congratulations on an amazing career.

All nine gymnastics teams in the SEC will participate in next year’s conference championships. This year, the first in which Oklahoma was added to the conference, the championship only featured the top eight teams, excluding Arkansas.

Five at The IX: BJ Das

With the news of BJ Das’ promotion (see above), here’s a look back at a UCLA video featuring Das discussing her floor routine magic. 

And here’s Das all Mic’d Up: