Meet Coach Ashley Johnston

Named Alabama Gymnastics’ seventh head coach on May 23, 2022, Ashley Johnston is set to continue the championship legacy she helped foster at the Capstone as a phenomenal student-athlete for the Crimson Tide. A 10-time All-American and member of back-to-back NCAA Championship teams (2011 and 2012), Johnston aims to lead Alabama’s tradition of excellence by mentoring the latest generation of Crimson Tide standouts to success in the classroom and in the gym as well as in the world outside of both.

Johnston’s coaching journey includes four years at Auburn, where she finished her tenure as associate head coach and helped lead the Tigers to a fourth-place national finish in 2022, their highest in program history. The 2019 WGCA Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year, Johnston began her collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Illinois during the 2018 season. Prior to her collegiate career she coached at Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy, where she worked with CGA head coach Mary Lee Tracy at the Elite and developmental level, while coaching the floor exercise and balance beam optional program.

As an athlete for the Crimson Tide, Johnston secured her place in Crimson Tide lore when she closed out the 2012 NCAA Championships with a near-perfect balance beam routine to clinch Alabama’s sixth national team title. In all, she was part of two NCAA titles (2011 and 2012) and two SEC championships (2009 and 2011). She was a Top-30 NCAA Woman of the Year finalist, five-time NCAA Regional champion, two-time SEC champion and three-year All-SEC competitor. She earned an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and was named the Paul W. Bryant Scholar-Athlete Award. A four-year Scholastic All-American and five-year member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll, Johnston earned two degrees during her Alabama tenure, a bachelor’s degree in Spanish (2011) and a master’s degree in marketing (2013).