About a decade ago, winter sports at Boise State came with a split spotlight. Gymnasts flipped under one set of lights while wrestlers battled under another, sharing the same floor in a one-of-a-kind event called Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast became one of Boise State’s most memorable winter traditions for almost a decade. The event, placing women’s gymnastics and men’s wrestling inside the same arena, created a night that felt larger than any typical meet or tournament.
Former Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier, the mastermind behind the event, led Boise State Athletics for more than three decades. During his tenure, he pushed for creative events that could help the university stand out. He believed gymnastics and wrestling could complement each other well and increase turnout for both events.
This vision shaped the first Beauty and the Beast meet on Valentine’s Day in 2003.
ExtraMile Arena, which carried the name Taco Bell Arena at the time, was filled with more than two thousand fans for that first meet. Boise State hosted Portland State in wrestling and BYU in gymnastics. The event’s successful debut set the tone for what the event would become.
Behind the scenes, public address announcers helped guide the rhythm of the night. Jeremy Peterson announced Boise State wrestling for several seasons and saw how Beauty and the Beast challenged announcers to stay on top of the game.
“In the years prior to 2010, we would utilize two Public Address Announcers for this event,” Peterson said. “It was Tom Scott or KJ Mac as the Public Address Announcer for gymnastics before my turn on the microphone.”
Peterson also explained how he learned to call two sports at once.
“The big thing with any athletic event is if you know how to listen to the sport, it will talk to you.”
Peterson said working Beauty and the Beast required him to adjust to two sports happening at the same time. He described learning to follow the natural rhythm of each event, recognizing when to speak and when to stay quiet so the announcements didn’t interrupt the flow of competition.
The Boise State Athletics Hall of Fame later recognized Bleymaier for creating Beauty and the Beast and for his efforts to build the school’s national identity.
Crowds grew larger with each year and the tradition gained momentum. By 2017, the fifteenth Beauty and the Beast event brought nearly three thousand people to ExtraMile Arena. Wrestling faced Oregon State and gymnastics faced Southern Utah.
Schools such as Utah, Penn State, Nebraska and Arizona State created their own combined meets modeled after the Boise State format. The event put the strength of wrestling and the precision of gymnastics on a never-before-seen platform, with families and longtime supporters filling the arena because the event offered something unique.
The 2017 match was the last of its kind. In April of 2017, Curt Aspey, former director of athletics, announced the discontinuation of Boise State’s wrestling program. According to previous reporting by The Arbiter, the decision was made to reallocate funding towards a baseball program and caught community members and the wrestling team alike off guard.
“This was not an easy decision, but one that needed to be made as we consider the long-term vision for Bronco athletics,” said former athletic director Curt Apsey. “We will continue to honor the scholarships we provide our student-athletes, and will do all we can to help those who want to continue their collegiate wrestling careers elsewhere.”
Division I baseball was reinstated in 2019, but didn’t last long. Boise State rushed the baseball program too fast and was forced to discontinue the sport in 2020 due to costs and too many complications surrounding the COVID outbreak.
Five years later, on Feb. 22, 2025, Athletic Director Jeremiah Dickey announced in a tweet there are no plans to bring back baseball as it doesn’t align with Boise State athletics’ values at the moment.
Although baseball is not expected to return, wrestling remains in the dark as well. With baseball off the table for now, supporters continue to question whether the university might one day reconsider bringing the program back.
After the university discontinued the wrestling program in 2017, former wrestlers and fans quickly organized online to try to reverse the decision. Several online petitions and social media campaigns emerged, keeping the conversation alive years later after slowly fading out.
One came from former wrestler Kevin Wood, who wrestled at Boise State from 1979 to 1982 and started a change.org petition to gather signatures in support of reversing the decision. In the petition, Wood said he is “in awe of the hard work, determination and true heart” displayed by the team. Today, supporting signatures total over 20,000. Other fan accounts on social media and fundraising pages also sprang up to raise awareness for the cause.
The tradition, as well as the wrestling program as a whole, never returned. The university has not announced plans to bring it back, though fans still bring up the event when talking about past Boise State traditions.
Beauty and the Beast succeeded because it brought people together, placing two very different sports on the same floor and allowing each to share the spotlight.
Beauty and the Beast still lives in the memories of longtime fans, but many students on campus today have never experienced it. The event has been gone long enough that a newer generation only knows it through stories.
Boise State has not announced plans to reinstate wrestling or revive Beauty and the Beast, making a return unlikely in the near future. What once packed ExtraMile Arena with split-spotlight energy now belongs to a different era of Bronco athletics.
