Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of features profiling the eight members of the 2015 LSU Athletic Hall of Fame induction class. The inductees are gymnast April Burkholder, track hurdler Kim Carson, athletic trainer Mike Chambers, javelin thrower Laverne Eve, women’s basketball player Sylvia Fowles, athletic trainer Herman Lang, swimmer Todd Torres and football player Ebert Van Buren. They will be formally inducted during the Hall of Fame ceremony at 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4 in the L’Auberge Baton Rouge Events Center.
Sitting in her bed the night before the 2006 NCAA Gymnastics Championships, April Burkholder envisioned each of her four routines until she could picture them without error in preparation for the next day’s competition in Corvallis, Ore., where she would be performing for the last time wearing the Purple and Gold.
With her goals set on a national title on floor after dedicating her routine to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for the latter part of the season, Burkholder found herself talking to her teammates in the lobby about her beam routine.
She thought, “Why do y’all keep talking to me about beam right now? You’re going to make me nervous.”
Instead, she focused. It would be the last beam routine that she would ever execute, so she zoned in. It was she and the beam, and nothing would faze her.
Mounting the beam a final time, Burkholder blocked the crowd and everyone around her out, but right before her dismount, she heard cheers in the stands from the Georgia gymnasts, motivating her to finish her routine strongly.
Burkholder stuck her round-off double tuck and quickly ran to the restroom, not wanting to watch her competition or see the scores until the beam routines concluded.
“You did it! You did it!” head coach D-D Breaux told her upon her return.
Needing the final confirmation, Burkholder asked, “Did what?”
“You’ll have your name hanging up in the PMAC. That’s all I wanted,” Breaux replied.
With a 9.9125, April Burkholder won the third individual national title in LSU history as she claimed the 2006 NCAA beam national championship.
Three years earlier, Burkholder entered LSU’s practice gym for the first time feeling as if she had to catch up to the other talent in the room after having missed out on a year of proper preparation due to a gym fire destroying the equipment at the place she trained. She was all business upon her arrival, working to improve in any way with her eye set on being the best gymnast out there.
“You always have to be better – better than yourself, though. It didn’t matter what anyone else did. If you were better than yourself and you were trying to perfect yourself and focus on what you were doing, then nobody can really beat you,” she said.
During her freshman campaign, Burkholder compiled a team-leading 20 individual titles – six on floor, five on beam, four on vault, three in the all-around and two on bars.
On Friday, March 21, 2003, in a meet against Centenary and Texas Woman’s University, Burkholder shattered the school record in the all-around after scoring a 39.875 during the last meet of the regular season, scoring no less than a 9.950 on any event for the Tigers, a record that still stands today.
“There was not a whole lot of pressure on her, so she was able to relax and go through all four events,” said Breaux. “She was absolutely perfect, absolutely the best four events that I’ve seen an athlete put together.”
Two weeks later in the NCAA West Regional in Seattle, Wash., Burkholder captured another individual event crown on floor exercise with a 9.925, propelling LSU to the NCAA Championships with a second-place finish and a 195.700-195.675 advantage over host Washington.
“She’s definitely the person who could nail it for you in the end,” Breaux said. “She thrived under pressure.”
She knew her floor routine was going to be do-or-die because she treated each routine with the same intensity, no matter the score.
“Whenever I was in competition, I never paid attention to other teams,” Burkholder said. “I preferred not to know what was going on with the other team because all that is a distraction, especially in a sport like gymnastics where you’re striving to be perfect.
“You may know it’s a clutch situation because one of your teammates had a fall before you. You may feel a bit of extra pressure, but it didn’t change the fact that I always viewed it as I had to do my best, regardless. I couldn’t change what anyone else did around me. All I knew was that I could control me and my focus on my routines and that was it.”
Burkholder was named the SEC Freshman of the Year in 2003. Carrying her consistency through her next three seasons, Burkholder was named SEC Gymnast of the Year and NCAA Central Region Gymnast of the Year in 2004 and 2005, marking the first time an LSU gymnast earned conference athlete of the year honors.
Upon her graduation, Burkholder was the most decorated gymnast in LSU history, earning 14 All-America honors, capturing first-team honors on all four events her senior season. She had 108 individual titles, including 25 all-around titles during her tenure. Her 24 beam titles still stand as the school record today.
“You go with somebody for four years during her career, and she worked so hard academically,” Breaux said. “She really had to apply herself every single day in the classroom. To end her career with a national championship and as a finalist in four events, actually winning the title on her final performance in her last routine of her senior year was one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever experienced as a coach.”