Skate-off requires trade-off

Kyle Herring isn’t your average 17-year-old.

He doesn’t hang out after school, shooting hoops or annihilating The Covenant on Xbox.

You have to make a few concessions when you’re a competitive figure skater.

“The trade-off is worth it,” Herring said. “We get the pride and joy of our accomplishments.”

And then there’s the travel.

Herring and his partner, Sara Bailey, 16, arrived in Spokane on Friday to compete in ice dancing at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

The pair from the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club in Newark, Del., were the top qualifiers in novice-level ice dancing at the 2007 Eastern Sectional Championships. They spared a moment before practice on Friday to discuss what it takes to be a competitor in figure skating.

“We have to go to school, skate, work out, skate, take a dance class and work out some more,” Bailey said.

They get out of school at 11 a.m. to practice as long as seven hours a day, but they have to make up classes online. They also study ballet and ballroom dance.

They don’t have the opportunity to make a lot friends off the ice, but they have developed strong bonds with the friends they have made on the ice – their competitors.

Herring and Bailey’s friends include three other ice dance pairs from the UD club, who happen to be the second-, third- and fourth-place Eastern Sectional qualifiers. The club has a reputation in the sport. Among its members are world champion Kimmie Meissner and ice dance world champions Albena Denkova and Maxim Stavisky.

Novice-level skater Dean Copely, 17, said he came into the sport late, seven years ago. His partner, Anastasia Cannuscio, 14, has been skating 10 years. Cannuscio’s 16-year-old sister, Isabella, also skates for the club with her partner, Ian Lorello, 16. And Ian’s brother, Alex, 19, skates with Genna Deutch, 16.

They are a tight group, and they will be competing against one another next week.

Copely may have started late, but he said skating is his life, which he described as “compete, aim for the Olympics, get a medal, do shows and coach.”

Along the way, Copely said, he’s making the world a better place through ice dancing.

“Brightening someone’s world in three minutes,” he said.

What about marriage and babies?

All of the skaters said there would be time for that when they can no longer skate.

Junior-level competitors Evan Roberts and Lindsay Cohen, both 18, deferred college for a year to compete.

“It was a mutual decision of our parents and coaches,” Lindsay said.

It was their UD club coaches who put them together – a match that is working out well.

In August the pair were assigned to the Junior Grand Prix event in Romania, and in November finished third at the Eastern Sectionals.

All the University of Delaware skaters said their families had sacrificed to help them get where they are.

Cohen’s mother, Renee Cohen, said her family lives in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., two hours away from the figure skating club. Her other two children – both boys – play hockey, and one of them is on the Philadelphia Flyers junior team.

“Skating is pretty much everything,” she said.