Naperville's Caquatto ready for something new
New friends, new teammates, new places, new coaches.
Little Mackenzie Caquatto is all grown up and experiencing the shift that happens when you migrate your success to new venues. Well, she's still little, but that's just the nature of elite-level gymnastics.
Caquatto, now a Naperville Central graduate and fresh off a trip to the World Championships in the Netherlands as a member of the U.S. National Team, is back training at Legacy Elite Gymnastics in Carol Stream for another month before venturing into new territory as a college freshman with new responsibilities.
“I just started doing my laundry,” Caquatto said with a laugh. “That's a big step because I need to do that in college. It's just weird. I've been on my own my parents work I'm on my own all day. I bring (sister Bridgette) lunch, gotta pick her up from school, drive here, do the little things that my mom and dad used to do for me. Run to the grocery store to get something, trying to help out a little bit. And they're trying to get me ready to go to college too.”
Caquatto isn't complaining. She's actually enjoying the change from a more predictable and monotonous routine to the less-demanding rigors that college gymnastics at the University of Florida will bring.
“The routines and everything are easier going from elite to college, and college gymnastics is all about fun and all about team, whereas what I was competing in was about individual most of the time,” Caquatto said, “except for Worlds where it was all about team, but you still want to do your best individually on the prelim stage to see if you can get in the finals.”
Though the classes may be harder in college, Caquatto won't miss high school and the schedule that went hand-in-hand with being a work-in-progress elite gymnast.
“School, gym, homework, school, gym, homework,” Caquatto said. “That's basically all it was. Sometimes I wasn't even caught up from the last trip and I was on another one already. It was really, really tough, but I made it through.”
She let out an audible sigh of relief after the next question: What outside of gymnastics are you looking forward to?
“I'm looking forward to kind of having a life,” Caquatto said with another laugh. “Getting to go out and have fun with my friends. There wasn't much of that in high school.”
You might think Caquatto is trading in her skill set and leotard for sun and swimsuit. You'd be wrong. Following a silver-medal finish by Team USA at the World Championships, in which Caquatto was flawless on her prelim events, the diminutive blonde is well aware of how close she is to something truly special, an Olympic medal.
“That's been my goal since I was a little kid,” Caquatto said. “Now that I've experienced Worlds and the feeling of being there, it relit a fire and I just want to keep going with it.”
Of course, leaving Illinois means leaving Bridgette, who will join her as a Gator in 2012, and her longtime coach Jiani Wu.
“It's really hard, especially being with her every day,” said Wu, who was on the Chinese national team that won the Olympic bronze medal in 1984. “But education is important.”
If nothing else, Caquatto is setting an example for all the girls who hope to follow in her large, growing footsteps, but it won't be easy watching her leave.
“It's going to be hard,” said Caroline Nice, 13, while sporting a Tim Tebow jersey Caquatto brought back from Gainesville for her. “We'll really miss her. She helps us get through the day and is really supporting and a real inspiration.”