Club overcomes obstacles, thrives

Senior Lizzie Millis has been skating since she was four years old and has been skating competitively since she was seven years old.

Even though Millis had a lot of skating experience, the vice president of IU’s intercollegiate skating team had never competed in synchronized skating prior to coming to IU.

“In synchronized skating, you need to have a different mind-set,” Millis said. “It was difficult for me to rely on people. I am not a huge team sports person. If someone is doing something wrong, you can’t control it ... you have to get along with people. You don’t want to nag.”

Millis exemplifies the idea that one must overcome personal obstacles to become successful in skating.

Not only has Millis overcome challenges in her skating career, but the IU figure skating club as a whole has gone through many hardships to reach its status of ranking second nationally in intercollegiate skating and sixth in synchronized skating.

The IU figure skating club is composed of the intercollegiate skating team, synchronized skating team and recreational division. There are 30 members in the club, but 18 compete in synchronized skating while 14 compete in freestyle.

The Frank Southern Ice Arena, the rink the club uses, is not a standard rink and is not owned by the University. It costs $140 per hour of ice time, which limits the amount of time the club can practice. The team practices for an hour twice a week. The synchronized skating team practices four hours a week on the ice and two hours a week off the ice.

The synchronized skating team practices more often than the intercollegiate team and is stricter about missing practices.

“Synchronized skating is extremely team-oriented. Everyone has to be a big team player,” said junior Rachel Mark, vice president of the synchronized skating team.

It is hard for the club to find IU students with experience in synchronized skating because there are virtually no synchronized skating teams in the state of Indiana, and due to IU’s tuition, it is difficult to recruit out-of-state students, members of the club said.

Members said it is also a challenge to recruit students who can hold up to the skill level of what a club member needs to exhibit.

The figuring skating club lacks the facilities, equipment and privileges varsity figure skating teams receive. The only varsity skating teams are at the University of Michigan and University of Miami at Ohio.

The IU club competes against both teams even though they lack the same resources.

“Varsity programs have a lot of things paid for,” Mark said. “They get to skate for free and get to train way more.”

Another handicap for the figure skating club is that the Frank Southern Ice Arena closes a month and half before the intercollegiate nationals in April. In order to get ice time, the team must travel to Columbus or Indianapolis.

“Before nationals last year, I only practiced about two times prior to the competition,” said junior Meg Farrell, secretary of the figure skating club.

Even through all of these obstacles, the figure skating club has given IU the reputation as a “skating school.”

“I came here because the school had a good skating program, and I wanted to help the IU skating program become even better,” Millis said.

IU alumna Katie Laughner formed the club six years ago during her freshman year and recruited people she knew. The club has grown not only in size, but also in its competitive level.

The IU figure skating club hosted the Hoosier Challenge, an intercollegiate skating competition, Nov. 8. at the Hamilton Ice Arena in Columbus, Ind. IU finished in first place with 116 points, while Miami of Ohio placed second with 76 points. Sixteen members of the club competed in the Hoosier Challenge.