PNW’s new STUNT coach has been preparing for the job since she was 2 years old.

“I’ve done gymnastics since I was 2,” said Madesyn Samples, the coach hired to build PNW’s first STUNT team. 

PNW is the first Indiana institution to add a varsity STUNT team. It will begin competing during the 2024-2025 athletics season.

STUNT, one of the fastest growing sports in the country, incorporates skills derived from cheerleading and gymnastics. It will be the school’s 21st varsity sport. Teams compete by executing skills-based routines in various categories, including partner stunts, jumps and tumbling, pyramids and tosses and team routines

Samples has been coaching student-athletes for several years. 

“When I was 15, I started coaching,” she said. “When I graduated high school, I was allowed to be a head coach … I coached our tennis team as well as our highest level team.” 

She began her college coaching career at Oregon State, where she earned a degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry with a focus in Advanced Molecular Biology.

 “Once I graduated, my coach asked me to stick around and be the All-girl coach,” she said.

PNW is optimistic that STUNT will attract students who might otherwise overlook PNW.

“It is a program where we could make our mark … and be the first university in Indiana to have this … up-and-coming sport in the NCAA,” said Joseph Scott, the university’s Sports Information director. “It is also important that we bring in another program on the women’s side.” 

Samples’s first challenge will be to recruit a team.

“I’ve been reaching out to a lot of high schools, cheer gyms and gymnastics gyms in the area as well as nationwide,” she said.  “I’ve been reaching out to girls individually in high school.  

“There are some girls in the transfer portal we have been reaching out to as well,” said Samples. “We are trying to spread our wings out and make a name for ourselves … I reach out mostly through … Instagram,” she said. “I know high school students don’t check their email as much as their Instagram, so that’s been a big tool.”