Gators gymnast Skylar Draser, all-white, greets teammate Kayla DiCello after a performance at Hype Night last month. (Photo: Hannah White/UAA Communications)
Gators Gymnastics Team Embraces Its Version of 'The Promise'
Wednesday, January 7, 2026 | Gymnastics, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If this season goes the way the No. 3-ranked Gators gymnastics team wants it to – and various professional observers of the sport predict it will – they will be back at Dickies Arena in mid-April for the NCAA Championships.
Nothing unusual there. Fort Worth, Texas, has hosted the championship eight times and Florida's frequently on the guest list.
But last season delivered a sour twist. The Gators did not advance to the NCAA Finals and watched as Oklahoma repeated as champions by defeating Utah, UCLA and Missouri. Watched might be too tame a verb. Skylar Draser
The Gators sat and stewed.
"It kind of sparked something in us,'' said junior Skylar Draser. "We weren't anticipating not making it."
The experience of being spectators in the stands and not competing on the floor left a harsh memory for the coaching staff, too.
As the Gators regrouped after the season and began looking ahead, Draser took a starring role in resetting the outlook with help from an unlikely teammate who needs no introduction to Florida fans.
His name is Tebow, Tim Tebow.
Draser grew up in South Huntington, N.Y., and admittedly was not a big college football fan. The day Tebow famously delivered "The Promise" – Sept. 27, 2008, after a home loss to Ole Miss – Draser was a month away from her third birthday. You know the story. An emotional Tebow entered his postgame press conference and made a passionate statement about the loss to the Rebels spoiling a potential undefeated season, and that he would do everything in his power to make sure the Gators didn't lose again. Florida won its final 10 games and its second national championship in three seasons.
Tebow's legacy was celebrated by a plaque posted on a wall outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Draser called a team only meeting when the team returned from Fort Worth. That discussion continued among the team during the summer.
So when the UF gymnastics team met for a retreat in Clearwater late last summer ahead of another season, Draser drew inspiration from Gator history. She showed the team Tebow's speech and proposed they create their own version of "The Promise" — a unifying commitment that transformed the summer's conversations into a visible, shared vision for what they wanted to become.
"It was a big leap for Skylar,'' Rowland said. "To take that initiative as a younger person, and the courage and the strength to bring it to a team … it's scary. It can be very challenging and just unpredictable how it would be accepted."
The Gators embraced Draser's idea with a group hug, and it now hangs above the doorway leading to the team's training gym inside Exactech Arena.
Photo: Mary Howard/UAA Communications
Draser was inspired by the final paragraph of Tebow's Promise – You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season – and when the Gators gathered for a gymnasts-only meeting to clarify their mission, they collectively created their own Promise to "embrace the hard."
What does that mean in Draser's view?
"Throughout the season, there's going to be highs, there's going to be lows, there's going to be the really good days, there's are going to be the hard days where you wake up, and you're tired,'' she said. "But just walking in every day and seeing that promise, knowing you're doing this for your team, your team has your back, and they will always challenge you to be the best person you could be.
"Embracing the hard is not letting the hard days get to you, and pushing forward in those moments, because that's what makes you the best."
The Gators get to test their Promise for the first time in competition on Friday night in a quad meet against North Carolina, Temple and West Virginia.
Junior Kayla DiCello, set to compete collegiately for the first time since her freshman season ended with the Gators finishing just 0.15 away in second at the 2023 NCAA Championships team final, said the Gators ecstatically followed Draser's lead in creating a mindset from the beginning of the season that they seek to make last until the NCAA Championships end.
"I thought it was amazing,'' DiCello said. "I think after last year, just the way we ended our season, we all felt the exact same way, and we didn't want that to happen again. We all just like realized that we needed to start a foundation much earlier than we did in the past year. And Skylar, coming up with the promise and just showing it to all of us, was really good. We live by this Promise."
Meanwhile, Rowland bounced around the gym this week, eagerly anticipating the season opener.
The 2026 Florida gymnastics team opens the season on Friday night at home. (Photo: Hannah White/UAA Communications)
She has watched a determined group of Gators work intentionally in the gym and develop a team culture that exudes confidence and commitment.
"This team has grown leaps and bounds,'' she said. "I have not seen a team transform, truly, and come together as quickly as this team did after last season. Really grateful for their leadership, their desire, their want and how they wanted this season to look. I have more confidence in this team than, I don't want to say ever before, but they have made it very easy for the staff to have a lot of confidence in each and every single athlete.
"It's a coach's dream. Every coach wants their team to take ownership of who they are and how they want to do it and how they're going to get there."
They all know where they want to end up. The same place they felt so empty last April. But instead of watching, they plan to be competing on the final day.
Their road map is on display every time they show up for practice.
"I think it was a very crucial thing to have literally in front of us when we walk in the gym every day,'' Draser said. "Because it just brings that reminder like, 'this is what we are working so hard for. We started this in the beginning of the year, and we're not going to stop till we reach our end goal.' "
