With a flick of the wrist, Evan Rowley sends a scoop of ice cream into the air and, with a quick spin, catches the creamy treat in a paper cup.

It’s just a typical day at Amy’s Ice Cream in Rollingwood, which is known for its colorful décor, rotating flavors and the wacky antics of folks behind the counter. But Rowley, 19, is not a typical scoop, the nickname for those that serve ice cream at Amy’s.

Rowley recently won two events at Amy’s Trick Olympics and placed second in the third event. His tricks put most jugglers to shame as he uses two spades – the flattened scoops Amy’s ice cream slingers use – to flip and flick scoops over his head, behind his back and under his knees.

“I’ve wanted to work at Amy’s since I was a little kid,” said Rowley, a University of Texas student who has been with Amy’s for a year and a half.

At the Trick Olympics, Rowley won the decathlon and the team trick competitions. Instead of running and throwing shot and discus, this decathlon featured judges throwing 1- difficult tricks in a row at the competitors. If they missed, they were out.

“I was waiting for that competition for months,” Rowley said.

He even watched YouTube videos of previous competitions to help him practice.

In the team trick competition, Rowley and a teammate, Tommy Diebel, from the San Antonio store, reenacted the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail – using spades and a scoop of ice cream.

“I pretended to stab his arms and legs, and he’d catch the scoop with the hand that was left,” Rowley said. “We had the dialog going. By the end, he was on his knees, and I put a cup in his mouth and he caught the scoop in the cup. It was awesome.”

In the solo trick event, Rowley did a complicated series of catches on his spade and caught it in a cup.

“Everyone was whipping out the craziest tricks they’d been working on all year,” he said.

He placed second behind his teammate from the team trick competition.

“That’s the best day of work all year,” Rowley said of the annual competition.

Rowley said he first picked up the white-paper-bag application, the one potential scoops have to decorate, during his sophomore year at Anderson High, but didn’t turn it in. He picked up another his junior year but again didn’t do anything with it.

During his senior year, he said, he wanted to go skydiving and wanted a friend to come along. The only way to get the money for the excursion was to get a job.

He picked Amy’s because, “I wanted to work in a family friendly environment,” he said. “Plus, ice cream is awesome. Who doesn’t want to work around ice cream?”

The free ice cream doesn’t hurt either.

Rowley’s favorite combination is Mexican vanilla with strawberries and Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups crushed in.

“It brings out so many flavors,” Rowley said. “It was the second thing I ever made myself, and I haven’t stopped eating it since then.”

The energetic teen doesn’t get tired of performing tricks and gets a kick out of turning banana splits into pirate ships using spoons and napkins with a skull and cross bones drawn on.

“It’s our ultimate goal to make the customer’s day,” he said.

When he’s not tossing ice cream in the air, Rowley said he enjoys hanging out with friends and playing the saxaphone. He recently tried out for the UT marching band and works hard on his studies. He hopes to major in music education and become a high school band director.

“[Band] just really opened my eyes,” he said. “It’s given so much to me, and I want to give that to others.”

Even though he eats ice cream every shift, he said he stays slim because of a high metabolism and good genes.

“Thanks, Mom,” he joked.