I learned how to sport stack in first grade at The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs. At first I wasn’t very good at it. But in third grade, my parents bought me a set of Speed Stacks, and I started practicing at home.

That year at the Rocky Mountain Regional Championships at the United States Air Force Academy, I took first place in the Cycle Stack for third graders with a time of 11.77 seconds. When I told my teacher that I’d won my grade division, she was totally surprised! I was kind of quiet in class, and she didn’t know how fast I’d gotten.

The following school year, my teacher went to work for Speed Stacks and invited me to be on the Speed Stacks International Demonstration Team that traveled around the country showing people how to stack. It’s hard for me to remember all the places I’ve gone. I know I’ve been to: San Francisco; Boise, Idaho; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Battle Creek and being on the Speed Stacks Demo Team and stacking for intense hours at different conferences, definitely helped make me a lot faster. You get a ton of practice, because you’re stacking for hours straight!

This past year at the 2005 World Sport Stacking Championships in Denver, Colorado, I practiced a lot so I could try and win an overall trophy in either the 3-3-3, 3-6-3 or Cycle. I didn’t care if I won first; I just wanted an overall trophy for finishing in the top 10. My best place before was 15th overall in the Cycle in 2004.

When I was warming up in the morning at the Denver Coliseum, my times were pretty fast for being so early in the morning. Then when I felt good enough to go get my times to qualify for the Finals, the judge said it was the fastest time in the Cycle he’d seen all day at 8.86 seconds. I ended up being ranked first in the 12-year-old division in the Cycle and 3-3-3 heading into the Finals.

In the 3-3-3 finals, I did really bad. I scratched on my first two runs, and then fumbled a lot on my final attempt to get a 7.16. I’d gotten times in the low 2-seconds in warm-ups. That placed me 10th out of 10 in my age group.

The Finals for the Cycle were a few minutes away, so I found an open StackMat and started practicing. Again, I had to wait for nine other stackers to go in my age division. Right before I went up to the judges’ table in the Finals, I was warming up at the practice table and got 8 seconds flat—my new personal record!

I wasn’t that nervous when I was finally called, because I knew I could do well. My first two runs went okay. I knew the time to beat in my age division was 8.26 seconds. Once I started my final run, I knew it was going to be pretty good. It didn’t feel like I was that fast, but when I tapped the StackMat timer and looked at the clock I was really excited—it read 7.96!

At that point, I didn’t know that I had just won the World Championship in the Cycle. But my friends and I started jumping around. Everybody was very excited for me, especially when we found out that I had the fastest time out of 1,000 stackers from six countries at the World Championships.

Getting my overall Cycle trophy that night was really cool. My teacher from The Classical Academy who had taught me how to sport stack gave it to me in front of a lot of people cheering. Plus, my team, the Falcons, won first place in the Cycle relay and third in the 3-6-3 relays for our age group. I also placed fifth overall in doubles stacking with my teammate Joe Sales.