Wesley Haagensen is a perfectionist. It is only after a skill has been performed countless times – in a relentless pursuit of accuracy – that he feels comfortable with it. His understanding of a skill is revealed through numbers.

And his desire for perfection is most evident in the early evening hours when Kenney Gym is nearly desolate after the men’s and women’s teams have finished their nightly practices. His perfection is a weakness he often calls overwhelming; something that makes him less efficient and a part of his personality that he is trying to change.

But after mounting the still rings, holding his five-foot-five frame with unwavering determination and focus, it is obvious he wants nothing to do with mediocrity.

“Maybe I want things too bad,” says the sophomore all-arounder from Belleville, Ill. “I like to win, I don’t like getting beat by people. If I’m not winning, I’m not happy.”

But Haagensen’s winning form has been continually challenged this season. Now he often has to take his nothing-but-the-best attitude and move on – which goes against everything he wants to do.

Haagensen often forgets that his mind and his body are sometimes still unable to cooperate. Just nine months ago, in June, he had surgery on his left shoulder to repair a torn labrum, which lubricates and holds the shoulder socket in place. It was a surgery, Haagensen says, that was inevitable and part of the “wear and tear” of competing in gymnastics since he was seven years old.

After hundreds of hours of rehabilitation lifting small weights, working with bungees and stretching, he has regained some of the rhythm he is used to. The goal, Illinois head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said, was to bring Haagensen back one meet at time, gradually increasing his event load until he reached all-around capability.

And although he is getting more comfortable with his sets, he is still frustrated because in his mind it is still not good enough. With only two meets left in the team’s schedule – the Big Ten Championships in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 24-25 and the NCAA Championships in Norman, Okla., on April 6-8 – he is hoping to show others around the country what he is capable of. He is already the winner of eight event titles and a Big Ten Gymnast of the Week award (Feb. 23-March 1) after he claimed four event titles on the floor exercise, vault, high bar and all-around. He also notched a career-high 9.400 on floor, bringing success both individually and for the team helping it beat Illinois-Chicago, despite his shoulder’s limitations.

“He will work until an hour past practice is done, which he has done a couple times, just to get something right,” says sophomore teammate and housemate Chris Silcox. “He needs to get stuff done more than most people just to be positive and it usually pays off.”

During the 2006 season, Haagensen has competed in the all-around competition on three occasions – Feb. 11 versus Temple, Feb. 25 against Illinois-Chicago and March 5 versus Iowa – putting up a season-high score of 54.000 points in the latter meet. These scores pale in comparison to the 55.950 he put up against Minnesota on Jan. 22, 2005 as a freshman. But the NCAA committee’s newer and stricter scoring scale may also be a cause of the lower numbers.

Haagensen says his success during the season-ending championships will depend on his ability to focus. He says he must concentrate harder to stay ahead of his competition.

“I try to do a lot of mental preparation as far as visualization and imagery,” Haagensen says. “I really try to focus myself in the competition so when I do go into the competition, it almost feels as if I’ve already been there. There’s no surprise, there’s nothing new, nothing shocking and nothing out of the ordinary.”

Last year, though, there was more time to get prepared, he says. The lack of preparation this season has made it the most frustrating experience in his 13 years of gymnastics. His preparation and readiness for college gymnastics when he came to Illinois was obvious. He was given Big Ten Rookie of the Year honors, marking the first time an Illini gymnast had received the award since 1995.

Haagensen’s award came as no surprise to Hayasaki since Haagensen had been posting some very high scores in the all-around competition. Hayasaki believed that no one else had Haagensen’s talent and the coaches in the Big Ten took notice.

Even though the all-around competition has been straining and stressful on his left shoulder this season, Hayasaki says Haagensen’s natural ability to excel on all six events is what will allow him to be a contender when the fight for the NCAA all-around national title heats up this season. Hayasaki says it’s his desire that will get him there. Although competing in six events is “a little harder for him,” Silcox believes his housemate enjoys the responsibility.

“I think he’s one of the guys who would rather do all of the events and have a little bit more responsibility, than do one event really well and be able to carry the team (only) that far,” Silcox says.

But being limited in the all-around because of the timing problems with his shoulder is something strange to Haagensen – just as being limited in gymnastics is also foreign. His Big Ten Championships and NCAA Championships goals this season are still high; they only include hitting every routine. He has no specific expectations, a far cry from the confidence he had last season at the Big Ten team finals when he recorded a school-record and career-high 9.850 on the still rings. To Haagensen, performing on events such as rings is as natural as breathing. Now that ease has been disrupted because rings causes the most pain on Haagensen’s still-healing left shoulder.

Haagensen was born on Dec. 21, 1985 and started gymnastics when he was seven years old after his grandma had the idea to enroll him in a class in his hometown of McAlester, Okla. He then followed his coach Jason Pearsons from their small gym to another, larger gym in Edmond, Okla. Since that time, Haagensen has devoted himself to being a student of gymnastics. Before he came to Illinois, he competed in the Junior Olympic Nationals every year since 1998, when he finished fourth, to become a two-time J.O. National Champion, once in 2000 and again in 2003.

After another move with Pearson to the St. Louis Gymnastics Center in 2002, Haagensen was chosen to participate in the Junior Pan American Championships later that year. A second-place finish made his name known internationally. His daily structured four-hour practices advanced his ability, and Haagensen credits Pearson as being the most influential person in his career.

“Jason went out of his way (for me),” Haagensen says. “If it wasn’t for the things that he did for me, I don’t know if I would be in gymnastics right now.”

And for an Illinois team on the verge of winning a National Championship in just a few short weeks, its team makeup would have been completely different if Haagensen had not come to the University that has one of the greatest gymnastics traditions in the country.

Ultimately, Haagensen says the decision to come to Illinois was one that he would make again because he has been able to work out with many other talented people who have become his best friends.

Watching his teammates has also given him a different perspective on the sport he has grown to love. With nothing to do but sit in Kenney Gym during preseason workouts, Haagensen says he was able to observe – able to observe teammate and two-time U.S National team member and seven-time All-American Justin Spring. While watching for the technical aspects of Spring’s performances, Haagensen says he tried to simulate his style. From the time watching the senior co-captain with the laid-back style who does not need the same amount of repetition to perfect skills, Haagensen says he has realized he has defined a style that is all his own. It’s a matter of two kinds of styles, says Haagensen, an accounting major. But although he has realized his weaknesses after surgery, he has focused on seeing the silver lining. He has been able to spend more time on events that he used to give less attention.

Because floor exercise and vault put no stress on his injured shoulder, he has been consistently hitting those events throughout the season. Of his eight event titles this season, four have come on vault with his season-best coming against Iowa and Michigan on Feb. 18 and one floor exercise title (9.4) at UIC on Feb. 25. Haagensen currently ranks ninth in the nation on floor exercise with an average score of 9.350 and fourth on vault with an average score of 9.400.

Although he is putting up leading numbers with a still-not-recovered shoulder, he knows that being an actual leader is something that will come later.

“I would like to say, ‘Yes, I see myself as a leader,’ but I feel like I have so many more things going on right now that I’m just trying to get everything done,” he says. “I would like to spend more time contributing to the team aspect – I try to when I have a chance – but right now it’s not my role, I’m not the team leader, I have other things to get done.”

But the future sports agent says he sees himself filling that role in the time to come. He will get his chance as early as next season. Illinois’ core of four seniors – Spring, Adam Pummer, Anthony Russo and Ted Brown – graduate in May. And with no junior class on this year’s No. 4-ranked team, the chance will come sooner rather than later.

He knows he has a better chance to win his desired all-around title in the next two years. Right now, he says he is focused on walking out of the Lloyd Noble Center on Oklahoma’s campus with a first-place team trophy and Illinois’ first National Championship since 1989. But whatever the outcome, Silcox says the “fighter” in Haagensen will come through.

“He puts everything together when we need it,” Silcox says. “If we need a routine to hit, he’s usually the one we can count on.”