For more than 15 years, Tanya Schmidt of Macomb coached the tumbling and gymnastics teams at the YMCA of McDonough County, taking numerous award-winning athletes to state and national competitions each year. Now, Schmidt and her spouse, Dan, are taking their love of the sport to a wider audience through their new business, PSGAEvents.
The couple established Poeller-Schmidt Gymnastic & Athletic Events LLC (PSGAEvents) in March 2026 as a family-owned athletic company focused on increasing access to gymnastics and athletic training opportunities in rural and underserved Illinois communities. Through mobile gymnastics and tumbling equipment, the business offers gymnastics and power tumbling private and small group lessons; acro-dance tumbling and stunting private and small group lessons; and chair aerobics and Golden Rhythm classes to help individuals with mobility and balance. While the programs are mobile, the 'home base' is the Christian Community Center in Bushnell.
'We're focusing on creating safe, positive spaces where children and adults can explore movement, build strength and celebrate their progress,' she said.
'Gymnastics, tumbling, dance, and similar disciplines require highly specialized coaching and expertise, much like football, basketball, or any other elite sport.
These athletes train yearround because strength, flexibility, endurance, and technical precision must be continually maintained.'
Schmidt and her staff are USTA and USGA certified coaches, and she has worked with gymnastics equipment vendors to make the programs PSGAEvents offers obtainable, she added.
A Blueprint for Success Schmidt shared that in March 2024 she ruptured her ACL, with the initial surgery failing. She's had additional surgeries, and during her healing and recovery, she started thinking more about branching out from the YMCA to start her own business to move athletes to the next level.
'Places like the YMCA provide wonderful starter programs for soccer, football, tumbling and more.
They provide the basics, but for sports like soccer and football, when the season is done, it's done. Tumbling and gymnastics is never really done,' she explained.
'Our tumbling and gymnastics program is phenomenal; however, I realized we were outgrowing our space and once the athletes reached a certain level, there wasn’t much more they could do.
'I love gymnastics, and really fell into this at the Y. I was a mental health counselor for kids for years, but needed to do something else so when we moved to Macomb, I started working at the YMCA. Before I knew it became the director of the gymnastics program,' Schmidt shared. 'I found a medium that I loved and that was making an impact on, and a difference for, kids. I knew this is what I was meant to do.'
When Schmidt tore her ACL, she said she looked at her husband one day and told him she needed to strike out on her own to make gymnastics even more accessible in rural areas and to provide that next level training 'I had companies who wanted to hire me, but that would mean leaving Macomb, but I didn't want to do that,' she pointed out.
'I knew that small towns are capable of producing amazing athletes, and I understand the small-town market. I made a market here without even realizing it.'
During her years as a coach, her work caught the eye of Steven Cook and Christi Copeland, who are consultants in the gymnastics world. Schmidt shared her concept of a mobile gym, taking the sport to the students, rather than the students (and their families) making what could be a 30-plus mile trek sometimes three days a week to the gym.
'Steven was interested in watching this grow and what I would do with this.
Normally he charges a lot of money, but he has been willing to provide suggestions and guidance,' she said. 'I became a pilot project by accident.'
She began looking up different pieces of equipment that were quality, yet that had functionality. The technical creators - Ben Edkins, owner of Carolina Gym Supply, and Schmidt's husband, Dan - are the two technical-driven minds she knew could develop what she was looking for in mobile form. Currently, the Schmidts have purchased three airtracks (portable tumbling runways, similar to rod floors), that can be set up and adjusted to serve the needs of tumblers or gymnasts. They also have acquired multi-functional cylinder mats to work on blocking roundoffs, and vaulting, and bridge body positioning for tumbling, and they have panel mats, three balance beams and three single solo training bars. They're currently working on developing portable uneven bars, as well as have their sights on a vault trainer table, as well a large air Acon gymnastics floor and Speith standalone bars. The couple can set up their whole gym in about 30 minutes, she said.
'We're making this sport more accessible. There are so many kids who excel at this, or could excel, but there is currently no outlet for them with immediate access,' Schmidt added. 'Last week, Ben (Edkins) invited me to a trade show at tumbling nationals and I thought I'd meet people who were doing this to learn more. Turns out people wanted to meet me to see how we're doing this as we're the guinea pigs. We are the blueprint.'
The Christian Community Center in Bushnell serves as PSGAEvent's 'home base' three days a week, but the couple is also looking at spaces in other communities to make a concerted effort to move north of Macomb to smaller towns.
'We're not competing with Macomb as we're focused on moving athletes to the next level if that's their goal,' she added. 'My goal in the next few years is to build something in Good Hope, or even further north.
My dream is a fabricated suspension sports facility, which is an affordable way to build a very large gymnastics facility that can serve up to gold, platinum, diamond and sapphire level athletes, as well as elite tumbling and trampoline.'
Summer Camps
The first set of summer camps were offered July 6-10 in Bushnell. Additional camps will be held July 20-24 at the Macomb Fieldhouse and July 27-31 at the Union Church in LaHarpe.
Cost and information for private and small group lessons can be found at psgaeventsllc.com/news.
A full slate of new progressive classes will be available in August.
Final Thoughts
'I want to see this concept we've created grow and take off. I grew up doing this, and if not for gymnastics, I don't know if I would've been a motivated student. Kids who don't have access to this, it matters to take this to them,' Schmidt concluded. 'There is value for kids who take part in the sport. They gain ownership, confidence, and accountability. That's what this is all about. The Y has done a phenomenal job as a starter program, and Nick (Knowles, YMCA CEO) has been a huge supporter.
Thanks to the Y, I found my love for coaching and teaching, and it just blossomed.'
For more information, visit psgaeventsllc.com, or call (309) 863-5267, or email [email protected] or [email protected].
