SAN ANTONIO – Spirit Athletics Gems, now in its seventh season, has been named the best cheer and gymnastics business in SA Picks 2025.
Owner and head coach, Roland Soto, said this year is a memorable one.
“The fact that we got SA Picks means everything to me,” Soto said. “It also makes me feel everything that my brother and I started to build up is paying off now.”
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With his years of cheer and coaching experience, Soto knows how to put together a winning composition for his athletes and his gym.
He said the competitive sport of cheer is expensive and the price is typically out of range for many kids interested in it.
Soto is proud that his business offers affordable prices to families.
Spirit Athletics practices a perfection before progression training model, he said. However, their core element is family dynamics.
“We are a family here. We preach it, we live it, and we are it,” Soto said.
He also said the “family first” credo has spread across the city by word of mouth.
One of those who heard about the Spirit Athletics is Eliza Hand, one of the newest members of the Elite Two squad.
She’s been with the gym for less than a year.
She said she had heard about the Gems and was looking for a place to enhance her skills.
“I came in ‘cause I wanted to try something new, and I came in and it felt like a family, like I already belonged here,” she said.
She shared her satisfaction with her progress and her advancement in tumbling difficulty, along with the support and care she receives from her teammates and coaches.
That family feeling helped assure her mom, Katherine Hand, that Spirit Athletics was the right place for her daughter.
She mentioned that Soto and the other coaches invest time and effort into recognizing Eliza Hand as an individual, not just an athlete.
“If they don’t feel safe to come talk to us about something then they can go to him or another coach and tell them if they don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents,” Katharine Hand said.
Soto said he hopes his athletes know they have a family to draw strength from when life takes twists, so they can stick the landing.
It is something he knows firsthand.
He relied on that strength to maintain the gym’s spirit after the loss of his identical twin brother, Ronald, who was also a co-owner.
“My family never really knew what this industry meant to us, but ... in 2021, we lost my brother to COVID, and it hit not just my family but our program very hard,” Soto said.
It was his blood family and his Gems family — the athletes, parents and staff — that had his back, giving him a solid footing to stand and now be recognized.
When asked by KSAT what he would like to say to all those who voted for Spirit Athletics as the best cheer-gymnastics business in San Antonio, he expressed his thanks.
“I appreciate everybody that voted for us,” he said. “My families who are here at the gym, families that left us that know what we instill here. I appreciate you. I love you. Once a gem, always a gem.”
Spirit Athletics Gems is located at 7450 Reindeer Trail, which is just north of the intersection of Huebner Road and Bandera Road.