Every meet day, UF gymnastics assistant coach Jeremy Miranda walks into a designated closet for his 150 men’s button-down shirts. After some careful consideration, he selects the one matching whatever leotards the Gators are wearing that evening.
Sometimes, it’s a glittery black and rainbow-striped shirt found on Amazon for $26.90. Other times, it’s a sequin-covered orange button-down. For the SEC Championship, Miranda kept his style muted, simple even: a blue and white Gators long-sleeve to match Florida’s blue and white leotards.
Even when his outfits are simpler, his movements on the sidelines — often copying the dance moves of the gymnasts as they compete on the floor — draw the viewers’ attention away, especially as he launches himself in the air after a routine he’s particularly proud of. Whenever Miranda jumps high above the rest of the Gators, the score is often indicative of his excitement.
“I’m always so embarrassed of myself, because I’m like a proud dad,” he said. “I want them to do their best, and I know if they just do what they do every day in practice, their best is enough… I find myself dancing or moving with them to will it out of them, which is hilarious in a way.”
Miranda, who’s been with the program for 18 years, has taught gymnastics greats like Trinity Thomas, Bridget Sloan and Leanne Wong. His next challenge will be to advance a battle-worn Florida gymnastics team past NCAA Regionals after placing third in the SEC Championship.
Purpose, not pressure
The veteran coach has never been too concerned about the competitiveness of the sport. Miranda has always prioritized creating an environment where athletes can be comfortable and relaxed, a feeling harkening back to his childhood experiences in the sport.
As a young boy, Miranda would pull the mattress off his mother’s bed to practice tumbling in the living room. His parents, whom he called his superheroes, were ardent supporters, even when the people outside their house in South Dakota weren’t.
In a state where corn fields stretched to the horizon and country music blasted during high school football games, Miranda was the only person he knew who had any interest in gymnastics, dance or musical theater.
“I was faced with a lot of ridicule, criticism. A lot of people thought, ‘That's not the right thing, like, why aren't you doing football? Why aren’t you doing the ball sports,’” he said. “But I think because I was so confident with it — I knew that that's what my calling was — I was good at it.”
The closest gym was an hour away, but it didn’t matter. Miranda’s parents pushed him to commit to the sport and compete at the highest level. He advanced through the club gymnastics system until he couldn’t continue further.
“The success that I was able to have in the arts and in gymnastics in particular, I think that that — I don't want to say, silenced the haters — but it did,” he said. “It kind of made people think twice before they wanted to make a comment.”
His dad, who separated from his mother, moved to Florida and encouraged him to train in the Sunshine State. From there, his life was a blur. Miranda competed at Horizon Gymnastics & Dance Academy in Florida and earned a co-national championship on the floor at the 2005 Junior Olympic National Championships. After a two-year coaching stint with the Cornhuskers, he transitioned to UF in 2007.
“That was the hardest transition for me: stepping away from the sport as an athlete,” he said. “But I knew that I wanted it to be a part of my life in some capacity… It was the perfect segue from finishing my career as a gymnast and transitioning and giving back to the sport in a choreographical way.”
Despite taking on a new role as UF’s assistant coach, one thing has remained the same since his days practicing acrobatics at home: the support and openness of gymnastics.
Collecting smiles, not points
One major obstacle gymnasts must overcome is the training drilled into them from a young age. In club gymnastics, the overarching goal is to score points through complicated or highly technical sets of acrobatic passes — the part of the routine where they show off flips and twists. Sometimes, this mentality continues in college.
Graduate student Victoria Nguyen, who joined Florida in 2023, enjoyed the freedom she didn’t have when she competed at Georgia. Her routine grounds itself in the music of Hayao Miyazaki, a critically acclaimed Japanese filmmaker who founded the $245 million animation titan Studio Ghibli.
When creating the acrobatic and dance parts of her routine, Miranda and Nguyen watched clips of her favorite Miyazaki films for inspiration.
When asked about using Miyazaki’s music in her routine, the quiet Nguyen glowed. A large smile crossed her face, and she started to ramble more than her normally well-thought-out answers.
“We didn’t really have the means to pick the music ourselves when I was at Georgia,” she said. “Getting to do that and really express my interests and my favorites, I think it made it that much more special. It was just so much more fun to perform.”
By prioritizing the emotions and the relationship of trust, Florida pushes each athlete to achieve more, relying on the understanding that everyone in the gym has their best interests at heart.
“Judging can fluctuate from week to week or event to event, and we know what high-quality gymnastics is,” UF assistant coach Owen Field said. “We focus on excellence in the gym every day, and the more excellent routines you do every week, the higher your scoring potential becomes.”
An openness to criticism, both inside and outside the practice facility, has also helped Miranda improve his approach to floor routines. In a collegiate environment where coaches have restricted social media in locker rooms, Miranda welcomes online criticism. In the past, he’s contacted critics on social media to ask for feedback on how he can improve.
In one exchange with a fan displeased about the use of dubstep, Miranda questioned how he could improve to ensure the fans are as pleased with the routines as the gymnasts.
After a short back and forth about the importance of crowd work and making sure the gymnasts are happy with the music selected, Miranda ended the exchange simply saying, “I just wanted to check in and see if there’s anything specific we can do better! I value everyone’s input and it helps me to become a better artist.”
For Miranda, simple conversations help to educate the general public, who might not know the intricacies of gymnastics when the biggest stages for the sport only appear every four years with the Olympics.
“I just wanted to have that kind of open-door policy to rather than sit there and bash the athlete, let's have an adult conversation about what you don't like because I want to get better as an artist,” he said. “Me getting better ultimately makes the program look better.”
Florida placed third at the SEC Championship on Saturday, finishing behind No. 2 LSU and No. 1 Oklahoma. Even then, the team snagged three perfect 10.000s on performances other than floor. The Gators now will head to the University of Alabama on April 4-7 for NCAA Regionals, where they hope to finish in the top four and compete in Nations in Fort Worth, Texas.
Contact Liana Handler at lhandler@alligator.org. Follow her on X @handlerliana
Liana is the Gators gymnastic beat reporter for the Alligator and a junior sports journalism major. In her free time, she likes to play dominos and listen to Celia Cruz.
