Allison Buckley competed at Illinois from 2008-11, earning All-American honors in three different seasons and in three different events: balance beam as a freshman in 2008, vault as a junior in 2010, and floor as a senior in 2011.

While Buckley competed at nationals every season she spent with the Orange and Blue, the Illini advanced to that stage in 2009 and 2011.

An Illinois native, Buckley was destined to become a gymnast, as her parents own a gym in Hanover Park, located in northwest suburbs of Chicago. She now works there, both in coaching and business roles.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Can you walk me through your career at Illinois?

Buckley: "We might have been second or third almost every year. We had a lot of really good people on the team. We had an awesome time and a lot of success there. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. I would almost have to go back and look. You might have better access all that info than me. I know my freshman year, we just missed going to nationals. We were only a couple tenths out of second place. I think that was a little bit of a 'light the fire.' We hadn't really had a ton of success like that before, so it was like, 'Oh, my God, we can do this.' After that, everybody wanted to work harder, and harder, and harder, just so that we could have that experience. Freshman year, we were in Oklahoma, sophomore year when we made it, we were in Seattle. We loved competing there. We competed there twice. Something about that gym, we liked competing in Seattle. Junior year, I think with Nebraska, and senior year was Alabama. We made it as a team my sophomore year and senior year. Individually, I was lucky enough to make it every year. My freshman year, I made it as an all-arounder, and my junior year, I only made it on vault. Both times, at least one of my teammates made it as well, so it was really fun to still be able to travel with somebody else and have the support of everybody at the meet. I had an awesome, awesome experience in Illinois. My senior year, I actually broke Nancy Thies' record of most individual titles with the program. We met her when we went to Seattle, and then she wrote me a really nice letter when I broke her record. We had a couple of interactions, and yes, she is the pioneer of Illinois women's gymnastics."

Q: Do you still have that letter?

AB: "I am sure I do. With all of my Illinois stuff, I have a couple of boxes packed up. I had all of my trophies and and some of that stuff that you know they do, like most outstanding and Big Ten Freshman of the Year, so I have all of that stuff around. I need to get a bigger place to be able to display it."

Q: What have you been up to since graduating from Illinois?

AB: "Fresh out of school, I went into the corporate world for a little while. Still in college sports, I actually worked with Illinois, my company worked with Illinois. My parents have owned a gymnastics gym, so that's how I became a gymnast. I was a gym rat from the time I was born. They opened their gym in 1975, so it is very closely coming up on 50 years. I was just kind of ready for a change, for something different, and so I went back and started working for my parents a couple years ago. Obviously, the hope is that I will take over the business when they want to retire soon. I'm teaching, I'm coaching gymnastics, I'm coaching a little bit, but I'm also running the business. It's a little bit of the best of both worlds in my sport."

Q: How did your time at Illinois impact your life after college and currently?

AB: "I think in every experience, you learn so much. It teaches you a lot of things. Obviously, like perseverance and adversity. Not everything is gonna go your way, but if you can learn how to adapt and adjust, whether it be in the gym, whether it was at school, that obviously teaches you those life lessons for later on. As I alluded to earlier, that piece of lighting the fire under us, that continued work and dedication will get us to where we want to go. Like I said, we were lucky enough to have some really good and successful experiences at Illinois. Every team that I was on, every year, you lose a couple people, you gain a couple of people, but we were able to maintain the same environment and unity that we had. I think that was such a good experience for us and just helped make everything better, make everything easier. We would hold each other accountable. There was so much good that came out of being able to have that culture of success and of wanting to be around each other."

Q: Do you think that culture contributed to the team's success?

AB: "I went on a couple of recruiting trips, and on those recruiting trips, you can pick up how the teams are and how the athletes interact with each other. It's not the same everywhere. That was one of the main reasons I chose Illinois and why I loved it so much is because when I was there, I loved the people. I know Illinois makes it such a big point to use 'family' right now, and it seems kind of weird, but it's so true. In every aspect, my experience at Illinois felt like home, and I think because we had that, especially among my teammates and our program, that's a big reason for the success that we had. When you are all on the same page, and you enjoy being around each other, and you push each other, and you want to work hard together, it makes everything else so much easier."

Q: How did the Illinois gym shape you as a person?

AB: "A little bit of what I talked about in terms of adversity and perseverance, that continued hard work, and just being competitive. We wanted and we expected the best of ourselves, and we push each other to do that. That leads into everyday life now. You don't do things just to do them; you do them to do them well, and if you don't, then you work harder to get there. That definitely was a big part of my experience and something I definitely took away from it. As I already touched on, the culture and the family atmosphere. That culture and environment that I talked about is so much of what I want our athletes to experience as well. I would love for them to go on to college and do gymnastics. It's not for everybody, and not everybody, unfortunately, is going to make it there, but in our gym and in our atmosphere, I want them to have a similar experience. I want them to look back Gymkhana knowing that they were supported in every way possible, having teammates to cheer them, and that their experience overall was really good."

Q: Who has been the biggest influence in terms of your gymnastics career?

AB: "My parents. I think you can understand why, in terms of my background, having been a gym rat, and growing up in that environment. My mom was my coach, so she has a big role in the development of my gymnastics and what I was doing. That was really important to me and a really good experience. I will say it's not always the best working with your mom. I'm sure there's plenty of athletes that have a parent as a coach; it's not just rainbows and butterflies, but she pushed me to be the best that I could be, and because of that, I was able to get a scholarship, do college gymnastics, and have the success that I had. Same with my dad. They put me in that atmosphere to be successful, and then the environment around me helped me do that."

Q: Did your family come to any of your meets?

AB: "They did. Yeah, it was a little bit of a drive, but they tried to get to as many as they could. They came down to Illinois a lot. They would travel when they could, but the college season obviously overlaps with the club season so sometimes it would be difficult for them when our club would be competing or they had to go to other competitions. I would always get a phone call and talk to my mom, especially, afterwards and give her an update on how things went, and how the team did, and how the experience was. They came to as many meetings as they could. They were there to support. Almost all of my teammates' families would go to home meets or would travel to away meets. We were very lucky to have the support that we did."

Q: Have you ever considered coaching at the collegiate level?

AB: "I have not, honestly. With the experience that I have and whatnot, I would definitely enjoy coaching in the college atmosphere. Is it something I could do right now? Probably not, just because I'm trying to run the business and take over that aspect, but it's definitely something I would always think about. If it ever came up, I would consider it. I love the program. I love what it did for me, and I hope and I think, based on things that I've heard, that that atmosphere is still very similar, so it seems like it would be a fun place to be."

Q: What is your fondest memory from your time at Illinois?

AB: "That's a tricky one. I have so many really good memories. I think it probably would be like the first time we made it to Nationals. I know we were competing in Seattle, but just that experience with our teammates, with our coaches, the competition that we had, all of our families being there. That was just something obviously never experienced before, and the excitement and the atmosphere around it was so much fun. It was one of the best experiences that we've probably ever had in Illinois."