Conant's Crivolio has designs on super senior season

As a child, Anthony Crivolio loved spending hours in a woodshop at his grandfather's house in Westchester.

"I loved being in there," he said. 'It was like a passion of mine."

Crivolio has always loved building and designing - so much so that he plans to major in engineering at Iowa next fall.

The Conant senior has also built quite a reputation in another endeavor.

Crivolio is one of the area's top all-around gymnasts - and he has designs on helping lead his team to another trip to the state finals.

"It feels awesome that we have such a good team my senior year," said Crivolio, who had the 19th-best score (50.8) in the state all-around finals last year at Lincoln-Way East High School. "I was very pumped up even before the season started.

"As a senior, I'm trying to pick everyone up and be encouraging to all my teammates. I want to see everyone coming together because I want to see us do well at state. I try to keep the energy going in the gym."

Crivolio, who was fourth in last year's Mid-Suburban League all-around competition (48.9), has been full of energy for a long time.

"When I was little, I used to jump while standing on my bed and I always would be doing handstands and things like that," he said. "My cousins would see me doing those things and asked me if I'd want to go to the Elk Grove Gymnastics Club where they were cheerleaders (and would be future Driscoll High cheerleaders)."

Crivolio took them up on the offer and the rest is history.

"Things just took off," he said. "My first coach (Sean Henderson) was always such a great motivator for me. He was a great gymnast himself and just barely missed being an alternate for the Olympics team. He was so excited about the sport when he taught you. He always told me that if you worked hard enough and wanted something bad enough, you could achieve it. And that meant a lot to me then because I wanted to make the Olympics when I was a little kid."

This season, he is hoping to help make Conant a strong state contender.

Crivolio was 10th or better in five of the six events at the MSL meet last spring.

"My favorite is the parallel bars," Crivolio said. "There are a lot of big tricks I want to learn. It's the biggest fear factor for me and I get the most enjoyment from that kind of situation. I think if you can achieve something big on the p-bars, people will like it."

Cougars coach Paul Kim likes the way Crivolio supports all his teammates.

"Sometimes he is like a fourth coach," said Kim, who is assisted by Mike Opsal and Katie Sagerer. "He'll give pointers to teammates. He'll help spot them for difficult tricks."

Crivolio loves being an all-arounder.

"I've always done all the events," he said. "It's just the way I was taught. I like having that pressure of all of them and it breaks things up at the meets. You don't have to sit and think about the same event a long time."

Crivolio has been at the sport a long time, all the way back to the days of jumping in his bed.

In college, he plans to compete at the club level unless he tries to walk on to the gymnastics team.

"He's constantly trying to get to the next level of gymnastics in all his events," Kim said. "He is a hard worker in the gym. He is a little bit of a perfectionist. He wants to perform everything to the perfect level."