Why did Suni Lee go to Auburn? Real reason explored

Modified Mar 13, 2024 12:31 GMT

By the time Suni Lee was 18 years old, she already had quite a gymnastics career record. She spent a lot of time on the junior circuit, racking up a large number of awards and medals. She even won several medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, including a gold medal in the all-around event.

At that point, most people wouldn't really consider going to college. It wouldn't be absolutely necessary for an Olympic gold medalist who has years of a bright future ahead of her.

Why Suni Lee even went to school in the first place?

Suni Lee made the decision to do so anyway and chose to attend Auburn University. She likely could have gone anywhere she wanted to since she would likely get athletic scholarships left and right.

Why choose Auburn? Evidently, that's where she wanted to go all along. She'd been planning to attend the university ever since she was in middle school.

Suni Lee is also very familiar with the head coach at Auburn. Jeff Graba is the twin brother of Jess Graba, Lee's gymnastics coach.

However, her coach noted that the relationship to Auburn's head coach could even have been a negative factor for Lee:

“She could have gone anywhere in the country. Every university would have loved to have her. I think a lot of people think it was predetermined because her coach is my brother, but sometimes that works against you. Sometimes kids want to get away from who they’ve been coached by for 10 years. … And obviously, he and I are very similar.”

Part of the reason to even attend college at all was because, as Lee puts it, she wanted to show people it could be done:

"[To] show all the younger elites that you can still go to the Olympics and go to college."

She went on to say that she hopes her going to college can humanize her and make her more approachable to young athletes:

"It's really nice when they come to me and talk to me about how things are going and what they want to do, because it's like, I can help them and I've been through all of it, and I also want them to have every opportunity they can get."

She also noted that it does seem strange for a gold medalist to attend college, but that she never thought she'd be a gold medalist at this point:

"Nobody intended for me to win the all-around gold. I didn't intend for that to happen. So it was kind of like I already had my mind set on going to Auburn right away. So that was kind of the reason I came here, because I knew I wanted to be here."