NORMAN, Oklahoma –Addison Fattawas in the middle of her balance beam routine last season at LSU when Tigers fans in the arena, packed beyond its posted capacity, went crazy.
She suddenly felt something she never felt on that four-inch-wide strip.
"The beam was actually physically shaking from the crowd being that loud," theOU gymnastsaid.
KJ Kindlereyed Fatta as she recounted the story.
"This was not shared with me," theSoonerscoach said. "The shaking part."
"Yeah," Fatta said, nodding her head, assuring her coach it was real.
"Wow," Kindler said. "I believe it. I mean, it's a full house, over 13,000 every time you compete there, so they can have that impact."
It's the kind of crowd Kindler wants for the Sooners every time they compete at Lloyd Noble Center — but for starters, she'll take a sellout crowd for Friday's home dual against the Tigers, those of the packed houses and shaking balance beam.
As LSU comes to town for No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown, OU is pushing not only for a victory but also for an attendance record.
The top mark in program history: 10,117 vs UCLA in 2019.
But that is the only time an OU home meet has ever exceeded 10,000.
"This is an area that we honestly have been shooting for since we arrived 20 years ago," Kindler said of when she and assistants Lou Ball and Tom Haley moved to OU in 2006. "That five-digit attendance, over 10,000, that's something that should be regular, not unusual."
In the early years of the Kindler Era, the Sooners had a three-digit attendance average.
Yes, three.
OU had about 600 fans at every home meet.
As the Sooners' success has grown, so have the home crowds. They averaged just under 5,000 fans in 2022, then jumped to a little over 7,000 in 2023 and just over 8,600 in 2024.
OU's average home attendance last season: 8,760.
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"So, you're looking at exponential growth over the last 20 years," Kindler said, "but we want this ticket to be hard to get. We want people to be knocking down the front door to get in."
That's how it is with many other SEC programs. LSU. Florida. Auburn. Georgia. Alabama. All of them have big crowds regularly.
Even though OU's crowds have gotten bigger, Kindler and Co. want more.
"We're seven in," Kindler said of the national championships that her program has won, "but we haven't achieved our attendance goals as a program. We certainly are doing everything we can to reach those goals as well."
Her pitch to bring out Sooners fans on Friday is simple.
"It's a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup," Kindler said. "That doesn't happen very often in the state of a program. Maybe you get one of those every two or three years, if you're lucky."
Ironically, this is actually a repeat of last season's dual in Baton Rouge when the Sooners were No. 1 and the Tigers were No. 2. Even though LSU entered the season as the top-ranked team in the country, coming off its first national title in program history, OU had taken over the top spot by the time the two met.
That fueled a sellout at LSU, an announced crowd of 13,386, the fourth-largest home crowd in the program's history.
"And we got it handed to us," Kindler said.
The Sooners suffered their largest margin of defeat in the regular season (.375 points) since 2022.
OU redeemed itself, winning the national title, but the two programs have emerged as the best in the sport. They have combined to win the last four national titles, OU winning in 2022, 2023 and 2025 and LSU doing so in 2024.
"So this is a little bit of a rivalry developing," Kindler said.
The duel in Baton Rouge last season — and the raucous crowd — only added fuel to the fire.
Not many places make the balance beam shake.
"Maybe I just thought it was shaking," Fatta said.
"But it was so loud."
How to watch Oklahoma vs LSU gymnastics
When: 8:45 p.m. ET, Friday
TV: ESPN2
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Oklahoma vs LSU gymnastics may give OU record crowd in No. 1 vs No. 2
