Clovis' Oaks finds gymnastics success

CLOVIS - For most kids, the highlight of summer is frolicking in the pool, enjoying the rides and treats at the local fair, maybe a vacation or camping trip.

For Cannon Oaks, this past summer's highlight was at least as much fun. And probably a little more unique.

Though a member of Clovis Gymnastics Academy for less than a year, Cannon traveled with teammates to West Palm Beach during the summer and competed in the Stars and Stripes National competition.

Worth the trip, safe to say, because when the three days of training and competing were done, it was Cannon standing highest on the podium. As in, first place. As in, gold medalist with the Olympic theme playing. As in, Level 6 Male Double Mini National Champion.

As in, wow.

And yet Cannon - though his full name sounds like that of a majestic forest in Northern California, and his recent achievement is perhaps even more awe-inspiring - seems as low-key as they come, at least when being interviewed. When discussing his gold-medal summer, Cannon was mellow as can be.

"It was cool," he said. "I was just surprised that I won. Pretty proud."

Maybe that's as excited as it gets for a 12-year-old who has just begun seventh grade at Yucca Middle School. And maybe it's a good way of pacing himself, because there could be a lot more excitement to come.

"I think he can go as far as he wants to go," Clovis Gymnastics Academy trainer J.D. Hipp said. "He was a level 6 national champion, and we've been home from nationals (for a matter of weeks) and he's already doing level 8, level 9."

That would be impressive for a 12-year-old kid who had been involved in gymnastics since early elementary school. But one who had only been doing organized gymnastics for less than a year? Huh?

It began in his parents' backyard.

Chris and Megan Oaks stayed on to live in Clovis after an air force stint at Cannon Air Base. "We're civilians now," Megan said. "I can't imagine being anywhere else."

And behind the house in their adopted town, the Oaks' son Cannon was displaying the energy and restlessness of a kid early in the second decade of life.

"He self-taught himself how to do back flips in the backyard," Megan recalled. "So before he broke his neck or anything else we decided to put him in gymnastics. Better he learns how to fall correctly instead of falling and breaking anything.

"It was actually my husband's suggestion," Megan added. "(Cannon) was very receptive; he had been wanting to do gymnastics for a while, but we kept telling him no because we weren't sure if he would stick to it, if he would follow it out. We weren't certain if there was a talent there."

Despite his freelance gymnastics in the family backyard, Cannon didn't know what to expect when joining the Clovis Academy in late September of last year.

"It was kinda scary," he said, "but fun because I was able to compete against other kids to see how I should move up to be able to beat them."

He moved up fast. Two weeks after Cannon's first class, Hipp asked him to join the team. "So we knew there was great potential there," Megan said. "He was being asked to join the competitive team."

Cannon's early success didn't surprise Hipp, especially after he saw how dedicated Cannon was.

"It was a lot of work on his part," Hipp said. "He had a lot of fear to overcome, and that's never easy."

And Cannon had setbacks, the biggest coming at a competition last April in Fort Worth when he was performing a double mini. "It looks like a vault; I guess what everybody knows as the vault, the small trampoline that is kind of arched," Megan explained.

And that's when Cannon became a literal embodiment of the 'fall on your face' metaphor when he went right down on his. Splat!

"He looked as if he was a stuntman in a movie," Megan said, "because it's just arms and legs on the ground. So at that point we thought, 'Is this really what he needs to be doing?'"

The answer, as it turned out, was yes. Cannon battled through his struggles, competed at a state competition in Lubbock, then a regional event in Amarillo. Next came the nationals in Florida, where he was one of 15 boys competing at his level.

"He went up against six of them," Megan said, "and then later on in the day the other eight went. And we had to stay just to see what his placement was going to be as far as the final judging was concerned."

The judging went well for the Oaks family. Top of the heap.

Cannon made it to the peak of that podium, and though his face-planting in Fort Worth was only four months in the past, it seemed like light years.

"Face first to first place," Megan said. "So having that mom moment, watching my child - who was just a few months ago busting his face - be on the podium in first place, pride does not begin to describe how I was feeling in that moment."

All the Clovis competitors, in fact, performed admirably. Thomas Kissinger reached the level 6 podium, too, placing fifth.

As for Cannon, his career will continue, while he looks to compete at higher levels. Hipp thinks Cannon might be elite by 2021.

"As long as he keeps his head in the game," Hipp said. "It's a tough age, especially for boys."

Perhaps Cannon will indeed be elite soon. Maybe he will compete at the college level. Maybe he will someday participate in another kind of competition, the international kind that appears on television every four years.

"I don't know," Cannon said. "I haven't thought that far yet."