No one would know from watching that Justin Spring has achieved a celebrity-like status among collegiate gymnasts.

While waiting to take tumbling passes in Kenney Gym, he intently watches his teammates and gives a shout of approval. He then gracefully moves onto the mat, drawing an audience, and starts his sequence.

Senior teammate Adam Pummer likes to say Spring “gets real big in the air, real high.” The 2005 U.S. National High Bar Champion, who has set himself apart in NCAA Gymnastics, likes to keep the focus not on himself, but the 14 teammates he calls his brothers and the people who have most influenced his gymnastics career.

For 18 years, Spring has devoted his time and efforts to gymnastics. When he started at the age of three, he said he never formed goals or dreams of making it big. But after a trip to the junior international team camp when he was just 14-years-old to look at the seniors competing for a world title, getting a chance to do the same has been his goal and his life for more than a decade.

Spring will begin his own competition for a world title in the 2005 World Artistic Championships on Nov. 22 in Melbourne, Australia.

There he will be competing for medals in high bar,parallel bars and floor exercise. The format includes individual event championships (all-around and apparatus). The top eight in each apparatus from the qualification rounds advance to the finals Nov. 26-27.

The Burke, Va., native, earned a spot on the six-man team in last month’s two-day selection competition at the U.S. Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Spring won gold on the high bar at August’s 2005 Visa U.S. National Gymnastics Championships. That medal earned Spring a spot on the U.S. Senior National Team and a trip to the world team selection competition.

Spring went head-to-head with 18 of the world’s best male gymnasts and earned one of the six coveted spots.

While a minor neck strain forced Spring out of the second day of competition, the six members on the selection committee felt his 9.65 on parallel bars, a field best, and 9.4 on floor exercise proved worthy enough after the first day of competition. USA Gymnastics, Spring said, bases their selection criteria of who composes the team based on who has the best chance of medaling for the United States. Because of that Spring said he will take with him a positive attitude going into the meet.

“At this point you’re chosen by USA Gymnastics, and you have to believe that you’re supposed to be out there,” Spring said. “If you get intimidated, then you’re already defeated. If you go in there and do not think you are one of the best out there, you’ve already taken yourself down a level.”

Of the hundreds of Division-I men’s gymnasts in the nation, Spring is the only one competing in the World Competition. The team is composed of gymnasts from the Houston Gymnastics Academy and Team Chevron, but none from other universities – that honor falls to Spring alone.

Never the one to take all of the credit, Spring said going to Worlds speaks highly of Illinois’ program and head coach Yoshi Hayasaki.

“That proves that Illinois is capable of creating some of the finest gymnasts in the world,” Spring said. “Our program is definitely world-class; we have great facilities, great coaches, just a great support staff in general. I think that puts Illinois on the map nationally.”

It is at Illinois where Spring has learned some of the most elite levels of gymnastics in the world. Of the 180 gymnasts competing from 60 different countries, Spring’s routines are unparalled.

All three of his apparatus routines have 10.0 start values. His opening pass on floor includes a “triple-twisting double-back somersault” – a move first competed at the 2004 Olympics by a Korean gymnast who is the only other athlete to successfully completed it. It is the same story for high bar – Spring’s specialty. His rountine includes a double back over the bar, a release move, and then recatches the bar.

Spring has built an extensive resume since coming to Illinois.

In 2005 alone, Spring captured a U.S. National High Bar Championship, an NCAA Parallel Bar title and was named an All-American in parallel bars, high bar and the all-around. As a sophomore in 2004, he won an NCAA High Bar championship and a Big Ten floor exercise title, along with earning All-America status in the parallel bars and high bar.

Even as a freshman in 2003 the signs were there that Spring was unique; he was named the team’s Most Outstanding Gymnast by his teammates. Spring earned All-America honors on two events by placing fourth on floor exercise (9.287) and seventh on parallel bars (8.650) at the NCAA Championships.

Hayasaki, though, is confident that with Spring’s talent ability he will be able to leave Rod Laver Arena with a medal.

“In everybody’s eyes, including all the judges, he’s one of the best competing for the USA team. He’s one of the few gymnasts in the U.S. this year who has a chance to win a medal for the USA team,” he said. “If he can hit the routines that he’s doing right now, he will definitely have a chance because of the difficulty of all the routines he has put together.”

Hayasaki said now it is more of a psychological battle for Spring, as he works to maintain the rate of success he has already acheived.

By the time Spring graduated from Lake Braddock High School in 2002, he was an established member of the U.S. junior national team.

Spring took most of his recruiting trips with Pummer, they lived about four hours from each other at the time, and together the two decided after first visiting Illinois, no other school compared and that it left an “amazing lasting impression.”

Four years have since passed, and Spring, who admired the closeness of the team when he was looking into colleges, said that Illinois’ current team is above most in the country.

“We have a lot, a lot, a lot of character on this team,” Spring said. “I’m convinced that you could lock some of these guys just in a room of all white walls, and they would just have a great time. They’re hilarious, and we just laugh.”

That comraderie, Spring said, is what has gotten him through the four-hour practice days for Worlds.

Although Illinois does not begin its season until Dec. 9 in its Mixed Pairs meet, Spring said it’s his teammates’ motivation that has eased the at-times “physically demanding, mentally frustrating and monotonous” training that Worlds has required.

Spring said that one of the hardest things to deal with involves how the codes for gymnastics have changed and that his routines are not judged on the same level as the routines that his teammates are practicing.

Spring, though, is thankful that through the difficulty his teammates have continued to back him and wishes he could “cart all of them with.”

While Spring is proud of his accomplishments in international competitions, it is the work he does for Illinois that keeps him most motivated.

Spring considers what he does outside of USA gymnastics to be separate from his ultimate goal of winning a national championship for Illinois.

“That’s the thing with the NCAA national championship, everyone wants that trophy and wants to win at the end,” he said. “But how much are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to do to make it so you know it can happen? This is something I’ve wanted for so long and since I have been healthy enough lately, I have made the sacrifices and commitment to train to get to this point.”

His reason for wanting to win it so badly, he said, is because it is something to share with the team. With the teammates, who he said can entirely recite “Super Troopers,” and the group, who enjoys going canoeing and to Illinois football games together.

The self-described leader bleeds orange and blue, and although he said he is looking forward to Melbourne to see its location, he enjoys Campustown. Yet, on a campus inundated with men’s basketball coverage, Spring said some people lose sight of the meet’s importance.

“We just joke around and say, ‘Why didn’t we go into golf or something,’ because there’s really no big market for gymnastics,” he said. “The guys who are in it now have grown to love it. It really creates a kind of person, the respect and all the gymnasts are the same, they kind of have their heads on straight.”

Spring said he could not ask to be any other place right now as far as in the gymnastics world and said while it would be a small disappointment to leave without a medal, everything must be taken in stride since he is hopeful more opportunities will come around.

“My coaches have said, ‘You’re ready for this, you’ve worked for this,'” he said. “They’ve been on me about the little stuff, that’s really at this point what makes you stand out because there’s going to be tons of guys with 10.0 start values.”

The fact he is competing in the World Championships is something that did not hit him, he said, until a few weeks ago when a recruit came to Illinois and said it was an honor to meet him. Despite the attention he sometimes receives, he wants to keep the same mindset he always has.

“If you let it get to you, it will take you out of your comfort zone,” Spring said. “You have to get there and take it as it comes, and hopefully, everything will work out alright.”