PITTSBURGH – Samantha Snider remembers the rules — be they real or implied — during her collegiate gymnastics career at Arkansas.
This is how you're going to do your hair. This is how you're going to do your makeup. This is how you're going to represent the program. “There was very much this message, ‘You need to fit in this box,’” said Snider, now the head coach at the University of Pittsburgh.
Snider, who jokes she often felt like the only Puerto Rican in the state during her time competing for the Razorbacks in the mid-2000s, isn't being critical.
Her experience at Arkansas was simply reflective of the culture at large in the sport at the time. A time, it seems, that is finally over, particularly at the NCAA level.