Derrick Davis | The Valdosta Daily TimesStudents at Spivey's Gymnastics gather in a circle for a prayer before Tuesday's practice.

VALDOSTA — Hundreds, if not thousands, of gymnasts will descend upon Hilton Head, South Carolina this weekend to open the 2017 season, including a local team coached by former Olympian Hope Spivey.

Spivey competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and tallied 12 First-Team All-American awards, four individual NCAA national championships and 27 perfect scores as a star gymnast at the University of Georgia, and now she’s using her expansive knowledge and experience to teach the next generation of gymnasts at Spivey’s Gymnastics.

Spivey originally opened her gymnastics center near Athens, and even relocated to her home-state of Virginia for a while, before making her way back to Georgia to open up the 14,000-square foot facility off of James Road last March.

The Hilton Head Island Invitational is the first of seven meets Spivey’s Gymnastics is scheduled to compete in this season in preparation of the state championships.

Gymnasts are broken into levels based on ability, and within each level are different age groups. Spivey’s team consists of Xcel Bronze, Xcel Silver, Xcel Gold, Level 7 and Level 8 competitors ranging from ages 7-15, and the goal is for everyone to qualify for state.

“We have 14 that are competing, and obviously we want all of them to be qualified for the state championship,” Spivey said. “The regional championship is a little bit more sticky, especially as you get into the optional levels.”

Spivey’s students can begin to qualify for state as soon as this weekend in Hilton Head, S.C.

Meets prior to the state meet are essentially considered the “preseason” in the world of gymnastics. Gymnasts want to try to qualify if they can, but these meets are also the place to work out the kinks of a new routine.

“That’s the goal, to go ahead and get (qualifying) done and out of the way,” Spivey said. “Then we can have one less thing and kind of fine-tune and skill build, possibly in some upgrades they’ve been working that they want to incorporate in their routine.”

Gymnasts competing in the Xcel program can each have her routine choreographed specifically around her personality and individual strengths.

The score is determined by the competitor’s all-around routine in vault, bars, beam and floor, with Xcel Bronze and Silver required to achieve a score of 36.5 or better at state to qualify for the regional championship. Xcel Gold must achieve a 36 or better to qualify for regional.

Training under the 1994 SEC Athlete of the Year in Spivey has the gymnasts at Spivey’s Gymnastics in position to receive some of the best coaching available in the state.

Spivey’s Gymnastics hasn’t been open for a full year yet, but she’s got students traveling from Ray City, Adel, Lake City and Thomasville to train under her tutelage.

Leigh Wood, 15, has been competing in gymnastics since she was 8, and despite residing in Live Oak, she makes the commute to Valdosta to train under Spivey.

“I just wanted to be better and someone told me (Spivey) was moving to Valdosta,” said Wood, who is working on her confidence and consistency in the face of this weekend’s competition.

Spivey’s passion for gymnastics is palpable when speaking to her 11-year-old daughter Kristina Coburn, who followed in her mother’s footsteps as a gymnasts since she could walk.

“(Gymnastics) is just fun,” Coburn said. “On the floor, you can just go all out and just do what you can do. You can just have fun with it, but at the same time, you need to work hard.”

Traveling hours away from home with her friends to compete in a meet against between 500-2,000 girls, some of which she’s grown close to across several competitions, is one of Coburn’s favorite aspects of what has become the family business.

“Everyone gathers up at the meet and we can all have fun and do things all together because we’ll all be in the same hotel,” Coburn said. “We’ll just have fun there and do a lot of things together.”

Derrick Davis is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.