When Jordan Chiles began her final season with UCLA, she had one goal in mind. She wanted to help the Bruins win the NCAA team championship before bringing her collegiate career to an end. UCLA, however, fell short of reaching the NCAA final, ending Chiles’ last campaign in April without the team title she had hoped to deliver. After four years of competing in Pauley Pavilion, it seemed like Chiles had played her final meet for the Bruins.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
Five months later, she is back in Westwood. This time, though, she will not be wearing a competition leotard. The Olympic gold medalist is returning to UCLA as a student coach, giving her another opportunity to help the Bruins pursue the championship that eluded her in her final season.
The UCLA gymnastics program announced Chiles’ new role on Wednesday, introducing what it called the “Coach Jo era.” The announcement came with a video of Chiles walking through the UCLA gymnastics facility in her new coaching attire. She wore a black tailored vest over a white collared shirt, paired with a black necktie, black trousers and a UCLA baseball-style cap.
“Hold up, hold up, hold up,” Chiles said in the video. “Y’all thought y’all was getting rid of me? I don’t think so.”
The video then flashed through memorable moments from Chiles’ UCLA career before introducing her next chapter with the Bruins.
“Being in Pauley as a gymnast was chapter one. Now I get to start a new chapter as Coach Jo,” she said. “Welcome to Coach Jo’s era.”
Chiles leaves UCLA with a career filled with records and championships. During her final collegiate season, she earned eight perfect 10s, including six on floor, one on bars and one on vault. She also received perfect marks in five consecutive weeks, helping her set the UCLA record for the most Big Ten Gymnast of the Week selections in a season with 10.
Now, she returns to the program in a very different capacity. As a student coach, Chiles will be able to draw on her experience at the NCAA, World Championship and Olympic levels while helping guide UCLA’s next generation of gymnasts. But with the Los Angeles Olympics less than two years away, her return to the sport in a coaching role also raises an obvious question about where she sees her own competitive future.
Jordan Chiles still has Olympics 2028 on her mind
Jordan Chiles’ Olympic story has already taken her through two very different Games. She was part of the U.S. team that won silver in Tokyo in 2021 before helping the team reclaim the team title in Paris in 2024. In Paris, she also initially finished third in the floor exercise final and was awarded bronze, only for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the result after ruling that her coach’s inquiry had been submitted too late. The decision eventually moved Chiles to fifth.
Paris was therefore a complicated ending to what had been a memorable Olympic campaign. Chiles has not competed internationally since those Games, instead returning to UCLA and completing the final two seasons of her collegiate career. She has now finished that chapter as well, leaving her with more freedom to decide what she wants from the next phase of her gymnastics career.
And the 2028 Olympics is not disappearing from her plans. In June, she admitted that the prospect of competing at the Los Angeles Olympics is up; however, it is complicated.
“If I do this Olympic Games, I want to do it my way, I want to understand my why,” she said, adding that she was still “fifty-fifty” on making the comeback.
Her decision to join UCLA’s coaching staff does not necessarily mean she is stepping away from competition. If anything, the student-coach role gives Chiles a chance to remain closely connected to the sport while she figures out what she wants from the next Olympic cycle.
There is also a significant difference between the two paths. NCAA gymnastics has now given Chiles the chance to compete for UCLA, win national titles, and eventually mentor the next generation of Bruins. The Olympic stage offers something entirely different, especially with the 2028 Games coming to her home country. For now, Chiles has left the door open, and her next move will determine whether she walks through it.