Gymnastics
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- ashleyj@ia.ua.edu
- Phone:
- 205-348-3600
Ashley Priess Johnston was named the head coach of The University of Alabama gymnastics program on May 23, 2022.
A 10-time Crimson Tide All-American and member of back-to-back NCAA Championship teams, Johnston was legendary for coming up with huge routines when the stakes were the highest, securing her place in Crimson Tide lore when she closed out the 2012 NCAA Championships with a near-perfect balance beam routine to clinch Alabama's sixth national team title.
Johnston takes over Alabama's gymnastics program following four years at Auburn, where she finished her tenure as associate head coach. She helped lead the Tigers to a fourth-place national finish last season, their highest in program history. The 2019 WGCA Central Region Assistant coach of the Year in her first season with Auburn, Johnston started her collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Illinois during the 2018 season.
Johnston began her coaching career at the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy, where she worked with CGA head coach Mary Lee Tracy at the Elite and developmental level, while coaching the floor exercise and balance beam optional program.
Alabama's seventh head gymnastics coach since 1974, Johnston is just the third since 1979. The Crimson Tide has won six NCAA Championships (1988, 1991, 1996, 2002, 2011, 2012), 10 SEC Championships and an NCAA-best 32 regional titles.
Alabama Gymnastics Career
- Graduated (twice) with four team championship rings, winning NCAA titles in 2011 and 2012 and SEC championships in 2009 and 2011
- Part of five NCAA Regional Championship teams
- NCAA Woman of the Year, Top-30
- 10-time All-American
- Five-time NCAA Regional champion
- Two-time SEC champion and three-year All-SEC
- NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship
- Four-year Scholastic All-American
- Five-year SEC Academic Honor Roll
- Three-year team captain
- UA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee President
- Paul W. Bryant Scholar-Athlete Award
- Earned a bachelor' degree in Spanish in 2011
- Graduated with a master’s degree in marketing in 2013
International Gymnastics Career
- Seven-year member of the USA National Team
- A Senior International Elite, she was a member of the 2006 USA World Championship team, finishing 10th in the all-around and helping the U.S. to the silver medal
- Second in the all-around at the 2008 International Exchange
- Competing for Team USA, won the balance beam and uneven bars at the 2006 U.S. World Cup in Lyon, France and earned silver and bronze medals in the balance beam and floor exercise, respectively, at the 2006 World Cup event in Ghent, Belgium
- Silver medalist on balance beam at the 2005 Massilia Gym Cup in Marseilles, France
Johnston and her husband Jason, have a son, Colton, and a daughter, Josie..
