F.H.D.T.
(This is part of a weekly series looking at
some of the Rock River Valley’s college
standouts.)
Kevin Ekberg of Belvidere was a champion at just
about anything that required jumping and
twisting.
At age 10, Ekberg’s parents signed him up for
tumbling lessons under legendary coach Bob
Bollinger at Trampoline Town U.S.A. in Rockford.
That program produced such athletes as world
champion trampolinist Alexandra Nicholson and
future NCAA diving champions Ron Merriott and
Bollinger’s son Rob.
Ekberg though moved from that program to the
Rockford Boys Club TNT team (trampoline and
tumbling) where he quickly developed into a
champion in his own right.
In 1980, Ekberg won the world power tumbling
championship in Brig, Switzerland, and he was
the United States Trampoline Association
tumbling national champion in 1981 and 1982.
The Belvidere High School graduate then enrolled
at Northern Illinois University, where a friend
convinced him to compete for its men’s
gymnastics program. Under coach Chuck Ehrlich,
NIU had developed one of the top programs in the
country.
Ekberg competed in the vaults and floor
exercise. In 1982, with Ekberg as a freshman,
NIU qualified for the NCAA championships with
Ekberg taking sixth in the floor exercise to
qualify as an All-American. The Huskies made the
NCAA again in 1983, but Ekberg failed to place.
In 1984, at UCLA’s famed Pauley Pavilion, Ekberg
used a trick in his floor exercise that he
learned in tumbling, the “Ekberg Fling,” where
he performed a double somersault at the end of a
tumbling run and then, the second he landed,
reversed direction and sprung forward. It was a
move only he performed. At Pauley, Ekberg scored
a 9.85 in the finals, including a 10 from one
judge, to beat Arizona State’s Dave Branch, who
was the defending champion.
Ekberg was the fifth and final NCAA gymnastics
champion coached by Ehrlich. NIU no longer has a
men’s gymnastics program. Ekberg was inducted
into NIU’s hall of fame in 2005.
Since college, Ekberg has coached tumbling and
gymnastics at several stops in the Chicago
suburbs. Today, he’s back in the Rock River
Valley. He launched a tumbling program at Forest
Hills Dance Academy in Loves Park in 2009 and
has about 20 kids in the program.
