Melanie Goulding is in her second season as assistant coach of the Buffalo State acrobatics and tumbling program, as the team begins its first season of competition in 2024.
Goulding brings significant experience in acrobatics and tumbling to the Buffalo State coaching staff. She most recently served as a volunteer assistant acrobatics and tumbling coach at Gannon University in the 2021-22 school year.
Prior to Gannon, Goulding was the head acrobatics and tumbling coach at Glenville State College for two seasons from 2018-2020. Goulding guided the team to its best record in program history in 2018-19 (6-2), finishing as runner up in the Mountain East Conference (MEC) Tournament and achieving a national ranking of No. 9 in the season. In her time at Glenville State, Goulding's athletes claimed three MEC Event Final Championship titles, in Six-Element Acro, Synchronized Pyramid, and Six-Element Tumbling. Four student-athletes were also named All-MEC Honor Athletes.
At the national level, Goulding coached five National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association (NCATA) Event Final qualifiers, in Seven-Element Acro, Inversion Pyramid, Duo Pyramid, Duo Toss, and Duo Tumbling, as well as one student-athlete, Jackie Deary, to a spot on the NCATA All-Academic Team. Six of her athletes were also named NCATA All-Academic Honor Athletes in the 2019-20 season.
Goulding was also responsible for recruiting the largest class for the program with 17 new student-athletes and coached the winner of the Female Athlete of the Year award at Glenville State.
A native of West Seneca, Goulding is the first athlete from the Buffalo area to compete in acrobatics and tumbling at the collegiate level. She competed alongside Alia Stark as teammates at Alderson Broaddus University from 2013-2017. As a student-athlete, Goulding earned the Thomas Lerario Leadership Scholarship for excellent leadership skills for the team and the community.
Goulding has also served as the the Regional Sales and Operations manager at Orange Theory Fitness in Buffalo since 2019.
