Following each routine, Jordan Bowers locks her eyes on the OU parent section, reaches her arms above her head, locks her fingers and throws her pinkies in the air. Most won’t notice the gesture, but her parents John and Tracy Bowers know it's coming every time.
The sign is an ode to the popular 2006 movie “Stick It,” a film the sophomore all-arounder used to watch before every meet as a young gymnast.
“She literally had to watch the movie before every competition,” Tracy told OU Daily. “She wore the DVD out and when she got her first iPad, we purchased it through iTunes so it could be on her iPad.
“From there, her and her dad would quote the movie all the time and then it kind of became a family thing and I don’t know, it just kind of stuck.”
The film follows a 17-year-old gymnast overcoming obstacles as a talented gymnast.
Jordan, in her own ways, has also conquered hurdles in her gymnastics career. She has shown resilience through a lingering back injury, she’s switched club gyms twice, and in college, found her way back into the beam lineup and reconstructed her floor routine midseason to become one of OU’s top performers.
Staying resilient, Jordan has emerged as one of No. 1 Oklahoma’s most successful gymnasts this season, being named a regular season All-American in 2023 and ending the regular season ranked No. 5 in the all-around nationally. The Sooners will need her at her best as they start postseason play against No. 16 Ohio State, No. 17 Arkansas and North Carolina State on March 30 at 6:45 p.m. on Thursday in Norman.
For Jordan, the hand signal she directs toward her family at each meet represents how they’ve helped her through the tribulations of her gymnastics career.
“I do it after every routine and I just love having them up there,” Jordan said. “It makes me so happy and feel so comfortable and I just love it.”
Her parents love watching her compete every weekend too, even if that means making the near seven-hour drive to Norman for home meets or flying to away meets.
“It’s pretty surreal to be honest with you,” John said. “We’re basically blessed to be part of this ride that she’s on.”
But for the Bowers family, everything Jordan has had to overcome is worth it when she throws her pinkies in the air toward them.
“Unfortunately, she’s had a lot of things she had to be resilient for,” Tracy said. “I think she has really done a nice job of coming out positive on the other side and being able to help others who are maybe going through something similar. … But I feel like she, in the end, is handling it well.”
Freshman Jordan Bowers during the meet against Arizona State, Arkansas and Arizona in the second round of the NCAA women's gymnastics championship on March 31.
‘She was on top of the world’
Before coming to OU, Jordan garnered national attention for her performances in meets where she gained experience against international competitors.
In the junior division at the Pacific Rim Championships in Colombia, she won the all-around competition and placed higher than 2020 Olympic gold medalist and current Auburn gymnast Sunisa Lee in the all-around. At the Junior Pan American Championships in Argentina, Jordan came away with five medals: four golds and one bronze.
“She was literally on top of the world,” John said. “And I think she was probably the number one junior gymnast in junior elite. She was there.”
Even though legendary former Sooner gymnast Maggie Nichols was busy competing for Oklahoma at the time, even she knew of Jordan’s success on the junior stage.
“I always knew who Jordan Bowers was,” Nichols said. “She was always so talented, and I just remember when she committed that OU was super lucky to have her, and we were excited to have her.”
Jordan was competing against the best and winning.
Until disaster struck.
After a rough first competition day of the U.S. national championships in 2018, Jordan suffered a back injury in practice, which forced her to withdraw from the rest of the meet, took her out of competition for two years and still affects her today.
“That was obviously very devastating for me and everything I’ve worked so hard for,” Jordan said. “That was really hard.”
It was even worse to watch for John and Tracy.
“To put it plainly, it sucked,” John said of the injury. “To have it all come crashing down on you, that’s pretty detrimental.”
Jordan spent several months carefully rehabbing and taking the necessary time off to prevent worsening the injury. The injury brought Jordan closer to her parents and her sister, Felicity. Since Jordan couldn’t spend as much time in the gym working on skills, she saw her sister more, which strengthened their bond.
Jordan and Felicity even got matching tattoos, a heartfelt surprise to their parents. A wave flows above the words because as Jordan puts it: “Water is the most powerful force on Earth.” To represent that the bond is never broken, Jordan’s tattoo reads “No matter what” while Felicity’s notes “No matter where” as the two are now regularly 500 miles apart, with Felicity still in Lincoln.
“They are best friends,” Tracy said. “Her sister Felicity is probably her biggest supporter. It’s hard to be a sibling of somebody who is a high-level athlete. You know her life was definitely different as a child due to Jordan’s choices for gymnastics, so she had all of the ways to be resentful and for them to fight and it was the exact opposite. They’re truly best friends.”
Sophomore Jordan Bowers during the meet against Florida on March 3.
‘Embrace the suck’
Jordan began her gymnastics career at Solid Rock Gymnastics in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she reached level 10 — the level where gymnasts usually decide whether to attempt to make it to the Olympics or opt for the collegiate level — by fifth grade.
Jordan thrived as she performed in a mix of level 10 and elite competitions throughout middle school despite training with and competing against gymnasts typically in high school.
“She had a lot of interest from many schools and she narrowed it down to probably less than a handful,” Tracy said. “Then we told her it was totally her decision because that’s the last thing we wanted, to tell her what school to go to and then have her be miserable.”
Jordan, then 14, eventually committed to the Sooners for the coaching staff.
“She never wavered one bit from her commitment to Oklahoma and (its) coaching staff there,” John said. “They’re just family, you know, and when you go someplace and it feels like home, you know it’s home. And that was it for us.”
Following her injury from the second day of national championships, Jordan needed to take some time off to recover and follow her father’s motto: “embrace the suck.” She made another attempt at elite but suffered another back injury in February 2019.
Doctors said Jordan could either try for the Olympics or college, but she couldn’t do both without continuing the strain on her back. With her dream school still in view, Jordan chose college and retired from elite in November 2019, which solidified the end of her pursuit for the Olympics.
While recovering from injury, Jordan had to watch her friends and teammates Grace McCallum, Jade Carey, Sunisa Lee and Jordan Chiles continue their elite journeys and eventually compete at the 2020 Olympics.
“I think the hardest part was having to watch her best friends continue on with that other part of her dream of trying for the Olympics,” Tracy said. “I think looking back on it, it’s still difficult for us because I know that going to Oklahoma was absolutely her number one thing she wanted to do in gymnastics. It’s hard when other options are taken from you.”
Now, it was about getting back to training and preparing for college, until she faced another problem.
Her club was not helping her excel and her continuing back injury was getting increasingly frustrating. Her love for gymnastics was dwindling and a new environment was needed to fall back in love with the sport.
Jordan switched club gyms to train at Nebraska School of Gymnastics, a club team operated by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where the gymnasts practice in the university’s collegiate practice facility.
By the time Jordan recovered to compete level 10 for the 2020 season, her love for the sport had returned and she was back to winning first on almost every event she competed in until the COVID-19 pandemic ended her season and the university decided to do away with its club program, leaving Jordan without a place to train yet again.
With Jordan’s Oklahoma commitment still on the table, the Bowers family needed to quickly find a new place for Jordan to train. The options were to find yet another new club in Lincoln or start fresh and find a club in Omaha, Nebraska, about an hour from Lincoln.
Just like it was with her college decision, this one was up to Jordan.
Ultimately, she chose to stay in Lincoln for her senior year and found newly opened Triniti Gymnastics which became “a lifesaver,” according to Tracy.
Jordan competed her last season of club gymnastics with Triniti and thrived, sweeping every event and the all-around at the Nebraska State Championship and qualifying to the Level 10 National Championships.
“It felt more of a focus on me and my feelings and what I wanted to do,” Jordan said. “I’ve never really had that before so that transition was very good for me and very beneficial to me."
Freshman Jordan Bowers during the meet against Florida, Utah and Auburn in the 2022 NCAA women's gymnastics championship final on April 16.
‘Jordan’s just very mentally tough’
Jordan instantly made an impact in her first season at OU.
She ended her rookie season as Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, scored a 10 on vault against Michigan, statistically contributed the most points to the team, became an All-American and won the 2022 National Championship with her team.
But one thing not going right for Jordan in 2021-22 was beam.
Jordan started the year competing as an all-arounder in the first six meets but started struggling on beam with multiple falls due to her recurring back injury. These falls not only decreased her chances to win all-around titles, but they also knocked down her confidence when approaching the event.
Jordan knew something needed to change.
“You just have to be flexible with everything,” Jordan said. “I was open to changing anything in order for me to be successful and so were my coaches. So just listening to them and they were listening to me, … we really just worked together and figured out the solution.”
OU head coach K.J. Kindler made the decision to take Jordan off beam for the rest of the year and while she still allowed her to train the event, the move was just as much for her safety as it was for injury recovery.
Kindler says beam took the brunt of Jordan’s prior back injuries, with things like her acrobatic series re-aggravating the injury.
And with the consistency of competing every weekend impacting Jordan’s confidence for the worse, it was best to take her out of the lineup to focus on her other three events.
Leading up to this season, however, Jordan took time to work on her mental toughness and rehab her back to the best it could be to approach beam with a new mindset.
“Jordan’s just very mentally tough,” Kindler said. “She is extremely resilient and never gives up, always pushes back and it allows her to bounce back too.”
Kindler and then-graduate assistant Nichols saw Jordan’s determination to get back into the all-around by gaining confidence on beam.
“I think what really helped was she just dialed in this summer and was really working on beam and trying to fix those little mistakes she was having beforehand,” Nichols said.
Sophomore Jordan Bowers during the meet against Florida on March 3.
‘She’s irreplaceable’
Jordan began her sophomore season by competing in the all-around each meet and finishing the year as a regular season All-American.
Jordan faced adversity once again after experiencing her first fall of the year on floor at Michigan, which would also become OU’s first, and so far lone, loss of the season. After some routine reconstruction which involved switching the order of her tumbling passes and leaps around as well as moving around the music ordered by Kindler, she completed the new routine and scored 9.950 the very next week.
“She’s irreplaceable to this team,” said Danielle Sievers, one of Jordan’s closest teammates at OU. “Huge contributor in the gym, in and out of the gym she’s a great teammate, a great leader. Our team would not be the same without her and we’re really blessed and thankful to have her on our team.”
To those closest to Jordan, she’s more confident than ever and ready to lead OU’s trek toward its possible sixth national championship.
“Her confidence has grown tremendously throughout last year and then into this year,” Sievers said. “She’s gained so much confidence and she has so much trust in herself and her teammates that she can go out there and kill it every single time."
This story was edited by Austin Curtright and Colton Sulley. Ansley Chambers copy edited this story.
