Glenbard West's Le scores perfect 10 on vault

Timmy Le walked into a high school gymnastics summer camp four years ago and didn't stand out in any particular way.

"He was really like all the other freshmen," Glenbard West coach Frank Novakowski said. "He was scrawny and a little squirrely, and like many of the kids, he had never done gymnastics before."

Now he's one of the best gymnasts in the state and making history.

On Tuesday he became just the third gymnast in IHSA history - coincidentally all are Hilltoppers - to score a perfect 10 in an event, doing so on vault in a dual meet at Lyons. No one before Le had ever scored a 10 on that event in an IHSA boys gymnastics meet.

Last year as a junior, Le became Glenbard West's only state champion on parallel bars.

Those are some pretty amazing accomplishments for someone who had never vaulted or swung on the bars other than for adolescent playground fun during middle school recess.

"It's pretty hard to believe how far I've gotten," Le said. "It's awesome. It's really awesome to do this."

Amazingly, Le didn't know of his perfect score until he was riding on the bus from LaGrange to Glen Ellyn after the meet.

"At the end of the meet, (Novakowski) said he had something he wanted to tell me, but we'd have to wait," Le said. "So on the bus he told me I scored a 10."

Le's full twisting tsuk layout is the same vault he did last year when he placed second in the state with a 9.5, but he's polished his routine to the point where he's now reached perfection.

"I thought I had a chance of scoring a 10, but I thought this would be another 9.9 although I knew this was a better vault," he said. "Last time I had a deduction because of my legs and feet, but this time I totally stuck it."

While scoring a 10 is extremely difficult and rarely occurs, it was something that Novakowski thought someone as talented and hardworking as Le could accomplish.

It was the second time that one of Novakowski's gymnasts scored a 10. Alex Diab, now a standout at Illinois, reached that mark on high bar in 2012.

"He had stuck a 9.9 before and it was a pretty similar situation as with Alex Diab so we talked about that form break and if he could focus on that and do the rest of his routine that he could possibly score a 10," Novakowski said. "When he landed, he stuck it. He didn't move and it's tough from my perspective being up so close. I thought it was very good, but didn't know if he would go 9.9 or 9.95, but I did know he was better than when he went 9.9, but there's also the coach's perspective."

Undeniably a gym rat, Le's also received the benefit of additional training at Aerial Gymnastics under the tutelage of Josh Levin, who also starred at Glenbard West and shares perfection with him. Levin was the first IHSA gymnast to record a 10 and the only one to accomplish it at the state meet, earning that amazing double digit on pommel horse in 1996 while helping former coach Steve Kafka to the program's lone state title.

"Hearing this news about him really takes me back to my time at Glenbard West," Levin said. "Being able to coach Tim has been special. We're used to training kids from age 6-7 and up and he didn't start until he was 14. You knew there was something special about him. He's super talented, wants to compete and he's always putting in a lot of hours training."

He's also the latest to add to the legacy of Glenbard West boys gymnastics, which celebrated its 50th anniversary a few years ago, has advanced to state in four of the last five seasons and continues to add accomplishments beyond compare to its already rich history.