Kristy Phillipi’s parents enrolled their 3-year-old daughter into the City of Roseville’s gymnastics program because they thought it would help her develop balance, strength and the fundamentals needed for other sports.
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Quickly, Kristy realized gymnastics was “her sport.”
"I fell in love with it,” said Kristy, who went on to win state championships as part of both the Roseville Area High School and club teams.
Today, Kristy is the City of Roseville’s gymnastics program supervisor helping children and teens discover the benefits and beauty of the sport.
Kristy said she always enjoyed coaching. She coached throughout high school and college. For many years, she’s come home from her fulltime sales job at an engineering firm and coach Roseville gymnastics at night.
“Back in 2007 I started coaching our first-year competitors and I followed that group up through Level 10 over the next 10 years. They!["Gymnastics]("https://cityofroseville.com/ImageRepository/Document?documentId=38272")
are now college graduates and a handful of them have come back to Roseville to coach after moving back to the Cities. Like me, they still love the sport. They love the program, and they love the kids, so they want to come back. That’s been really special. It’s come full circle,” Kristy said. “It really has a close-knit family feeling. We are lucky to have that experience at the City of Roseville.”
Now a mom of three youngsters, Kristy said the supervisor schedule allowed her to spend days with her children and spend evenings immersed in gymnastics with her second family.
“I love the sport, and I love giving back. It’s a good work-life balance,” Kristy said.
Kristy said the programs, which include preschool classes, recreational classes and competition teams, remain very popular. In 2024, there were over 1,400 enrollments in gymnastics programming through the City of Roseville.
“Gymnastics is very beneficial for kids of all ages and abilities,” she said. ‘It helps develop strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination. You are exposing kids to all that when they are young. It will benefit them for whatever sport or activity they end up choosing to do.”