NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Aliyah Reed-Hammon believed being a college gymnast was just too far out of reach.

“After high school, I was going to run track or just not do anything in college,” said Reed-Hammon. “I didn’t think I was going to do gymnastics.”

Although she’d been a gymnast for 10 years and even placed eighth nationally in the vault competition, there just wasn’t a scholarship for her to compete at the next level. Until Fisk University did the unimaginable and got a gymnastics team, giving Reed-Hammon and her teammates the dream of lifetime.

In addition, they did it all while making history becoming the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) program to compete at the NCAA level.

“Before it was, like, I’m just doing gymnastics, but now I’m doing gymnastics for, like, the little girls, like African-American little girls in gymnastics,” Reed-Hammon said.

Head coach Corrinne Tarver had just four months to build a gymnastics team from the ground up, but they couldn’t have found a better person for the job.

Tarver knows a thing or two about etching her name in record books. Her talent got her a scholarship to the University of Georgia where she would be first the gymnast to win a NCAA all-around title.

“She’s definitely a trailblazer as well,” said freshman and Lebanon native Morgan Price. “So, it’s exciting to have her as a coach.”

“I had no answers at all for any of the questions they had,” Tarver said with a laugh. “I had no idea where we were going out. I had no idea what time we were working out, so I was just kind of, like, ‘listen, we’re going to all learn together. We’ll figure it out. We’re going to make it work and we’re going to take a chance. We’re just going to all take a leap of faith together.’ And they they did it and they took a chance with me.”

Tarver had her team ready for their first meet in Las Vegas last month against some of the top programs in the country, but all eyes were on Fisk.

“I love how much support we’ve gotten,” said Tarver. “We have gotten to meets and it didn’t matter whether they were from Fisk, Morehouse, Spelman, Grambling, you name it. If they’re in the area and they know about us, they were there to support us because they were like, it’s an HBCU family, but not just them, just people in general.”

“I feel like all of the support and the publicity we would get, it kind of makes like people forget that we don’t have as much as like Arkansas or LSU,” Price said inside of the Nashville Gymnastics Center that they share with the community. “But we’re still doing good, just as good as other schools and we’re still like climbing up to where we want to be at the end of season.”

“I feel like next year we’re going to have more preparation time and more people,” said Reed-Hammon. “So I feel like next year, probably is our year to like really come and show people what HBCU gymnastics is really about.”

There is also a goal to get more HBCUs to start gymnastics programs, giving more Black and Brown gymnasts opportunities at the next level.

“We can hopefully inspire more to start the sport,” Tarver said. “We can inspire more to have a higher self esteem and believe in themselves and believe that they are capable of doing more. We can fill up these rosters. Get HBCUs to get to add [gymnastics teams], we can fill up the rosters we just need an opportunity.”

Fisk is raising money to build the gymnastics team a gym of their own.