By Emerson Hall, Sports Editor
This article originally appeared on pages 14 to 16 of the Sept. 2026 edition of The Gettysburgian magazine
Last spring, Gettysburg College introduced three new programs to the Bullets’ athletic department and their respective head coaches: Chris Haines (women’s wrestling), Breana Sumpter (women’s flag football) and Valeria Guevara (women’s acrobatics and tumbling). While the new sports could not be more different, each coach faces the same current challenge. There is no foundation to grow on, no culture to inherit and no alumni to support. As much as this is a challenge for the new programs to build, it’s just as much an opportunity.
For women’s wrestling head coach Chris Haines, this opportunity comes with a familiar feeling. Haines began his wrestling career in seventh grade and made his way to become a high school national champion for nearby Gettysburg High School. He continued to wrestle at Division I Lock Haven University before starting the wrestling program at Millbrook High School in Virginia. He eventually returned home and coached both the boys’ and girls’ programs at Gettysburg High School, starting the girls’ wrestling program. To finish his resume, he has also spent the last 10 years coaching the Team Pennsylvania Girls National Team.
Now, Haines is starting all over again in the community where it all began. Being new to recruiting, Haines said that he is focused on showing his first athletes what Gettysburg has to offer. “Convince them of the education Gettysburg College provides. Show them the top-level facilities. And build a relationship with them,” he said. Haines is also looking beyond just this season by “building our foundation for long-term top-level success.” This foundation has already started to develop with the first wave of athletes committing this summer. These initial commits will help create the culture Haines wants to achieve. When looking for these athletes, he emphasized the importance of maintaining a “high level of standards on and off the mat.” With his experience and vision, Haines has a clear idea of what he wants Gettysburg women’s wrestling to become. As he puts it, “success is a lifestyle.”
(Image provided by Chris Haines)
The same emphasis on building something from scratch is present in the new acrobatics and tumbling program, where head coach Valeria Guevara’s story of starting the team was far from traditional. A former trampoline and tumbling and TeamGym athlete, she suffered a major ankle injury before her junior year of high school, leading to years of surgeries and physical therapy. Eventually, a doctor said she would never tumble again.
Feeling she had more to give, she found a new way to stay involved. At 15, still in a boot, she was taught by her gym owner to coach acrobatics and tumbling. A year later, she was tasked with starting a youth program. “I had never even heard of it until the day she assigned it to me,” Guevara said. She won a Youth Acro National Championship her first year as a coach and again the next before committing as a base at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, winning four national titles. Now in her first head coaching job, Guevara plans to introduce Gettysburg to the sport through campus events, social media and collaborations with other teams, building toward open practices once a roster forms by the 2027-2028 season. She also hopes to build national relationships with gymnastics and cheer programs, both for recruiting and to “introduce new audiences to acro and tumbling and demonstrate the opportunities available within the sport.”
Another angle that isn’t normally the case with college head coaches is that Guevara is a graduate of the Class of 2026. She believes that this is an advantage: “It’s easy to bring energy, adaptability, and a willingness to learn. I’m also able to connect with student-athletes in a way that feels genuine because I’m closer to their generation.” She gets to use this edge to create the culture she wants, based on “teamwork, accountability, trust and making history together.”
For Guevara, building the first acrobatics and tumbling team in Gettysburg history isn’t just starting another program; it’s creating second chances with the sport that gave her another career path.
(Image provided by Valeria Guevara)
Like wrestling and acrobatics and tumbling, flag football is growing at the collegiate level, but its rapid rise has brought the sport into a new era. That growth has also created opportunities for people like new head coach Breana Sumpter, whose path to coaching began unexpectedly. She was hired as a teacher at Benjamin E. Mays High School in Atlanta in 2022, where on her first day she learned that the school was looking for coaches for their new flag football program. Although initially hesitating, she volunteered.
That decision launched a career she had never expected. After one year as an assistant, she became the head coach for the next two seasons. She was named Regional Coach of the Year in 2022 and was twice the Coca-Cola Female Coach of the Year. She later started her first flag football program at LaGrange College before coming to Gettysburg. Now, she has been given the responsibility to start another.
Like any other new program, it starts with recruiting. Sumpter said that she isn’t necessarily looking for recruits with a high level of flag football experience. Instead, she wants athletes who understand what it takes to build from the ground up. “I always say I try to recruit the things I can’t see on film,” she said. Her “big three” are character, humility and respect. Those qualities are perfect for athletes to establish a culture that can be perfected by those who come after them. The sport is also gaining attention since it was announced back in 2023 that in the 2028 Olympics, flag football will make its debut in Los Angeles. But Sumpter is thinking beyond the Olympics.
For her, the biggest concern is ensuring that the growth of women’s flag football continues after the Olympics. “I am more concerned about maintaining the popularity and growth of the sport (all styles and levels of play) once the Olympics is over,” she said. Sumpter wants to build a culture that helps maintain the sport’s momentum past 2028.
(Image provided by Breana Sumpter)
Ultimately, for the three very different new sports, the long-term vision for the programs is shared. All three want to establish a culture with not only good athletes but also good people that will follow in the footsteps of their head coaches to grow their sport past just their four years here. The first season will determine wins and losses, but the athletes will determine what it means to be a member of Gettysburg women’s wrestling, acrobatics and tumbling or flag football.
