Central Michigan University Athletics
Hall of Fame 2026: Drive for Perfection, Resilience Were Hallmarks for Standout Gymnast
10/5/2026 1:00:00 PM | General, Gymnastics, Our Stories
Third in a series of profiles of members of the 2026 Class of the Marcy Weston CMU Athletics Hall of Fame. The class comprises basketball player Amy Backus, wrestler David Bolyard, football player Ken Ealy, coach Jim Hornak, volleyball player Kaitlyn (McIntyre) Renzi and gymnast Brittany (Petzold) Franklin. The Class will be inducted during a ceremony in McGuirk Arena at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16. Admission to the induction ceremony is free and open to the public. The six members will be introduced during the CMU-Western Michigan football game at Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 17.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – Gymnastics is about the never-ending quest for perfection and delivering when it counts.
Britteny (Petzold) Franklin did that, on both fronts, during a brilliant four-year career at Central Michigan.
Franklin competed for the Chippewas from 2011-14, earning the Mid-American Conference Gymnast of the Year Award in 2013, claiming the MAC all-around title in 2012, and the league's uneven bars crown in 2011.
She was a three-time First Team All-MAC honoree, played a critical role in bringing six league team titles – two regular season, four MAC Championships – to Mount Pleasant while averaging a sterling 9.900 on both uneven bars and floor exercise, was named to the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association Scholastic All-America Team four times, and earned Academic All-MAC honors three times.
Hailing from suburban Detroit's Shelby Township, Franklin earned a bachelor of science degree with a major in health fitness and preventative rehabilitation from CMU in 2014 and then an MBA from Wagner College in New York.
As impressive as Franklin's athletic and academic achievements are – and they indeed are quite impressive – what she has done since is awe-inspiring.
Her time at CMU, she says, helped lay the groundwork for where she is today.
"A huge thing is time management," she says in reflecting on the lessons that achieving at a high level as a student-athlete bring. "We would go and lift (weights) in the morning and then we would go to class all morning long. Then we would have to go to the training room around lunchtime, 1 o'clock. Then we would have practice from 1-5 and then after practice, we had to ice and get treatment, and then after that sometimes we had classes at night too or we would go back and study.
"I think now it's helped so much being a mom, having a schedule set for my kids."
Franklin lives with her husband, Eric, an assistant football coach at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y. She works remotely but frequently makes the 5-hour drive to the Penn campus in Philadelphia or anywhere else her position with the Wharton School takes her. They have two children, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year old son.
"Central taught me, because (gymnastics is) such high stakes there, how to handle pressure," she says. "We had championship-caliber meets every year. There's so much pressure because it's one meet, and you basically have to nail that meet to win the championship.
"And so being able to handle that pressure, I think, is huge, and that has definitely helped me in the world today because there's so much pressure with my job."
Gymnastics, she says, taught her to continually refine her routines and strive for the nearly unattainable perfect 10. More importantly, it taught her to get up and carry on.
"In the gym," she says, "you kind of learn that not every routine will be flawless and what matters is having the resilience to bounce back, and the discipline to show up every single day and drive to keep improving.
"That is really important. Not everything is perfect in the world today and bouncing back and showing up for your kids, and teaching them that too, I think, is really important."
Franklin had her choice of any of a number of universities to attend and compete in gymnastics coming out of Eisenhower High School. She chose CMU, she says, because her future teammates made her feel welcomed from the get-go, and the coaching staff a – current head coach Christine MacDonald, herself a former CMU gymnast, as an assistant at the time – made her feel wanted.
Turns out, Franklin was the right fit for CMU Gymnastics, and the university on the whole was the right fit, and the right launching pad, for her.
"Developing lifelong relationships," she says, "Central really helped me to get me out of my shell that way. To this day, some of my best friends are from my team and having formed those relationships help me today in the workplace. We move constantly because of my husband's job. So being able to form those strong lifelong relationships everywhere we go has been really great too."
Britteny (Petzold) Franklin did that, on both fronts, during a brilliant four-year career at Central Michigan.
2026 MARCY WESTON CMU ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME CEREMONY
Date: Friday, Oct. 16, 2026
Time: 6 p.m. ET
Location: McGuirk Arena Main Floor
Admission: Free and open to the public
Franklin competed for the Chippewas from 2011-14, earning the Mid-American Conference Gymnast of the Year Award in 2013, claiming the MAC all-around title in 2012, and the league's uneven bars crown in 2011.
She was a three-time First Team All-MAC honoree, played a critical role in bringing six league team titles – two regular season, four MAC Championships – to Mount Pleasant while averaging a sterling 9.900 on both uneven bars and floor exercise, was named to the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association Scholastic All-America Team four times, and earned Academic All-MAC honors three times.
Hailing from suburban Detroit's Shelby Township, Franklin earned a bachelor of science degree with a major in health fitness and preventative rehabilitation from CMU in 2014 and then an MBA from Wagner College in New York.
As impressive as Franklin's athletic and academic achievements are – and they indeed are quite impressive – what she has done since is awe-inspiring.
Her time at CMU, she says, helped lay the groundwork for where she is today.
"A huge thing is time management," she says in reflecting on the lessons that achieving at a high level as a student-athlete bring. "We would go and lift (weights) in the morning and then we would go to class all morning long. Then we would have to go to the training room around lunchtime, 1 o'clock. Then we would have practice from 1-5 and then after practice, we had to ice and get treatment, and then after that sometimes we had classes at night too or we would go back and study.
"I think now it's helped so much being a mom, having a schedule set for my kids."
Franklin lives with her husband, Eric, an assistant football coach at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y. She works remotely but frequently makes the 5-hour drive to the Penn campus in Philadelphia or anywhere else her position with the Wharton School takes her. They have two children, a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year old son.
"Central taught me, because (gymnastics is) such high stakes there, how to handle pressure," she says. "We had championship-caliber meets every year. There's so much pressure because it's one meet, and you basically have to nail that meet to win the championship.
"And so being able to handle that pressure, I think, is huge, and that has definitely helped me in the world today because there's so much pressure with my job."
Gymnastics, she says, taught her to continually refine her routines and strive for the nearly unattainable perfect 10. More importantly, it taught her to get up and carry on.
"In the gym," she says, "you kind of learn that not every routine will be flawless and what matters is having the resilience to bounce back, and the discipline to show up every single day and drive to keep improving.
"That is really important. Not everything is perfect in the world today and bouncing back and showing up for your kids, and teaching them that too, I think, is really important."
Franklin had her choice of any of a number of universities to attend and compete in gymnastics coming out of Eisenhower High School. She chose CMU, she says, because her future teammates made her feel welcomed from the get-go, and the coaching staff a – current head coach Christine MacDonald, herself a former CMU gymnast, as an assistant at the time – made her feel wanted.
Turns out, Franklin was the right fit for CMU Gymnastics, and the university on the whole was the right fit, and the right launching pad, for her.
"Developing lifelong relationships," she says, "Central really helped me to get me out of my shell that way. To this day, some of my best friends are from my team and having formed those relationships help me today in the workplace. We move constantly because of my husband's job. So being able to form those strong lifelong relationships everywhere we go has been really great too."
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