![\"Baylor](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/acrobatics-feb26.jpg\")
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As the 2026 Baylor Acrobatics & Tumbling<\/a> season begins Friday, the Bears find themselves in a familiar position — ranked as the nation\u2019s No. 1 team in the preseason poll<\/a> for the 11th straight season.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise; as winners of 10 straight national titles<\/a> and led by the sport\u2019s inventor and predominant coach, Felecia Mulkey<\/a>, the Bears begin each year with the proverbial target on their back as the sport\u2019s winningest team.<\/p>\n For a program and coach accustomed to celebrating national titles, it\u2019s hard to imagine that anything could match what\u2019s become an annual thrill, but everyone involved — especially Coach Fee, as she\u2019s called by her athletes — got just that last month.<\/p>\n Nearly two decades after it was conceived by Mulkey and formed into a collegiate sport (with first matches occurring in 2010), Acrobatics & Tumbling was elevated to officially become an NCAA championship sport<\/a>, starting next year. (You might already have thought it was an NCAA sport, given its popularity and growth nationally, but past titles have been sanctioned by the National Collegiate Acrobatics & Tumbling Association<\/a>.) NCAA adoption will elevate the sport even further, as other schools are expected to adopt the sport as well with that endorsement.<\/p>\n For Mulkey, years of blood, sweat and tears were worth it when the announcement was made.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of emotion,\u201d she said<\/a>. “It’s really going to be that championship experience. I’ve always said it, but them having that blue dot (the NCAA logo) on the trophy, it’ll be great for us, but it really legitimizes it for the people out there who are kind of late adopters.”<\/p>\n When the announcement was made, NCAA administrators highlighted Baylor\u2019s role in bringing the sport to the forefront, with leadership from not only Mulkey, but longtime Baylor associate athletic director Nancy Post and others.<\/p>\n The first NCAA championship will be held in 2027, but there\u2019s still one more to be won before that begins. The Bears pursuit of that championship begins this Friday, when they travel to Saint Leo. Their first home meet comes against the nation\u2019s No. 2-ranked team, Oregon, on Feb. 28. Fans can attend each meet at the Ferrell Center free of charge.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Baylor Acrobatics & Tumbling!<\/p>\n [Interested in even more A&T? Check out “Perfect 10<\/a>,” a new documentary chronicling Baylor’s 10th straight national championship, now streaming on Baylor+<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the 2026 Baylor Acrobatics & Tumbling season begins Friday, the Bears find themselves in a familiar position — ranked as the nation\u2019s No. 1 team in the preseason poll for the 11th straight season. It\u2019s no surprise; as winners of 10 straight national titles and led by the sport\u2019s inventor and predominant coach, Felecia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}