Mya Hooten works out a component of her balance beam routine during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27 on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

TWIST OF FATE

Gophers gymnast Mya Hooten is an All-American, best known for perfect 10s on her floor routine, and she’s working on her master’s degree at the Carlson School of Management. But it took two families taking a life-changing leap of faith to help her stick the landing and become a star.

Story by Jeff Day • Photos by Jeff Wheeler

Star Tribune

December 12, 2024

Mya Hooten stood alone.

Giant ceiling fans whirled overhead inside an ancient, aging gym. Chalk dust hung in the air. Music blasted. Other members of the Gophers gymnastics team bounced on trampolines and flew off the vault.

Hooten aligned her feet on the balance beam, shook out her shoulders, steadied her breathing and flipped herself forward in a twist of tight limbs. She landed her rotation, raised her arms in mock triumph, flashed a megawatt smile and threw her head back in laughter.

Hooten is already an icon as she prepares for her fifth and final season at the University of Minnesota. A Big Ten champion and All-American several times over. Home meets at Maturi Pavilion are designed to end with her electric floor routine, where crowds pack the sidelines and Hooten has scored nine perfect 10s, a school record. She has been named to the Academic All-Big Ten team every season and is attending the Carlson School of Management to get her master’s degree.

From every angle, she is living the dream career of a college athlete.

Mya Hooten, right, reacts as Evelyn Anderson, 7, does a backbend for her while Hooten took some time to visit with her, Millie Pirchio, 9, left, and Emma Anderson, 9, during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

And it was all so close to never happening.

As a high school student, Hooten was lost. Her grades plummeting. Her personal life wayward. Despite her obvious talent, she couldn’t stick with high school or club teams. Couldn’t find the time to study, to spend hours in the gym and to help raise her little sisters. Her parents had divorced a few years before, and everyone was grinding to provide and rebuild.

Her mother worked nights as a bartender. Her father moved out and started working two jobs. Hooten stumbled in the middle.

At the end of Hooten’s junior year, Gophers gymnastics coach Jenny Hansen gathered those closest to Hooten and delivered the news: Hooten was going to be academically ineligible, and her scholarship was going to disappear.

The room shuddered with pain.

Within days, Hooten’s life would be turned upside down and the structure of her family forever altered. Her mother signed away her custody rights. Hooten left home and moved in with a family she did not know. The family that took her in had two children of their own and no idea what they were getting into.

Tension and resentment sprouted in every crack of misunderstanding, and a group of proud adults had to let that go on the blind prayer that they could save a young girl’s future.

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Gymnasts are perfectionists. The sport requires a level of mental and physical stamina that exceeds other athletic disciplines because of the constant risk of serious injury.

The defense mechanisms of the body — the things that keep all of us from feeling remotely comfortable hurtling into the air with our feet above our heads — are weened out of gymnasts as children. Top-level prospects are often identified before they can form complete sentences.

Hooten was no different, but her mom, Kari Conroy, said the origin story had nothing to do with talent.

“I put her in it ‘cause I thought it was cute,” Conroy said, laughing. “Cute little girl in gymnastics! In a leotard doing some flips.”

Hooten was a natural. The little flips started to fly.

Cultivating gymnastics talent requires immediate immersion. This is unnatural repetition — aerial twisting and gravitational pounding of tendons, bones and muscles — and the body, inevitably, breaks down. Top female gymnasts typically age out of the sport by their early 20s.

If you’re going to reach your highest potential, your childhood and teenage years have to be spent practicing. Hooten had the talent, so she began spending 25 hours in the gym every week.

Mya Hooten, middle, one of the best gymnasts in Gophers history, talks with teammates while chalking up during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

While she was doing that, Hooten’s life at home changed.

You can see her mother and father in her. She looks just like them and reflects their blend of personalities. Her mom is kind and a little self-deprecating with a beaming smile. She’s quick to laugh and full of emotion. She connects instantly. A born bartender. Mya’s dad, Phil Hooten, is pure energy. He grew up a natural athlete and believer in hard work and himself. He can instill that confidence in others.

Recalling how he and Conroy fell in love, Phil said, “I’ll give you a secret, she didn’t marry me because I could cook.”

They had three kids. Mya is the middle child, between her older brother, Blake, and her younger sister Mariah. Phil said growing up he was the “most selfish person in the world.” Then his son was born. Everything changed. Not that it made it simple.

“You don’t get handbooks for learning how to raise and handle kids,” Phil said. “You’re learning on the go.”

Both parents were deeply devoted to their children, but their lives were in transition. They divorced after 11 years.

Phil said when the divorce was finalized, “I literally had to rebuild my life from the jump.”

So did Conroy.

Their three kids lived with her, and Conroy had a new baby girl, Jaycee, from another relationship. She was focused on making enough money to keep the family afloat. Looking back, she wondered if she had her priorities wrong. She comes from a family in the restaurant business and had settled into the odd hours that life can entail. At the time, it felt like there was no other choice.

“She had too much pressure,” Conroy said of Mya. “She was taking care of kids, and I was never home at night.”

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While her parents were doing their best, the lack of structure started to impact Hooten. She was wildly talented and knew it. She could come off as brash and couldn’t find a gymnastics club that fit.

One day, she sent a text message to a coach who would change everything.

Bryon Hough is stout and bald with stern eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. He runs several gyms, including Classic Gymnastics in Chanhassen. He is, as all true coaches are, full of conviction. He believes a caring coach can change lives because it happened to him.

Hooten asked Hough if she could train with his club. He told her no.

“This was her fourth gym,” Hough said. “Because she was a pain in the ass.”

After some convincing, he agreed to meet with Hooten. He walked her into a conference room and had her mom sit outside the door.

He spoke frankly about what he had heard about her. Including that she didn’t work hard in the gym and was irresponsible. Hooten started to cry. She asked him where he had heard that. Hough told her it was her reputation.

Hooten had three years of club left. Hough wanted to develop her talent, but more than that, he wanted to “break a cycle” that he saw in her personal life. Hough had been raised by a single mother and nearly sent his life down the drain before it really began. He told Hooten she could join his gym, but she would get three strikes.

That first meeting was strike one.

Hooten’s attitude improved. She showed more leadership and warmth to her teammates. Her skills as a gymnast grew. But she was still switching high schools and had started attending Tartan in Oakdale. The drive to Chanhassen was an hour on a good day. It created this routine: go to school, drive to club practice, be there from 4 to 8:30 p.m., go home to her little sisters and big brother in Hopkins while her mom was working until 2 or 3 a.m.

“I was just so tired,” Hooten said. “I’m not doing my homework. I’m not doing anything. ... I would just eat then go to sleep.”

Mya Hooten visits with Diamond Cook, a gymnast from Minneapolis who competes for Talladega College, along with Cook’s mother, Sharon, right, and Hooten’s mom, Kari Conroy, left, during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

That’s when Hansen, the Gophers gymnastics coach, called a meeting and shined a light on something everyone had been ignoring: Hooten’s grades had cratered. If they didn’t change instantly, no amount of skill was going to get her into college. Hooten went into a bathroom sobbing and didn’t come out for 30 minutes.

It was an emotional time for everyone involved, but it was a desperate space for Conroy. She felt her parenting being called into question, and she wondered if she had failed her daughter.

“You feel like, are you a bad mom?” Conroy said, “Because, I mean, obviously, I didn’t check on her grades. I wasn’t keeping up with it. I was focused on just working. More focused on working than anything else.”

In that moment, she didn’t know what to do. She told Hough, almost offhandedly, “Why don’t you take her?”

Hough knew he couldn’t do that, but his mind started racing.

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Sarah and Matt Zeiher knew nothing about gymnastics when they enrolled their daughter, Ella, at Hough’s club when she was 18 months old.

The couple are high school sweethearts and got their two kids involved in all kinds of sports as they grew up in Chaska. Both parents are working professionals, and between their jobs and their children, life was bustling. But they are also spiritual people, seekers, curious about their purpose and their relationship with God.

Around the time everything in Hooten’s world was coming unraveled, Sarah was feeling an itch. It didn’t stem from unhappiness or want, but it was there. “I was having a conversation with my mom just saying, ‘There’s something more I’m supposed to be doing,’ ” she recalled.

The Zeihers didn’t know Hooten in any real way; she was just the super-talented older gymnast who had recently joined the club where their daughter was training. After a big camp week had finished, Hough and some of the club parents went out for drinks. Sarah casually asked him how everything went.

Hough said it had been one of the hardest weeks of his life as a coach because he couldn’t stop thinking about how to help Hooten.

“It was shocking to me because I didn’t know anything about it,” Sarah recalled. “And then he said, ‘We’re looking and considering a host family.’ ”

Instantly, Sarah knew.

Mya Hooten, left, and the Zeihers gather for a holiday family portrait Nov. 24 on Main Street SE in Minneapolis along the Mississippi River. From left, Matt, Brennan, Sarah and Ella Zeiher took Hooten in when she was in high school, giving her the stability and support she needed.

“I thought, ‘Well, this is it,’ ” she said.

She had no idea of the financials or the logistics, no concept of how her kids would handle it. She went home and told her husband. He was less enthusiastic.

Sarah made Matt a deal: They would meet with Hough and promise each other to stay open-minded.

They sat down in Hough’s office. Hough explained the situation in its entirety and showed them a piece of paper that Conroy had signed waiving her parental rights. There was a blank space to put the name of the legal guardian. Things were moving very quickly when Hough asked if they would like to meet Hooten.

They said yes.

Hooten walked into the room and sat down.

It was clear Hough had prepared her for the moment. He told Hooten she would clean her room, she would listen to the Zeihers and this was not a hotel. Hooten said she understood. Then she told Sarah and Matt, “I’ll never be able to repay you.” Sarah looked over at Matt, a stoic and strong Midwestern man, and saw his bottom lip quivering.

They went home to talk with their children. Ella was now 11, and Brennan was 8. Sarah and Matt had to make sure their kids were understanding of the decision and OK with it. When they told their children what they wanted to do, Ella started to cry. At that moment, Sarah decided it was off.

Then Ella explained why she was so emotional. The family only had four chairs at the kitchen table; where was everyone going to sit?

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While Conroy had been desperate to improve her daughter’s situation, the reality of Hooten leaving created incredible tension.

Hooten’s father hadn’t been notified all this was happening until the last minute. Phil was incensed. He had gotten his life steadied and believed his daughter should come to live with him. He was living near Twin City Twisters, generally considered the best gymnastics club in the state.

He didn’t know the Zeihers. He did not like the idea of his daughter living with another man as a father figure. “It was very difficult,” he said.

Conroy was having second thoughts, too. She told Hooten she didn’t want her to leave.

Hooten was terrified, but something snapped inside of her. She told her mom there were “no ifs, ands or buts” about it. She was going. In that moment, with her future wavering, she felt like if she didn’t do something drastic, she wasn’t going to make it. So she left home. Left her little sisters and her big brother and her mom. The pain was immediate.

“They picked her up; I didn’t even go outside to meet them,” Conroy said.

Hooten didn’t speak to her mom for a week. Her little sisters couldn’t understand why she was leaving them.

“I just remember I would cry a lot,” Hooten said. “Because I was so scared.”

In that pain, she pushed ahead.

Hough, recognizing the financial strain on everybody, paid for Hooten’s travel costs for gymnastics. He told the Zeihers that they didn’t have to pay any club fees while they were housing her. He bought a used car from his neighbor and gave it to Hooten to ease her commute. The Gophers told her the way toward NCAA eligibility was to improve her ACT score. Hough paid for an ACT tutor, twice a week, three hours per session.

“It was the worst time of my life,” Hooten recalled with a laugh. “They were on me like a hawk. I needed that. I needed structure.”

Mya Hooten watches a teammate’s vault while she has her ankle taped up by athletic trainer Shanice Cheatham during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

The Zeihers enrolled Hooten at Chanhassen High School, and Sarah organized every inch of her life. They sat down for nightly meals, and Matt explained over and over again that you need to put gas in the car before the tank gets to empty. Hooten quickly became a part of their family.

Hooten radiates an energy that has drawn people toward her her entire life. She is insightful, magnetic and fun. But, as with many students, her emotional and mental strengths didn’t translate to the classroom.

She could do her homework and understand conceptually what she was learning, but when a test was placed in front of her, it all went out the door.

Working with the tutor brought immediate improvement. The first time she retook the ACT, her score jumped within one point of eligibility.

Hough and the Zeihers refused to give her wiggle room in the gym. If all of her schoolwork was not done, she didn’t get to practice. Everyone was pushing her, but they were giving her room to grow.

“She needed to fail and know that someone would pick her up,” Hough said. “We’ve all done it, but if you don’t have somebody to say, ‘It’s OK, let’s not make that mistake again,’ and help correct it, that’s the problem.”

Hooten retook the ACT and hit the mark. She raised her GPA high enough to meet NCAA standards. Hough got a call that Hooten was going to get her scholarship and sign her national letter of intent at the U.

All he could think was, “We did it.”

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Hansen has been the Gophers gymnastics coach since 2014 and can recall seeing Hooten for the first time when Hooten was 14 years old.

“We just watched her tumble,” Hansen said. “She could tumble higher than anyone else at that meet.”

But Hansen also had a deeper sensation.

“She was that kind of personality. ... You were hooked and wanted to keep watching and see what was going to come next.”

The Gophers were the first Division I program — and one of the only — to offer Hooten a scholarship. They never wavered in keeping that commitment, even while her eligibility was under serious question.

Mya Hooten works out a component of her balance beam routine during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

Mya Hooten dismounts from the uneven bars during an open practice at Peik Gym on June 27.

Over 10 seasons, Hansen and her staff have made the Gophers highly competitive, finishing eighth nationally in 2021 and sixth in 2022. In a sport that is often known for authoritarian coaches pushing individuals toward perfection, the Gophers have done it by preaching positivity and collaboration.

That was exactly what Hooten needed, in and out of the gym.

She was connected with a devoted academic adviser in Chris Cords, who says of his work, “I don’t have a job, I have a lifestyle.” He helped Hooten find a major that focused on small group learning. He gave her a simple message that she internalized: “I can be smart.”

Hooten started to believe in her academic ability; stellar grades came instantly. A different kind of perfect score.

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The Gophers’ first road trip of Hooten’s freshman season was to Michigan. Before the meet, Sarah reached out to Conroy.

“I said, Matt and I are going; I’ve got a room for all of us if you get out there,” Sarah recalled.

They wound up sharing the room. That weekend brought the first little moments of understanding in the relationship of these uniquely bonded parents. About two months later, that exploded.

Hooten had a stellar year, being named to the All-Big Ten first team. The Gophers competed at the NCAA regionals in Athens, Ga., and the Zeihers and Conroy decided, again, to be roommates.

“Matt and I are in one bed; you roll over, and there she is in the bed right next to us,” Sarah said.

That closeness created a space for hard truths.

Conroy had sacrificed a part of her relationship with her daughter because she knew it was necessary. “But it just hurt inside,” Conroy said. She carried that feeling for more than a year and wondered if people were judging her. At the same time, the Zeihers had come to love Hooten like a daughter, but they weren’t intending to act like they could ever replace her parents.

In the hotel room, the Zeihers and Conroy finally shared how they felt. About Hooten, about life, about each other.

“For me, as a mother, personally, I had resentment for Kari because I couldn’t understand how this would have happened,” Sarah said. “I held some of those feelings until we were traveling with her. At that point, I think I realized that as strong of a mom as I thought that I was, I could have never made that choice that she did.

Mya Hooten smiles for a picture with her biological and host parents after being awarded the 2024 Patty Berg Legacy Award at the annual Gophers sports scholarship banquet at the University of Minnesota. From left: Phil Hooten, Sarah Zeiher, Matt Zeiher and Kari Conroy.

“Of all of the things and the challenges and the rumors and the disappointment and everybody knowing the stories they made up in their own mind of what she did and the feeling of failure — she is the strongest out of all of us.”

As everyone worked to understand each other a little better, they realized their shared love of Hooten was more powerful than any differences they had.

To this day, the Zeihers and Conroy share hotel rooms for road meets. The two moms openly refer to themselves as best friends. Just as importantly, everyone believes in their shared parental roles with Hooten.

“We’re family,” Phil Hooten said and paused for a moment. “We’re family.”

Gophers gymnast Mya Hooten, middle, reflects a blend of her parents’ personalities, getting her energy and confidence from her father, Phil Hooten, left, and her kindness and ability to connect with others instantly from her mother, Kari Conroy.

It was not easy for him. He can remember burying his anger at feeling disrespected as a father. Just as clearly, he can remember the first time he met the Zeihers. He said in that moment, the tension in his body released. “I knew they loved my child the same way I do,” he said.

He can look with clear eyes at how things turned out. It took a little village to raise his daughter. There’s no shame in that.

“I think it was divine intervention,” Phil said.

There was a cosmic smile in all of this that Mya Hooten keeps close with a tattoo on the inside of her arm that reads: 09-01.

It turns out Conroy and Sarah have the same birthday.

“It’s like we’ve known each other forever,” Conroy said. “What are the odds?”

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What are the odds?

When you’re a star athlete with 15,000 Instagram followers, NIL deals and a handful of All-America awards and perfect scores, it all seems preordained.

But how many little moments had to go just right for Mya Hooten to become Mya Hooten?

What if Conroy refuses to sign away her parental rights? What if Hough doesn’t give her a chance? What if Hooten doesn’t fight for her future? If Hansen doesn’t hold her scholarship? If Sarah isn’t seeking God?

What if there wasn’t room for one more chair at the kitchen table?

Mya Hooten, left, walks across Main Street SE with Ella Zeiher while Brennan Zeiher wrangles the family dog, Gus, as Hooten and her host family gathered Nov. 24 in Minneapolis along the Mississippi River for a holiday family portrait.

It’s a bit existential to consider and a hair heavy for the time being. Hooten still has one year left with the Gophers. There are no victory laps being taken. Each home meet will be a moment to cherish. Conroy is certain she’ll cry at them all.

Hansen says her top goal this season is that the team, not just Hooten, is at the national championship in Fort Worth, Texas.

Everyone is thrilled at Hooten’s accomplishments as a gymnast, but they pale in comparison to how they all feel about her academic growth. Earlier this year, she was named to the Academic All-America first team. She’ll graduate with her master’s degree in human resources and industrial relations in the spring.

Hough is excited to see how Hooten does once she’s outside of gymnastics. He views her parents, the Zeihers and the gym as a triangle of support that has gotten Hooten here. At some point, she’ll need to support herself. He’s no longer fearful of that.

“How proud I am of Mya, I can’t put into words,” Hough said. “I’ve tried to text her and tell her to her face, and I can’t.”

Hooten knows her life is a series of blessings. Out of desperation and pain came a gigantic loving family and a community of care and support. All of it nearly nothing more than a dream.

“I really couldn’t do it alone,” she said.

about the writer

Jeff Day