University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame
Brooke Taft Robbins 1990 - Gymnastics
A top gymnast and four-time MVP of the women's gymnastics team, Brooke Taft Robbins, a 2009 UVM Hall of Fame inductee, was an Academic All-American who led the team to its first ECAC post-season championship meet in 1989. When she graduated in 1990 with a degree in Business Administration, Robbins held every school record in women's gymnastics.
She had the all-time top score in the floor exercise, balance beam, vaulting and uneven bars, and also had the top all-around score. Her all-around score is still among the top 10 all-time at UVM. Her coach at UVM, Nini Anger, feels very strongly about Robbins.
"I strongly support Brooke's induction to the Hall of Fame," she said in April 2004. "She was the most talented athlete I ever coached at UVM. She had it all: strength, power, grace and flexibility. She still ranks eighth in UVM's top ten and was UVM's first gymnast to be named to the ECAC All-Conference and was an alternate to the NCAA Regional Championships in 1990. Brooke was the beginning of a new era in women's gymnastics at UVM and deserves to be recognized along with the many outstanding athletes who are in the Hall of Fame. It would be doubly special to see Brooke and her sister Heather inducted into the Hall of Fame together this year."
The first UVM gymnast to be named to the ECAC All-Conference team (1989), Taft was among the ECAC's top gymnasts back when national gymnastics powers like New Hampshire, Towson and Pittsburgh were still competing on a regional level. She finished fourth in the vault at ECACs that year. In 1990, she was an all-around alternate to the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships, and was also a member of the Catamount team that won the National Association of Women's Gymnastics Academic National Championship.
After graduating with a 2.90 cumulative grade-point average, Taft earned her post-graduate teaching certificate at UVM in 1993 with a 3.40 GPA. A number of Taft's former teammates wrote to the committee, weighing in on her Hall of Fame nomination. Nancy Feldgus Buck '90 wrote a representative letter.
"Brooke Taft was a phenomenal athlete, and her numerous records speak to that. It was her presence in the gym and on our team that was truly valuable. Brooke was a team player in an individual sport, which is sometimes a difficult task. She led by example, and her work ethic inspired us all. I am fortunate to have all four years of our competitions on videotape, and in the background of each performance is Brooke, cheering on her teammates. Brooke Taft epitomized the UVM athlete. She is a homegrown talent, and she put UVM gymnastics back on the map in the late 1980's. I can't think of a better person to represent UVM in the Athletic Hall of Fame."
Taft is familiar with the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame, as her father, Jeff Taft '68, a former soccer player, was inducted in 1981 and has served on the committee since then, and her grandfather, Chester M. Taft '33, a former football standout, was inducted in 1977.
