ITHACA, N.Y. -- Gymnasts spend a lifetime trying to perfect a routine. Victoria McMillan spent the past year learning how to rewrite hers. Her sport no longer defines her days, but the discipline and resilience it demanded now power something different: a passion for law, gender equity and advocacy for female athletes.

Ask her what she wants next, and the answer comes quickly.

"I want to advocate for women in sports," McMillan said. "Equitable pay, protections, visibility — especially for female athletes who don't have the same support I did."

It's a clear, sharp vision, and it exists because of the moment that shattered part of the identity she thought she'd have at Cornell.

Before the law school plans and sports law dreams, McMillan was supposed to be something else:

A college gymnast.

Most afternoons at Teagle, you'll find the junior from San Jose in sneakers and a Cornell T-shirt, not a leotard — sliding mats into place under the bars, helping teammates stretch out sore shoulders.

She isn't in the lineup, but she's still very much on the team.

"There was a time when I would walk into the gym and just start crying," McMillan said. "Now I walk in and I'm excited to be there. I'm not a competing gymnast anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm not an athlete. And it definitely doesn't mean I'm done with the sport."

Gymnastics has been the center of her life for as long as she can remember.

McMillan grew up just down the street from the gym that shaped her childhood. By elementary school she was training 20 hours a week, then 30, then more.

"I loved it, and I hated it sometimes," she said. "It was my whole life. Wake up, school, gym, homework. Weekends were for meets, not rest."

Her career was riddled with mental blocks and breakthroughs, stress fractures and surgeries. COVID forced a full reset. She fought through it all to come back and make Level 9 Westerns, then reached Level 10. She watched older gymnasts commit to college programs and realized she wanted that, too.

After years defined by injury, intensity and expectation, McMillan needed a place where college gymnastics could feel different — healthier, lighter, possible.

That's why visiting Cornell made something click.

"I didn't think that 'it just feels right' moment would happen to me," she said. "Then I came here and thought, 'This is it.' I felt like Coach Mel and Mike saw me as a person first, and then a gymnast."

Cornell head coach Melanie Hall and assistant coach Mike Brackmann offered a spot, and McMillan's dream — college gymnastics, and loving the sport again — felt close enough to touch.

But her freshman year opened with warning signs. She arrived and was immediately placed on crutches. Came off them. Caught COVID. Regained some skills. And finally, in early season, made her collegiate debut with a simplified vault - filling in for an injured teammate at George Washington's Lindsey Ferris Invitational.

A few days later, her career ended in one sickening landing.

She lost her orientation while twisting in the air, came down on a hard surface and felt everything in her lower leg give. The ligaments between her tibia and fibula tore up the length of her leg. Her fibula snapped. Her surgeon said the unusual injury required an immediate operation, but McMillan tried to convince herself it was just another roadblock.

What followed were months on a scooter, then more crutches, and a campus that suddenly felt very big and very inaccessible. She couldn't keep her foot down for more than a few minutes without excruciating pain. 

Somewhere along the way, the question shifted.

"I hit a point where I didn't even care about getting back to gymnastics," McMillan said. "I just wanted to walk. I just wanted to feel like a normal human again."

That's when she began imagining a life where gymnast wasn't the first word in her bio.

Her athletic trainers and doctors told her she could try to return. Her parents gave her something more valuable: permission to stop.

"They were like, 'Make the best decision for you. We don't care if you compete or not,'" she said. "Having it be my choice — not someone telling me, 'You're done' — helped heal my relationship with the sport."

She medically retired a little over a year ago. What came next was rebuilding.

Part of that happened in the weight room, where she rediscovered the satisfaction of pushing her body — this time in ways that didn't break her. The other part happened in the gym, where she found joy in other roles, rather than scorebook records.

"I move mats. I help with recovery. I give corrections. I cheer my teammates on," she said. "There are a lot of unseen little things that go into one routine behind the scenes. I'm proud to help with some of those little things."

The rest happened in the classroom.

Freed from travel and training demands, McMillan leaned into her academic interests with an intensity that surprised even her. Her interest in Government as well as Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies were foundational, and she was counseled that it would be possible to major in both. Her third major, American Studies, came later. Two minors followed. Her schedule now is a study in complexity — the intersections between feminist theory, constitutional law, the death penalty, inequality, and more.

"I've always wanted to be an advocate," she said. "At first I thought that meant just being a lawyer. Now I see it more clearly — I want to advocate for women in sports."

She talks about sports law like gymnasts talk about perfect landings: focused, precise, unflinching. She knows the stats — the pay gaps, the exposure disparities, the unequal protections. She also knows what it feels like to have athletics shape your identity, and what it feels like when that identity shatters.

"I am extremely blessed to have parents who could pay for club gymnastics, private school, and Cornell," she said. "A lot of people don't. Sports can be a path up, but only if the system values you. I want to be someone in the room fighting for female athletes to be valued the way they deserve."

McMillan will graduate early this spring, then take a gap year before law school. She hopes her path winds through sports law and into a life spent advocating for, negotiating with, and amplifying women's voices in spaces where they've long been overlooked.

But wherever life takes her, she'll keep showing up for the sport that almost broke her — and for the athletes who still compete.

"Gymnastics will always be part of me," she said. "It's just not all of me anymore, and that's a really good thing."