Written by FIGHTINGILLINI.com staff writer Lexi Shurilla | Follow @LexiShurilla

A Natural

It's a good thing C.J. Maestas (@MaestasCj) was hyper as a kid. As someone who used to jump out of clothing racks and scare customers at stores like Target when he was younger, Maestas' mother decided early to get her son involved in sports so he could burn off some of his extra energy. Starting his gymnastics career at about three years old, Maestas competed at such a high level at a young age that he qualified to compete in older age groups, and still easily beat his competition. From then on, people told him he had a future as a gymnast.

There were times when Maestas wondered whether gymnastics was really for him or not, but it didn't take long to realize that he was on the path he was born to be on.

"It kind of just came natural," Maestas said. "I'm a smaller gymnast, but I'm really stocky and strong. Everyone always says you need to be light to be a gymnast, but it's all relative to your size."

As someone who was recruited by gymnastics heavyweights of Oklahoma, Minnesota and Nebraska, Maestas said that from the start, it was the coaching staff that drew him to Champaign.

"To this day, the longest conversation I've ever had on the phone with another human being was with C.J. Maestas," Head Coach Justin Spring (@JustinSpring) said of the 75-minute conversation he had with Maestas during recruiting.

Right after Spring got off the phone with Maestas, he knew that Illinois was going to get him, and not surprisingly, one of the first things Spring liked about Maestas was his spirit and his energy.

"After that conversation I knew he was going to be this kind of glue, this team player, this energy source, the life force on our team," Spring said. "Gymnastically he was going to be incredible, but we always knew that. His talent and competitive ability coupled with his personality, was unique."

"There was just this feeling that I had when I got on campus here," Maestas said. "I was already a part of the University of Illinois when I came on my recruiting trip. You could read people, it was real."

Keeping that relationship with his future teammates was critical to Maestas' decision to come to Illinois. Daniel Ribeiro (@DRibeir2), now an assistant at Illinois, was a senior on the UI gymnastics team at the time of Maestas' recruitment. The two of them continued to keep in touch after Maestas' campus visit and today, Maestas looks at Ribeiro like a big brother.

"When he came here we were his extended family," Spring said. "You absolutely knew that. He was someone who was willing to lay down on the sword for his teammates or dive on the grenade. He was one of those guys. That's a special quality to have in an athlete. One that I don't think I've seen in anyone else."

Strength Through Injury

Coming in as a freshman, Maestas laughed when admitting that when he first arrived on campus, he was very immature and kind of wild. He told Coach Spring upfront that he had some goals he wanted to achieve: he wanted to win national championships and he wanted to help change the program.

Well, his plan worked. As a freshman, Maestas became Illinois' first-ever national still rings champion at the 2012 NCAA Championships, where he also finished second in the all-around to help the Illini to their first NCAA team title in more than two decades. Weeks earlier, he also took home the Big Ten all-around crown and was named both Big Ten Gymnast and Freshman of the Year at the 2012 conference championships.

Going into his sophomore year, Maestas was working on a new skill at practice and tore his triceps, forcing him to sit out his entire sophomore season.

"I went from being on my highest high to my complete lowest low," Maestas said. "It was hard. I'd never been hurt like that. I have had ankle injuries before, little stuff like bone spurs and sprained fingers, but going through my triceps injury, you could say I was a little depressed."

Fortunately for Maestas, he didn't do anything to the elbow itself; otherwise it's possible he could have never done gymnastics again. His injury was an eye opening experience for him and he really clung to his friends and family during his recovery period.

Maestas focused on getting back in shape and playing towards his strengths as he prepped for his return his junior year. Physically, Maestas' strength is in his shoulders and torso. As one of Illinois' all-arounders, the team captain was a leader for the Illini all over the floor. It's hard to pick which event Maestas is best at - he did win a national championship this year on high bar - but undoubtedly he has a soft spot, and knack, for the rings.

"I won the national championship this year (on high bar), but rings, there's just something about it," Maestas said. "It sounds crazy, but they say professional athletes who are the best at what they do see everything in slow motion and for me when I jump on the rings, everything is in slow motion. I'm thinking, but everyone else is just paused."

Coming off being an NCAA runner-up on the still rings in 2014 as a junior, Maestas' goal to bring championships to Illinois held firm as he rounded out his career as an Illini with another title his senior season. He capped off the 2015 gymnastics season, and a stellar Illinois career, by claiming a national title on high bar at this past season's NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships. Maestas earned four of the eight All-America honors for the Illini at NCAAs this year and finished his Illinois career with two national titles (rings 2012, high bar 2015) and 10 All-America honors.

"It's indescribable," Maestas said of his UI career. "I came in here with big expectations. I fulfilled that my freshman year, and then getting hurt and bouncing back my junior year, kind of struggling coming back, and then my senior year still not 100 percent, I wasn't expecting it. But at the end of the day, I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish here."

"He came into a very competitive team, a very focused team in 2012," Spring said. "Just insanely talented, the weapons we had were through the roof. I think he saw what that team had, and what we maybe struggled with a little bit was a collective willingness to do everything we could. You can't just have a few guys with that commitment; it must be a team effort."

"C.J. has that ability to speak up and push guys to be better in and outside the gym. That's what we stand for here, constantly seeking the best we can be and that's that competitive attitude that it takes to be champions, it takes to be an Olympian. In a team setting it doesn't just happen on its own, it takes leaders, spiritual leaders who are willing to step up and put the team's mission first and that's why the value of family is so important because it takes that understanding. I think C.J. finally knows where he stands and what it takes to be the best."

Last Man Standing

Throughout Maestas' time at Illinois, Spring has continued to commend all that Maestas does for his teammates, and how positively he represents the spirit of the University of Illinois. For his last time in a Fighting Illini uniform at the 2015 NCAA National Championships, Maestas won the high bar national title.

"I've built such amazing relationships here that winning is just the cherry on top of the sundae," Maestas said. "That was indescribable coming out with high bar. But I'm such a team player that I would trade in my high bar championship in seconds just to get to the second day of team finals."

"The smarter he got, the more mature he got, the more I realized he could help bring the team together by reaching out, not just by competing, and that's what he did," Spring said.

Spring said that watching Maestas' final routine on rings for team competition is a memory that will forever be engrained in his brain, even more so than when Maestas won his national title. Spring said Maestas gave everything he had for his team, despite the window closing to advance to the Team Finals.

"That was a very powerful image for me as a coach to see how important it was and how much it showed in that moment," Spring said. "I could not believe how humble he was with how amazing of a gymnast he was. You don't often see that in the best of the best of the best in any sport, because to be that good you have to have a little bit of an ego. He deserves to be a national champion, because he deserves to be recognized for how amazing he was, but again there's that character piece that just stands out as so much more impressive from a coaching standpoint. Insane talent rarely is coupled with this kind of character and selflessness and humility."

Maestas graduated as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time at Illinois, having done that in only three competitive seasons and was honored with the MVP award at the end of season banquet this year. Yes, the team is going to have to fill in for his ridiculously high scores on almost every event, but scores are hardly the only thing the team will miss about Maestas.

"What we're really going to miss is our spiritual leader, who has that competitive attitude, that loves competition, that enjoys performing," Spring said. "His charisma and presence makes you feel excited to be on his team and be around him and the crowd feeds into that. He was a morale changer, he was an attitude changer, he has that energy shifting ability and you don't get that from a good gymnast or a good athlete, you get that from a team player. You get that from someone who loves life."

"College and the University of Illinois have grown this little kid - I had a Mohawk my freshman year and it was blonde, I literally looked like a honey badger - and changed me from that wild, crazy kid into someone who has learned a lot over the years," Maestas said. "Things didn't come easy. I've had ups and downs my whole life, so this was just another path I had to go through."

Stay tuned to FIGHTINGILLINI.com for part two of "C.J. Maestas: Road To Rio" coming soon.