Clemson hiring two head coaches to lead gymnastics program. Here are the details
Clemson has a new gymnastics head coach.
Well, two new gymnastics head coaches.
Cal’s Justin Howell and Elisabeth Crandall-Howell, a husband-and-wife coaching duo, will be the new co-head coaches of the gymnastics team. Their contracts were unanimously approved by the Clemson University Board of Trustees on Monday.
The Howells replace Amy Smith, Clemson’s first ever coach. Smith was fired on April 18, with the school announcing the news in a brief press release and Clemson athletic director Graham Neff declining to elaborate on why Smith was fired.
The Howells, who’d previously coached at ACC member Cal for 13 seasons, will join Clemson on identical five-year coaching contracts that start at a total salary of $225,000 apiece (before any potential bonuses) for the 2025-26 season.
Justin Howell had been Cal’s head gymnastics coach since 2012. Liz Crandall-Howell, his wife, initially started with the team as an assistant coach and was elevated to co-head coach in 2018. And they’ve been quite successful in Berkeley.
Cal made 12 consecutive NCAA tournaments under the Howells’ leadership and has appeared in six of the last eight NCAA gymnastics championships. That includes a national runner-up finish during the 2024 season.
“We are incredibly grateful and excited to be able to attract coaches the caliber of Justin and Liz from Cal to Clemson,” Neff told the Clemson BOT’s compensation committee while presenting the contracts for approval on Monday. “This is certainly a statement and an investment in Clemson gymnastics, of which we’ve had national prominence just in our first two years of competition.”
“We have high expectations and aspirations of national championship-caliber competition and growth ahead,” Neff added.
Amy Smith’s Clemson tenure
The tenure of Clemson’s first gymnastics coach wasn’t without controversy.
Clemson and Neff had previously backed Smith publicly in November 2023 after a Washington Post article detailed allegations against her from former gymnasts at UNC, where she was an assistant, and Utah State, where she was head coach.
The allegations against Smith from four former gymnasts included fostering “a culture of disordered eating” and verbally berating players.
Clemson said in a statement at that time that it conducted a background check of Smith before her hiring and found no complaints against her at previous schools.
Smith was set to make $170,000 in base salary (before bonuses) in 2025-26, per her most recent contract. It wasn’t immediately clear if Smith was fired for cause or without clause, which would change how much buyout money Clemson owes here.
Neff said April 25 that Clemson had spoken with a number of candidates for its open gymnastics head coaching job and the interest was “beyond expectations” for a position that he considers “a top 10 job in the country.”
The Tigers made the NCAA Tournament during their 2024 inaugural season and advanced to the NCAA regional round in 2025. Clemson gymnastics has sold 5,000 season tickets for meets at Littlejohn Coliseum, which it shares with the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The program also has a standalone practice facility.
About the Howells, Clemson’s new gymnastics coaches
The Howells, who have been working as co-head coaches for seven years, bring a championship résumé to a Clemson program hoping to become a contender.
This year, in its first season as an ACC member, Cal was 32-5 and 6-0 in the ACC. The Howells were named ACC Co-Coaches of the Year, and the Golden Bears advanced to the regional round and sent two gymnasts to the NCAA championships.
Justin Howell was previously a four-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year (2013, 2016, 2021, 2024) and is also the winningest coach in program history. Liz Crandall-Howell was an All-American gymnast at BYU and US National Team participant, and she shared conference coach of the year awards with her husband in 2021 and 2024.
California, the 2025 ACC regular-season champ, finished in the top 10 of the NCAA’s final gymnastics rankings seven times from 2015-25 and three times in a row.
Howell and Crandall first met in the 1990s and were married to other people at the time. According to a story on Cal’s athletics website, they remained friendly for years before both independently going through divorces and winding up as coaching partners at Airborne Gymnastics, a prominent training club in Santa Clara.
Howell and Crandall married in 2011 and have three children: Sons Jacob and Noah, Crandall’s children from her previous marriage, and son Greyson, born in 2013.
Gymnastics contract details
At a combined base salary of $450,000 for its new co-head coaches, Clemson is already paying significantly more for the Howells than it did for its previous coach.
Smith was set to make $175,000 in 2025-26.
The university is also shelling out additional money to buy out the Howell’s contracts at Cal and assist with their cross-country to Upstate South Carolina, according to term sheets obtained by The State on Monday.
Clemson is paying $450,000 apiece to buy out Justin Howell and Liz Crandall-Howell’s Cal contracts, and an estimated $225,000 to each coach to offset the taxes on their contract buyouts. Those expenses add up to an additional $1.35 million.
Including base salaries, Clemson is making a $1.8 million financial commitment to gymnastics right off the bat — and that figure doesn’t account for moving expenses, which the university has agreed to cover for the Howell family.
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 9:25 AM.
