THE FRONT ROW WITH BRUCE BOURQUIN: Friday, Oct. 28, 2016: Learning the ropes

The time Caden Severtson showed signs he could one day become a gymnast was while he attended his older sister’s ninth birthday party six years ago.

Caden climbed a rope that went all the way to the wooden beam a few feet below the ceiling of Avant Coeur Gymnastics, located off Sunshine Street in Coeur d’Alene. That’s the moment when his ‘nana’, or grandma, Debra Kishbaugh, suggested something to Caden’s mother, TyAnn Severtson.

“He was there for my daughter’s ninth birthday,” TyAnn said. “He was 5. He climbed up to the top of the ceiling and my mom said I needed to put my son in gymnastics, not my daughter.”

SeAnna, now 15, is a varsity cheerleader at Post Falls High.

Fast forward to today and Caden is now a bona fide 12-year-old ‘veteran’, of sorts. On Nov. 11 in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the Olympic Training Center, the Coeur d’Alene-born and Post Falls-raised 67-pound gymnast will compete in the National Future Stars Championships. There will be more than 40 people Caden will compete against for a national championship.

On Nov. 10, coach Jerry Blakley, a 25-year-old who is completing his first year as the head coach at Avant Coeur, Caden and his parents will fly from Spokane to Colorado Springs.

CADEN GOT there by just qualifying for nationals by scoring 74.0 points, which is the minimum qualifying score, at the Regional Future Stars men’s gymnastics competition Oct. 7 in Bend, Ore. His scores, on a 10-point scale, were: 7.7 in the high bar, his favorite event, 9.20 on flexibility, his highest score among the nine events he performed in Bend. His other scores were 8.6 on the vault, 8.5 on the floor exercise, 8.4 on the parallel bars. He also notched 7.8 points each on the pommel horse, rings and the parallel bars, and 7.70 on the trampoline.

It’s understandable as to why Caden’s favorite event is the high bar, even though his most consistent high-scoring event is the floor exercise, where boys and girls can perform double flips and other impressive moves.

“I can perform all kinds of tricks and flips on the high bar like a double backflip,” Caden said.

He got a little emotional at the end of the meet — again, who could blame him — as he reflected on all the hard work he accomplished during the past few years.

“It was scary at first at regionals, it was very stressful,” Caden said. “But once I started and did my first event in the floor (exercise), I was OK. I did a 1 1/2 back flip, the parallel bars, I did a giant (multiple swing). After we found out the final scores, it was very exciting. I was really shocked, my jaw dropped, I was stunned. I cried a little bit, I tried to hold it in until I went to my parents.”

NOW THAT he’s made it, Caden can just relax and do his best in the training center where Olympic dreams are fulfilled.

“I’d say regionals were more stressful, because he had to qualify in order to make it to nationals,” Blakley said. “Now it’s like, ‘Thank God’, we made it.”

Caden has competed since he was 7 and started in gymnastics since he was 5 and just did his best at Bend. It was rewarding that it was good enough to reach the national competition, thanks also in part to the husband-wife coaching team of Donny Gardiner and Corinna Gardiner. Donny is set to retire at the end of the year, after 40 years of coaching.

“I’m very excited and I’ll do my best,” Caden said. “There’s a camp (in Colorado Springs, right after nationals), so that’ll be fun. I’ll probably meet other kids from around the country.”

Oh by the way, what does Caden like about gymnastics, in general?

“I like being successful at something and not sitting around or not doing something,” Caden said. “I like skiing, riding dirt bikes just for fun and wakeboarding, with my dad and have fun. We ski in McCall. It’s very active, fun and I get an adrenaline rush.”

CADEN’S COACH said there have been a few local kids that have reached nationals before. In a region that includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, there were only three people from the Bend meet who qualified for nationals. Caden was the only national qualifier from Idaho.

“They start at 9.5 and get deductions and bonuses, depending on how they do,” Blakley said. “He’d normally do six all-around events, but at regionals he did nine. There were two different judges who judged him in his events.”

Don’t think it wasn’t nerve-wracking at times for his parents in the stands, versus the nerves of Caden, who said his parents were probably more nervous than he was.

“It was nailbiting,” said his father, Mike Severtson. “We didn’t know until the end. After we knew the score, everyone was crying. He lives on the trampoline in our back yard. He can’t walk on flat ground, he’s always jumping or doing something. You should see his room; he has tons of medals and trophies.”

Caden said he wants to be an engineer, working on airplanes. His father is a mechanical engineer for Ecolite Manufacturing Co. in Spokane Valley, helping design buildings. Caden, an honor roll student with a 3.6 grade-point average at River City Middle School in Post Falls who enjoys his science and shop classes, wants to join the Air Force Academy. His family and he will visit the campus and its gymnastics program.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mechanic, like my dad,” Caden said. “I’d like to work on planes, because my dad is an engineer and works on buildings.”

Count Mike as a proud papa for Caden potentially following in his father’s footsteps.

“I love it,” Mike said. “The biggest thing is making it successful.”

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, via e-mail at bbourquin@cdapress.com or via Twitter @Bruce CdA Press