Tabitha Yim enters her eighth season as Rodgers Family Director of Gymnastics of the Cardinal in 2024-25.
Yim, who returned to coach her alma mater back in the summer of 2017, is steadily rebuilding the Stanford program, fostering notable athletic and academic achievements with each year spent at the helm of the Cardinal Women’s Gymnastics program. Under Yim, the Cardinal has made six regional championships and a national championship semifinal appearance, alongside its gymnasts earning an individual national championship title (Vault, 2024, Anna Roberts), three conference event championships, seven regional event championships, 11 all-conference selections and seven all-American honors (both NCAA and WCGA).
Stanford's 2024 season was one for the history books, going from a 52nd national ranking in week one to finishing as the fifth-best team in the nation. The program, guided by its mission to O.W.N. It (Our Work Now) and three of the program’s best team performances in its storied history, became the first unseeded team to make nationals in its new format (since 2019) and the first unseeded team to make the national championship meet in any format since 2011. Individually, sophomore Anna Roberts captured the 2024 NCAA Vault Championship title, bringing home the Cardinal's first NCAA individual championship since Elizabeth Price's floor title in 2018.
Led by the goal to "Up the Ante", the 2023 season was one to remember for the Cardinal women's gymnastics team. Continuing the unprecedented excellence of Yim's tenure, the 2023 campaign was highlighted by three home victories and the program's best score in Maples Pavilion since at least 1999 alongside key road wins at No. 20 Arizona State and No. 25 Washington. For the first time in program history, the Cardinal scored 196.000-or-better in every regular season meet throughout the 2023 season.
In 2022, the Cardinal saw some of its greatest strides during Yim's tenure. Stanford finished the season ranked No. 14 nationally, up 38 spots from the 2021 season to embody the team's motto of flipping the script. The Cardinal upset the No. 13 and No.19 ranked teams for a spot in the Regional Finals, earning the Cardinal its first top-16 finish since 2016. During the 2022 postseason, Yim coached her program to back-to-back 197.000+ scores, earning the Cardinal its first consecutive 197.000+ scores for the first time since 2015. Under Yim's coaching, super senior Kyla Bryant earned a tied-for-seventh-place finish on the floor at the NCAA Championships and earned NCAA First-Team All-America honors. Yim's leadership throughout the 2022 season helped Bryant write a storybook ending to her career as one of the best to don a Stanford leo.
The 2021 season was another great year for Yim and the Cardinal. Stanford captured two event titles, outperforming San Jose State on vault (March 10) and producing the top score on floor during its session at the Pac-12 Championships (March 20). Throughout the 2021 campaign, Cardinal gymnasts collected 14 individual event crowns, with Kyla Bryant and Chloe Widner accounting for six apiece while Morgan Hoang and Grace Garcia each tallied one. Stanford finished the 2021 season ranked No. 52 nationally. The Cardinal also concluded the season ranked No. 44 on floor, No. 51 on vault, No. 52 on bars and No. 54 on beam.
Under Yim's direction, Stanford finished 2020 ranked No. 26 nationally, posting a national qualifying score of 195.990 prior to a cancellation of the Pac-12 Championships during a season that was shortened by the COVID-19 global pandemic. The Cardinal remained a fixture in the top-30 of the national rankings despite multiple injuries to key gymnasts and several underclassmen embracing key roles in the lineup. Meanwhile, Stanford was one of only two programs to outperform top-ranked Oklahoma on beam and produced its best floor score in 16 years during a Senior Night meet against Arizona State.
Yim proved instrumental in the continued development of Kyla Bryant, who was named a WCGA Second Team All-American on floor. The 34th All-American in school history and first since Elizabeth Price in 2018, Bryant was also recognized as an All-Pac-12 First Team selection while capturing 12 event titles and producing career-high totals on vault, bars and beam.
In 2019, Yim's Cardinal scored season-opening wins at the NorCal Classic and Sacramento State Tri-Meet. Stanford delivered a season-high 196.525 against Arizona, the program's first conference triumph in two seasons, and was competitive in almost every meet. Competing with one of the youngest squads in the country -- 11 of 17 team members were underclassmen -- Stanford finished the year No. 22 in the nation. A ticketed sport for the first time, the Cardinal drew 6,000 fans on Jan. 27 for a dual against UCLA at Maples Pavilion, the largest home crowd in program history.
In 2018, Yim presided over one of the most memorable seasons in program history. Competing against top national competition and performing highly-technical and difficult routines, Stanford won the UC Davis Quad Meet and finished second at the Elevate the Stage event featuring top programs Nebraska, Illinois and Georgia.
Individually, Elizabeth Price became the first winner of the prestigious AAI Award, presented to the top female gymnast in the country. Price established herself as the most accomplished gymnast in team history by tying for first on bars at the NCAA Championships in St, Louis, Missouri -- her second national title -- and received a rare standing ovation from the appreciative crowd.
Price scored a 10 at the NCAA's, her fourth of the season and the fifth of her career, the latter setting a Cardinal record. She tallied 39.675 in all-around, the highest total ever recorded by a Stanford women's gymnast in the national championships. Price departed as a 19-time All-American and was named Pac-12 Gymnast of the Year for the second time, previously winning in 2016.
Academic success has remained a staple during Yim's tenure on The Farm. In 2022, a record number of student-athletes made the Pac-12 Honor Roll (14), six more than during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The Cardinal also saw twice as many gymnasts honored as WGCA Scholastic all-America awardees in 2021 (14) than in 2020 (7). Meanwhile, in 2019, women's gymnastics was one of 12 Cardinal varsity teams to receive a Division I Academic Progress Rate (APR) Public Recognition Award from the NCAA for multi-year APR scores in the Top-10 percent of all programs in their sport across the country.
Yim arrived at Stanford in 2017 after serving as head coach at Arizona during the previous two seasons. During her tenure in Tucson, Yim guided the Wildcats to top-25 finishes at the NCAA Championships in both seasons.
An assistant coach at Stanford from 2010-15, Yim coached gymnasts in all four events, specializing in beam and floor as a choreographer. She led the Cardinal recruiting efforts and played an integral role in the team’s social media efforts. Yim helped lead Stanford to its two highest scores in NCAA competition at the 2012 Super Six (197.500) and 2015 Super Six (197.250).
Yim's career as a student-athlete at Stanford spanned from 2005-08. A 14-time All-American, Yim placed among the top 10 in the NCAA all-around competition all four years and twice won the Pac-10 and NCAA regional all-around titles. In addition, Yim was selected the Pac-10 and Regional Gymnast of the Year, and Pac-10 All-Academic first team during her senior year.
Versatility was her trademark. Yim won two regional titles and one Pac-10 crown on the balance beam, was a two-time regional uneven bars champion and twice placed third in the floor exercise at the NCAA Championships. In 2019, Yim was inducted into the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame.
A native of Irvine, California, Yim competed for the U.S. national team that finished third at the World Championships in 2001, the same year she won the floor exercise at the U.S. Championships. Yim also claimed a U.S. title on the beam in 2002 and finished fourth in the all-around at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials.
A 2008 Stanford graduate with a degree in biology, Yim spent two years teaching prior to entering the coaching profession. Yim taught sixth grade in Charlestown, Massachusetts, as part of the Citizen Schools program and spent the next year teaching ninth grade in Los Angeles as part of Teach for America.
Yim and her husband Darin Kikiuchi have one son, Koa. They reside in Stanford, Calif.