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Athletic greatness comes in all shapes and all sizes.

It doesn't come naturally, but is achieved from hard work, diligence and adversity along the journey.

There's opportunity and there's always struggle.

There is triumph and there is defeat, and there is always a story behind the glory.

It's no secret that one of the hottest tickets in Louisiana sports is LSU women's gymnastics.

Its excellence in its greatest, and is what LSU is about going to be the try to be the best in what we do.

A trend that's been on the rise since April.

Burkholder flipped, twisted and wowed fans in the back in the mid 2000.

She catches your eye because she was just that good.

She soared into the national spotlight as a teenager, training and competing with team USA, where she was a junior Olympic champion in 1997 99 and 2001.

Well, I was at Karolyis gymnastics when I first met April Burkholder, and she was this beautiful little bright eyed, blue eyed, little blond, talented gymnast, and she had a ton of energy.

I loved seeing another young athlete with such talent, and that's really what stood out.

As a young child.

LSU is at the pinnacle right now in college gymnastics and the crowds are fantastic.

It wasn't always like that, but a young lady who 20 years ago started LSU to its current path.

April, welcome back to Louisiana.

You know, when I talk to other people about you, certain words always come up.

One is ferocious.

One is unbelievably driven.

One is diligent beyond belief.

And it all points to the fact that that maybe you had another gear, maybe you had another expectation of yourself that not everybody is capable of possessing that much drive.

Was there a point in your career where you said, I love this, and I'm going to be the very best I can, and I'm going to go to LSU and we're going to accomplish these things.

Was there kind of a seminal moment there?

I think there was always something inside of me that, you know, without knowing that I was going to love the sport because I started when I was three.

So you can't really know that it was just something that, you know, it's all, you know.

I mean, I was in the gym ten hours a day when I was ten years old, and it was just, the love of pushing myself, I think, every single day, even within each day.

Pushing yourself to be better than the next one.

And that's just what the sport is about.

I mean, you're you get up there in practice and you do one more routine, one being routine, and then you go and do another one while you're trying to be better than the last one, you just did.

So you're always, always striving to be better.

And so, I mean, that's followed me throughout life too.

You've been honest about some other struggles you had and that was to become where you wanted to become, academically and prepare yourself for college.

And it wasn't a smooth transition for you, was it?

After hours and hours and hours and the priority being gymnastics as opposed to maybe academics?

Yeah.

So I mean, I didn't even go to sixth grade.

It was like two weeks of sixth grade at public school.

But, I mean, I was kind of getting yelled at everywhere I went.

I was, you know, driving an hour in the morning, 530 in the morning to get to practice at 6:30 a.m., practice till 930 or 1030, but school started at eight and show up to school late.

Then at school is out at 350.

I got to be at practice at four and then I'm getting yelled at there because I'm changing and eating a snack in the car and then, training until eight 3930 at night, driving an hour back home, doing homework, going to sleep, waking up, doing it all over again.

Well, I couldn't do it all, so I kind of had to choose one.

And then by the time I was in eighth grade, my coaches, the Karolyis, had retired after 96 Olympics.

So then I went to an alternative school with another teammate.

From eight til the first half of 10th grade.

And that was I mean.

There's nothing.

Normal.

That was nothing normal about it.

And the education definitely suffered, you know, and getting to college, I mean, even just trying to get there, I was, had the scholarship, athletically waiting on me, but I had to get eligible academically.

So, you know, getting into college, I had my mind made up that I wanted to graduate in four years, and that was another challenge I gave myself.

So, but I did.

When we finally landed, her was the same time that that LSU women's basketball landed.

Simone.

So here we had these two incredibly talented, beautiful female athletes on our campus at the same time.

And there was so much, so much gain and so much reward moving forward with April.

April brought excellence to LSU gymnastics from her first day on campus, including 20 individual titles and being named the 2003 SEC freshman of the year.

The personality came out.

She became a choreographer, she did a lot of dancing, and you could really see that she was in her element.

You kind of modernized the concept that put a little jazz, put a little pizzazz into a floor routine, as well as all of the required elements.

Yeah.

It was it was fun, honestly.

And I was choreographing my own before I got to college.

So that freshman year routine that I had, I choreographed back home before I got to LSU, and then it evolved from there.

And then I started choreographing some of my teammates for teams.

She would continue to raise the standard throughout her collegiate career.

Ten oh twice on beam.

1004 times on floor.

2006 being champion 2005 Central Region Gymnast of the year oh four, NCAA Central Region Gymnast of the year that list can go on and on, but in all, she claimed 108 individual titles and LSU record eight career perfect hands.

What she indispensable?

Yeah.

What she brought to the program was a real professional, a real polished look, a style and a self-confidence and the kind of gymnastics that she wants to do.

And I think some of those years were probably her best years of gymnastics, which is amazing to see.

Not only she was a great, talented young gymnast, but she evolved into a talented young woman into college.

And that's really exciting.

Yeah, to have watched.

I didn't know all the intricacies of gymnastics and the small things which make such a difference, but what I did know was the all that it generates when you see the human body do that with grace and strength and agility and confidence, and it's you don't have to know the name of the event, but you see something and you go, wow, I don't believe what I just saw.

So you kind of know when it's good, even though if you don't know the particulars.

Right.

And I think that striving for perfection in gymnastics.

Yeah.

And not having those deductions, I mean, all the way down from, you know, pointing your toes and straight legs and legs together and all those things is what makes it look easy.

And so, you know, I think that's also the hard part is people don't know it's really hard.

And if we made it look hard, then you actually see how hard it is.

I'm glad you put easy in quotes.

Okay.

I want to go back a few years, because the terminology that everybody knows now was kind of introduced to gymnastics fans in the United States.

And that's the word twisties.

And everybody knows from Simone Biles making it, known, that that was something that affects you.

What is twisties and did it ever affect you?

How how how does that come to play?

And in gymnastics.

It definitely affected me.

And even in college, which most people didn't know.

But I got a mental block on vault and I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's just a vault thing, but, I mean, it's where you get lost in the air and it's almost.

Like, get lost in the.

Air.

You get lost in the air.

So imagine, you know, your body is doing this same skill over and over and over and over, and it almost starts going against you because your brain, you have muscle memory, you kind of have to take your brain out of it and let your body do it, knows how to do.

But at the same time, you're so focused that your brain has to be involved.

And sometimes it just I don't know if the wires get crossed, but, it just you get lost in the air.

And that's a very, very scary sound.

Very scary.

Yeah, but it happened to me on vault.

It just everything goes so fast and you have too much momentum to stop.

And I'd run down the runway, and then right before I get to the vault, had to run to the side because I just had this, that moment.

And I didn't want to kill myself.

I know gymnastics is a little more complicated than other sports, and that's probably the hardest part about getting that draw is when you watch it.

If you don't know all the rules and you don't know all the deductions and you just kind of see a bunch of flips and you don't know, you know that hard was that hard.

And most people just know, like, this is the stick.

If she stuck it, then, you know, it was good.

But there's so many other things that go into it that just the average person doesn't know.

In 2025, April was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, joining her collegiate coach, Deedee Breaux, with the state's top honor.

The program continued to grow.

The crowds continued to grow.

She was the start of that new.

Tell me about what you think about the LSU gymnastics program right now, which on the LSU campus has the highest average attendance of any event other than football?

That's amazing here.

And I did not know that until today.

So I'm just really proud.

And to see the energy going back, I mean, it's just it's it's an amazing experience.

And I'm almost jealous that we didn't have all that, all the lights in the fire.

And I mean, it's it's a whole production now.

And I think it's great.

I can see how it did evolve into being, you know, number two behind football, because it is just such a fun time.

I'm gonna throw you a curveball as we wind this up.

What's something that most people don't know about?

April Burkholder I feel like I've had a few lives that I've lived.

I had my my gymnastics career, obviously.

And then I started to have somewhat of a dance career, and was pursuing a music career.

And then now, you know, I have a another career, just professionally.

So I just, I think there's just a lot of hats that I've worn and and.

A new baby.

And a new baby.

And so now I get to be the mom and wear that hat, so I don't know.

I mean, I broke five bones before I was five years old, cracked my skull open when I was two.

How many serious injuries did you have?

I had two compound open fractures and the same place to my left arm, with one surgery in between to get the metal out because the bone was growing over the metal.

And they almost amputated it the second time.

Those were the major, major ones.

And outside of that, I mean, I tore at my ankle.

The same ankle so bad it's, you know, dangling from a thread.

And I want to make sure that I can look back and say, yeah, you know, I gave it my all.

And, you know, whatever comes of that comes with that.

So, I mean, this is kind of the icing on the cake.