“No One Responded”: Oklahoma Sooners’ Star Athlete Voices Career’s Gymnastics Truth While Closing In on 3x NCAA Championship

Born in Turkey and raised in Ontario, Canada, where his family moved when he was a toddler, this shining talent began gymnastics at the young age of five and quickly accumulated an impressive total of 31 gold, 26 silver, and 16 bronze medals by the age of fourteen. At age 14, he competed for Canada at the 32nd Artistic Gymnastics Men’s European Championship in Bern, Switzerland. But even with all his early promises, his gymnastics career was about to end at one point. But what was the reason?

He did not get any proposals from the NCAA until the Oklahoma coach found him. While talking to Inside Gymnastics on March 26, Oklahoma’s Emre Dodnali revealed some harsh truths about his gymnastics career. “No one responded to me…I was in terrible shape. I wasn’t even doing gymnastics. No one was interested, but then Mark (Williams) took a chance on me,” he said. The NCAA gymnast star’s way to Oklahoma was as unlikely as it was heartwarming. Fast forward to 2025, and Dodanli is a team captain, a five-time All-American, a 4.0 student, and an Olympian—poised to cap his college career as one of the most decorated athletes in NCAA gymnastics. It was a faith-based decision made by a coach, Mark Williams, who could see potential in him when probably everyone else failed to see. 

But even once he’d gotten there, the battle wasn’t over yet! “It was rough…I didn’t know if I was going to make it, and I think my coaches wondered that, too. I came in unable to do most of my skills because I’d been out of the gym so long. I basically had to relearn everything, and it was a long process.” The last recorded competition that Emre participated in before joining the Sooners in 2022 was the US Gymnastics Championships and the FIG Junior World Championships, both in 2019. In the former meet, he placed 3rd on the pommel horse, fifth on parallel bars, and eighth in all-around. In the later meet, his highest placement came in the floor routine with 20th rank, and the rest were all below 30.

According to Emre, he kept gymnastics aside in favor of joining college in Canada—until he was approached by Oklahoma in 2022. While being a part of Oklahoma, he started participating in the meets and was named CGA Rookie of the Week for his 14.000 scores on the floor against Nebraska, and later, he was named the CGA 2022 All-American Scholar-Athlete First Team.