Since she was 9 years old, LSU gymnastics freshman Nina Ballou has bled purple and gold.

Now, the athlete gets to compete wearing those same colors on her back, representing one of the nation’s top collegiate gymnastics programs.

At just age 2, Ballou found her start at her older sister’s birthday party. The event was hosted at a gym, the very gym where the Florida native fell in love with gymnastics right before the eyes of her parents.

“Nina started gymnastics as soon as she was able to be potty trained,” her mother, Diana Ballou, said. “Immediately, [even though she] couldn’t walk, [she] was climbing the ropes, was crawling around [and] really loved it.”

Even at a young age, when Ballou entered the gym, all that mattered to her was getting to do gymnastics. According to her mother, she never lacked the energy to do so.

“She never did ‘Mommy and Me,’ which is super popular [for young children],” Diana Ballou said. “She literally just went in by herself and did gymnastics, and she was good.”

After a short time in Miami, her family relocated to Boca Raton, Florida, where the gymnast got her start at American Twisters. There she met Gary Anderson, an elite coach who would guide Ballou through her career and onto the NCAA.

“I was responsible for selecting what looked to be gifted or talented kids,” Anderson said. “They had to be a little more coordinated, a little stronger, a little more flexible than the normal kid that’s in a 6 or 7-year-old class, and she was, right from the start, a little superstar.”

The American Twister’s staff was eager to offer Ballou a spot on the competition team. However, because she was balancing dance and recreational gymnastics at just 3 years old, her family shelved the idea as they considered the time investment of the sport.

Yet, just a year later, Ballou reached the point in her career where her only choice was to pursue competitive gymnastics if she wanted to progress.

“We [Ballou’s parents] talked to her, and even that little, Nina’s always been very talkative, and she’d tell you what she wanted at a very young age,” Diana Ballou said. “We said, ‘You know, if you’re going to do this, do you want to quit dance?’ And she said, ‘No, I want to do both.”’

So, at 5 years old, Ballou was doing both competitive dance and gymnastics and then began a very decorated career, reaching level 10 and even making an appearance on American Ninja Warrior Junior at just 11 years old.

“[She had] immense competitiveness, where she had to win everything,” Anderson said. “She wanted to be the first in line in everything; she wanted to be recognized as the best, whether it was just doing a simple drill or competing in the state championship.”

When the time came for the five-time national champion to commit to a university, LSU had remained at the top of her list ever since attending the program’s summer camps.

“One of the things that kept her leaning towards LSU was she went to their camp at a young age,” Anderson said. “Fell in love with the campus and got to know the coaches, and it just sort of was a self-recruitment job on her part.”

Beyond that, Ballou’s family ties in the bayou allowed her to attend annual family reunions on her father’s side in Sulphur, Louisiana.

“I started coming to camp here every summer since I was 9 years old,” Ballou said. “ I have always loved LSU. I personally knew it was here from the start, but I think I owed it to myself and my coaches and my family to kind of confirm, if that makes sense.”

She had quite the selection of programs during her recruitment process at American Twisters, with up to 25 schools on her radar. Her recruitment ran longer than anticipated because Ballou’s coaches and parents made sure she explored every option before committing.

Whether this was visiting Oklahoma, UCLA or taking a trip back to Florida, Ballou always had Baton Rouge and the LSU staff on her mind.

“I knew all along she was coming here,” head coach Jay Clark said. “There was no shot she was going to go anywhere else, because she’s been bleeding purple and gold since the day we met her.”

Since her commitment, Ballou has had a smashing start during her first year as a Tiger. Serving as a staple performer in the team’s floor lineup, it’s the gymnast’s electricity that draws fans in.

“Her last name is Ballou, but we’ve adopted this [nickname], sort of like Joe Theismann, and now she’s Nina ‘Bayou,’” Clark said. “She’s such an alpha. She wants to be out there, and when she’s not able to be in a lineup, she handles it like a seasoned veteran.”

Clark said that the gymnast even privately requested LSU gymnastics PA announcer Mike Smith to call her by the nickname, complementing her passion for the program.

The freshman garnered an average score of 9.881 across the 13 meets she’s competed this season. With a season-high score of 9.925 on floor, she has brought consistency week after week for the Tigers.

“She’s such an energizer bunny out there,” Clark said. “It’s infectious, and she sucks you into everything she’s doing because she just gives off such positive rage. It’s awesome.”

The scores Ballou puts up on the competition floor aren’t the only asset she brings to the team. In the locker room, a bubbly personality, along with what Clark describes as an “uncanny sort of wisdom beyond her years.”

Anderson mentioned how her personality was inherited from the culture she grew up around at the gym. Now at LSU, she continues to carry those same attitudes and behaviors around her teammates.

“She is the best person to be around,” teammate Konnor McClain said. “She brings your mood up when you’re down, and like she said, she wants to be authentic, and that’s exactly what she is.”

Ballou’s time at LSU has already had quite the effect on the team and its fans, but for her, everything that she does seems to be bigger than herself.

Her dedication to her sport and love for the bayou is a testament to her Louisiana family, the state itself and, of course, LSU.

“She’s a little alpha dog that wants to compete all the time and wants it for LSU,” Clark said. “As time goes by, you’re going to see that she is more and more of the identity of this program.”