At just 25 years old, D-D Breaux began a journey that would ultimately go on to last over four decades and counting–building the LSU gymnastics program from nothing, and transforming it into one of the most revered programs in the country.

In 1978, Breaux, a Louisiana native herself, was just finishing up her own gymnastics career and quickly got involved in pioneering LSU’s first varsity gymnastics team. Now, 42 years later, the women of LSU gymnastics train and tumble in a newly constructed, state-of-the-art facility steps away from the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

“We sit in here every day thinking, ‘What can we do?’,” Breaux says. “I really believe that if you are asking the community to accept you, your team and programs, and to celebrate these athletes’ performances, you have to do everything you can do with everything you’ve got.”

And that’s exactly what Breaux and the women of LSU gymnastics continue to do, meet after meet, season after season, and title after title.

To read more about Breaux, and everything it took to build her fempire, check out the full story in the January issue of inRegister, on newsstands now.