Trevor Howard almost quit gymnastics. He missed Future Stars by one place. He missed Regional Team by one place. He missed the Junior National Team by one place. Year after year, one place short. Then his mom told him something that changed his trajectory forever: “One moment doesn’t define who you are as an athlete. It’s what you do afterwards that does.”
What came afterwards was a career that most gymnasts only dream about. Howard became a seven-time All-American at Penn State, won the 2013 NCAA National Championship on floor exercise as a freshman, earned Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors, and became one of only four gymnasts in program history to earn All-America recognition in all four years of competition. After college, he made the 2019 World Championships team in Stuttgart alongside Sam Mikulak, Yul Moldauer, and Shane Wiskus, helping represent Team USA on the biggest stage in the sport.
Today, Howard performs as a Tumble Monkey in Disney’s Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom, runs his own holistic wellness company called ETHIICKS, and speaks publicly about mindset, adversity, and finding purpose after competitive gymnastics. He sat down with GymnasticsVille on the Back to Basics podcast to share the full story.
Growing Up in Ohio: Full Ride or Nothing
Howard grew up in Columbus, Ohio, in a household where money was tight. His father struggled with addiction. His mother worked two jobs as a nurse to keep things together. Howard’s daily routine in high school was relentless: wake up at 5:30 a.m. to drive his mom to work, go to school from 7 to 3, come home, make himself ramen or a PB&J, then drive an hour to practice. He would train for four hours, drive an hour home, finish his homework around 1 or 2 a.m., and repeat the cycle six days a week.
“My mom told me when I was in high school, either you’re getting a full ride scholarship alone or you’re not going,” Howard said on the podcast.
That pressure, combined with years of coming up one place short at every selection event, pushed him to the edge. The year before he finally made the Junior National Team, he seriously considered walking away from the sport entirely. His mother’s words pulled him back: one moment doesn’t define you. What you do afterwards does.
Howard took a step back, asked himself whether gymnastics was really what he wanted, and realized it was. He loved performing. He loved the adrenaline. He loved showing the crowd what years of work looked like in a single routine. He came back, made the Junior National Team, and everything shifted.
Penn State: Trevor Howard’s Gymnastics Legacy
After his breakthrough on the junior level, Howard’s recruitment picked up fast. Six of nine schools offered him a full ride. The kid who wasn’t sure he could afford college now had his pick of programs. He chose Penn State under head coach Randy Jepson, and told Jepson on day one that his goal extended beyond NCAA gymnastics. He wanted Senior National Team. He wanted World Team. He wanted the Olympics.
Howard delivered immediately. As a freshman, he won the 2013 NCAA National Championship on floor exercise and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He went on to earn All-America honors in all four seasons at Penn State, becoming just the fourth gymnast in program history to accomplish that feat. Across his career, he racked up three Big Ten Championship titles, a Nissen-Emery Award finalist nod, and seven total All-America selections.
Howard credits coach Jepson for seeing his potential from day one and helping him develop into the gymnast he became. By the time he left Happy Valley, he had cemented himself as one of the most decorated gymnasts in Penn State history, and he was just getting started.
Iron Sharpens Iron: The Road to the 2019 World Championships
After graduating from Penn State, Howard’s path to the Senior National Team hit another wall. He tried to stay and train at the university, but no job opportunities materialized. He moved back to Ohio and made a decision that changed everything: he reached out to Ohio State head coach Rustam Sharipov, who gave him permission to train with the Buckeyes. At Ohio State, gymnasts like Sean Melton and Alec Yoder were already making Senior National Teams.
“Iron sharpens iron,” Howard said. “If you want to be the best, you have to be around the best. You have to know what they’re eating, how they’re thinking, how they’re training. If you want the results, you have to be around the results.”
Within a year of training at Ohio State, Howard made Senior National Team. Then he set his sights on the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart. After narrowly missing the team the year before, he earned his spot at the World Team Selection Camp, beating out Colin Van Wicklen in a head-to-head battle for the final roster position.
In Stuttgart, Howard competed on rings and vault in qualifications, scoring a 14.033 and 13.933 respectively. He contributed a 13.900 on rings in the team final. The U.S. men finished fourth overall. For Howard, the experience was the culmination of 25 years of work.
“I trained 25 years for that moment,” he said. “Once you’re there, you can’t do anything more. You just enjoy the fruits of your labor.”
Howard described hanging out with the U.S. women’s team, including Simone Biles, during downtime at the competition. He recalled how the entire atmosphere felt relaxed once everyone arrived, because the hardest part, making the team, was already behind them.
After Stuttgart, Howard was on the trajectory toward the 2020 Olympics. He was receiving the preparatory emails, the paperwork was moving. Then COVID shut everything down, and his competitive career came to an end.
From the World Stage to Disney’s Animal Kingdom
The transition out of competitive gymnastics was not easy. Howard was candid about the struggle of leaving behind something he had known for over two decades and stepping into a world that expected him to understand finances, career paths, and self-worth outside of sport.
“Transitioning from something that you’ve known for 20-plus years to get released into the wild of this crazy thing we call life and be expected to understand finances, your worth as an individual… it was not an easy path,” Howard said.
Disney had actually asked Howard to join the Festival of the Lion King cast five times before he finally said yes. His initial reaction? “I’m not gonna be a damn monkey.” But after COVID ended and the opportunity came around again, the timing was right. He needed something flexible that could pay the bills while he built his own business. And he realized performing at Disney scratched the same itch that competing had for all those years.
What changed his perspective was learning during Disney University orientation about the families who save up a lifetime just to visit once. Howard, who grew up without the money to visit Disney as a kid, connected with that deeply.
“Stepping on that stage and knowing that someone in that audience is on their last dollar, and to be able to make that magic and deliver, I think is one of the best experiences,” Howard said. “Each time that curtain opens, whether you’re having a good day, bad day, indifferent day, it’s showtime.”
ETHIICKS and Giving Back to Gymnastics
Outside of Disney, Howard runs ETHIICKS, a holistic wellness and fitness company he built from the ground up. The name carries personal significance: each letter represents a member of his family. E for Enoch (his father), T-H for Trevor Howard, the double I as a Roman numeral for his brother Enoch Jr., and C-K-S for his siblings Crystal, Kathleen, and Sonia.
The company focuses on one-on-one coaching that blends physical fitness with mental performance, drawing heavily on everything Howard learned during his gymnastics career. He works with clients on mindset, recovery, and the mental fortitude required to push through adversity, the same tools that carried him from missing teams by one place to standing on the World Championships floor with Team USA.
“Your goal of whatever you’re striving for is your Olympics,” Howard said. “It’s your point zero zero one percent of wanting to be the best version of yourself.”
Howard also spoke passionately about giving back to the sport that shaped him. He sees gymnastics as a sport that is “treading, hoping to find a breakthrough” when it comes to growing its audience, and he wants to help build opportunities for the next generation of athletes so they don’t face the same financial uncertainty he experienced when his competitive career ended.
Mindset Lessons from Trevor Howard
Throughout the conversation, Howard delivered several takeaways that apply far beyond gymnastics. On taking control of your own story: “You have to be disgusted with where you are. You have to be so fed up and tired of just missing, and realize you are the main character in your own story.”
On reframing pressure: “Anxiety and excitement are the same exact feeling. It’s just the way you look at it.”
On choosing your environment: “I don’t like to be surrounded by people that just tolerate me. I want to be around people that celebrate me.”
And on the patience required to achieve something meaningful: “The longer it takes, the sweeter it is.”
How to Follow Trevor Howard
You can follow Trevor Howard’s journey across all platforms at @CoachTrevorHoward on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. For more on his mindset and fitness coaching, follow ETHIICKS (@ethiicks).
Watch or listen to the full episode on the GymnasticsVille podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or on YouTube.
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