Clemson’s ex-gymnastics coach had a history of complaints. Did the school know?
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Amy Smith and Clemson Gymnastics
On April 18, Clemson issued a vague press release saying it had “parted ways” with Amy Smith, its first ever gymnastics coach. As a new investigation by The State reveals, there was a whole lot more to the story.
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In November 2023, the Washington Post published a story detailing multiple allegations made against Clemson gymnastics coach Amy Smith.
Those claims of mental, verbal and emotional abuse stemmed from Smith’s previous coaching jobs at UNC and Utah State — before she started at Clemson.
Over the next two years, though, at least one Clemson gymnastics parent started feeling déjà vu.
“All of the same accusations about (Smith) in the past surfaced again with this team,” said the Clemson parent, who spoke with The State anonymously to discuss a sensitive situation.
Clemson announced April 18 it was firing Smith after two seasons as gymnastics coach. Smith had faced allegations of mental, verbal and emotional abuse from Clemson gymnasts and parents before her firing in April, an investigation by The State revealed. Smith, in an interview with The State, denied all allegations.
But a parent’s observation that “all of the same accusations” against Smith at UNC and Utah State also popped up at Clemson raises additional hard questions:
What did Clemson know about any concerns with Smith before they hired her? What did school leaders do once additional allegations surfaced shortly after she was hired? And if Clemson’s vetting process was better on the front end, would they have hired Smith in the first place?
Clemson declined to make athletic director Graham Neff available for an interview, and an athletics spokesman, Jeff Kallin, did not provide responses to a detailed list of questions about Smith’s hiring process. A university spokesman, Joe Galbraith, didn’t provide responses to similar questions seeking to clarify how president Jim Clements and university leadership were involved in the vetting process.
Instead, Kallin provided the following statement to The State on behalf of the university:
“Clemson researched Coach Smith’s background extensively, including checking references from previous employers as well as third-party evaluators. During this process, Clemson was not made aware of formal or informal investigations of Coach Smith from her previous institutions. Clemson does not have further comment on this personnel matter.”
Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about how Clemson looked into Smith.
Social media allegation against Smith in 2021
Before Clemson hired Smith as its first ever gymnastics coach in April 2022, public information regarding allegations made against her at previous jobs was limited.
But it did exist.
In May 2021, roughly a year earlier, former Utah State gymnast Glory Yoakum alleged in a lengthy social media post that Smith had “degraded” Yoakum, called her a “weak link” who “didn’t want to work” and threatened to pull her scholarship during her time at USU.
The website College Gym News also maintained a publicly accessible spreadsheet database for NCAA gymnastics rosters. That database, which dates back to the early 2010s, tracked each team’s year-by-year additions and departures and revealed noticeable attrition at Utah State.
According to the website’s data, 10 of the 18 gymnasts on Smith’s 2018 Utah State gymnastics roster were not on the team the following year (an attrition rate of 55%). Seven of the 20 gymnasts listed on USU’s 2020 roster (35%) also did not return.
Although attrition on college rosters is normal because athletes have limited eligibility, data from College Gym News indicated that numerous gymnasts left Smith’s USU program with remaining eligibility. Some gymnasts transferred to other schools, but a majority of them did not.
Clemson did not answer questions about whether it was aware of Yoakum’s 2021 allegations before it hired Smith in 2022, or if the school attempted to speak with Yoakum about her comments.
Clemson was ‘not made aware’ of any investigations
Clemson has maintained that it researched Smith’s background “extensively” during the hiring process and made reference calls to previous employers. Clemson also confirmed it used a third-party search firm for its hiring process with Smith, which is common at Clemson and common across college sports.
During that process — which Neff described in 2023 as a “thorough” and a system that Clemson follows for every coaching search — the university said it was not made aware of formal or informal investigations of Smith.
But the Post, in its November 2023 report, reviewed emails showing that multiple Utah State gymnasts “raised concerns about (Smith’s) coaching” to university leaders through formal reporting channels. Smith was Utah State’s head coach from 2017-22.
The Post also got on-the-record confirmation from former UNC gymnastics coach Derek Galvin that he had a gymnast sign a “weight loss contract,” but he rescinded the contract when UNC administrators told him it wasn’t enforceable. The gymnast in question said Smith — a UNC assistant from 2012-17, and the team’s associate head coach at the time — was also involved in the weight loss contract.
Although those situations may not have risen to the level of “formal investigation” or “informal investigation,” they were specific examples of Smith’s alleged conduct prompting university involvement — and the sort of things a strong vetting process from a school and/or its search firm could uncover.
Clemson did not answer questions about how it specifically engaged with Utah State and UNC to discuss Smith as a candidate, or if either of these situations came up.
‘Please listen to these hurt people,’ mother writes
Although the 2023 Post article was the first time allegations against Smith were formally reported on, it wasn’t the first time former gymnasts had spoken out.
Clemson announced Smith as its first gymnastics coach on April 26, 2022. It had announced the previous summer it was adding gymnastics as a sport to meet Title IX requirements, with a planned start date of the 2024 season.
A day after Smith’s hire at Clemson, Raine Gordon, a former UNC gymnast, went public with allegations against Smith, including the aforementioned allegation that Smith and UNC’s head coach, Galvin, had Gordon sign a weight loss contract.
Four days after Smith’s hire, former Utah State gymnast Morgan Gill made similar allegations of mistreatment against Smith, writing on social media: “The time finally felt right.”
Clemson also received dozens of negative social media replies to its post announcing Smith’s hire, and there was widespread backlash to the school’s hire among online communities such as R/Gymnastics.
The school was keenly aware of the pushback, emails showed.
On April 28, 2022, a woman who identified herself as the mother of a former UNC gymnast who competed under Smith emailed Neff, Clemson’s athletic director. She requested Clemson hire a co-head coach in an attempt to minimize Smith’s “mental/physical damage to gymnasts.”
“Please listen to these hurt people,” wrote the mother, whose name was redacted in emails The State obtained from Clemson via public records request.
The mom followed up on May 11, 2022, and Neff replied 10 days later. He thanked the mother for reaching out and sharing her concerns about Smith with him.
“We take student-athlete treatment seriously and have confidence in Amy’s commitment to her student-athletes,” Neff wrote May 21, adding that “we continue to have open dialogue, and we are excited about her vision for the future.”
Gymnasts worry their words ‘meant nothing’ to Clemson
A fourth gymnast, Utah State’s Tori Loomis, made additional public allegations against Smith in June 2023.
All four of those gymnasts (Yoakum, Gordon, Gill and Loomis) either spoke with the Post or had their public allegations against Smith detailed in the Post’s article which published in November 2023.
The former UNC and Utah State gymnasts’ allegations against Smith included that she had fostered “a culture of disordered eating” and verbally berated gymnasts.
At this point, Smith had not coached a meet at Clemson. As the coach of a startup program, she’d spent her first 18 months on campus recruiting and helping ramp up to the gymnastics team’s inaugural season starting in January 2024.
Neff publicly backed Smith in a news conference the day after the Post’s story was published and indicated he had discussed the allegations with Smith. He also cited the fact that six Utah State gymnasts had transferred and followed Smith.
Clemson declined to elaborate on how it vetted these four gymnasts’ public allegations against Smith once they came to the school’s attention. The school also wouldn’t say if it had reached out to or spoken with any of the four gymnasts who’d made public allegations against Smith.
A university spokesman would not elaborate about the role Clements and other university leaders played in Smith’s vetting process, or if Clements — Clemson’s president since 2014 — or anyone else within university leadership was briefed on the public allegations made against Smith after she was hired.
Gill, one of the Utah State gymnasts who accused Smith of mistreatment, told the Post that Clemson’s lack of response was indicative of a greater feeling that “everything we had gone through meant nothing to the people in charge.”
“I’m just worried for the athletes that would go on to compete under (Smith),” Gill told the Post, referring to the Clemson gymnastics team. “I’m scared for them, because I don’t want anyone else to experience that.”
Does Clemson AD Graham Neff regret hiring Amy Smith?
Records show that Clemson gymnasts started making formal complaints about Smith’s coaching through the anonymous reporting system RealResponse in “the later part of fall 2024” — just as Smith’s second season as coach was starting and almost a year to the date after Neff had publicly backed Smith.
Clemson conducted a months-long investigation into Smith and her program that included midyear and end-of-season reviews, multiple meetings with parents and meetings with nearly every gymnast on the roster before announcing its decision to fire Smith on April 18. She was fired for cause, records later revealed.
Many of the allegations against Smith at Clemson were similar to those she’d faced from gymnasts and/or parents at UNC and Utah State: Favoritism, mismanagement of injuries and a leadership style that they viewed as crossing the line of “tough coaching” and verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive.
With all that context in mind, The State asked Neff at an Aug. 5 news conference: Was it a mistake for Clemson to hire Smith? Did he regret that decision?
Neff didn’t directly answer either question.
Instead, he primarily touted Clemson gymnastics’ future under new co-head coaches Justin Howell and Elisabeth Crandall-Howell, a successful husband-and-wife coaching duo who were previously at Cal and were hired in May.
“We value the student athlete experience in all of our sports,” Neff said. “It’s a non-negotiable. So, certainly followed protocol and worked through the transition with Amy, which was difficult and unfortunate. ... All that to be said, I couldn’t be more excited about the hire of Justin and Liz, the Howells, and for Clemson to attract coaches of that caliber.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2025 at 8:32 AM.
