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By Paul Daugherty
Miami's collegiate synchronized skating team made history this spring, winning an unprecedented seventh-straight U.S. national title and capturing gold for the 13th time. Sports columnist Paul Daugherty skates a fine line in his effort to understand the reality behind the rhinestones.
Carla DeGirolamo '03 is a patient woman. The Miamian editor asked me, Sports Guy, to write 800 intelligent words on Miami's synchronized skating team. Specifically, the school's collegiate team, which has won seven national titles in a row. I could do the 800 words. The "intelligent" part threw me.
Synchronized skating? Is that like roller derby?
Synchronized swimming, I'd heard about. In fact, I'd witnessed it, up close, and damned near drowned. At the 2000 Olympics. I'd poked gentle fun at the ladies in the pool, their hair pulled back tightly, like Norman Bates' mother, their rubber noseclips perfectly placed.
That's when they invited me to try their sport. That's when the drowning part came into play. Gentlemen: Never make fun of something you know nothing about, unless you are prepared to swim in six feet of water with your face six inches from the bottom of the pool.
I would not be mocking synchronized skating.
And yet.
Asking a sports writer to describe synchronized skating is like telling an architect to design a pizza. It can be done. It's somewhat outside the circle of expertise.
Carla DeGirolamo humored me, and thank goodness for that. She coaches the synchro-skaters. She has been synchro-skating since she was an 8-year-old in Cleveland. She's 31 now, which makes her something of an expert. What's more, she didn't mind my stupid questions, such as:
"It is ice skating, right?"
To the inquisitive minds go the interesting slices of life. I did not know, for example, that a custom pair of ice skates can cost $1,000. Dresses are at least $200 each, up to $600 if they're covered in rhinestones, and the ladies on the Miami team are given just one dress a year.
Thanks to Carla DeGirolamo, I can tell you that the collegiate team works from Labor Day to the end of February to hone a single, four-minute routine involving 16 skaters on the ice at once, in hopefully perfect harmony, to music chosen during the previous summer. In terms of degree of difficulty, this is akin to getting five Democrats and five Republicans in one room, with one clock on the wall, and having them agree on the time.
It used to be more of an art form than a sport, Carla says. Now, it is a blend. You have to be able to dance. Dancing is a physical activity that when done properly looks effortless. Think ballet. The time, strength, and coordination required to make the difficult appear routine would make a football player cry for mercy.
"It looks deceptively simple," Carla says. "That's the point."
The team practices five days a week, 90 minutes at a time. The skaters lift weights and do cardio exercises twice a week. They have a weekly ballet session.
It's also painful to be so beautiful. "It really is a contact sport," says team captain Sarah Brown, a senior from Centerville, Ohio. "There is a lot of severe soreness. People run into each other."
"We do something called intersection," Carla explains. "An intersection is a formation within a routine, during which half the team skates through the other half. It's not uncommon for one skater's skate blade to find another skater's calf muscle.
"Lots of stitches. Lots of blood," Carla says, matter of factly. This season, one of her skaters broke a bone in her leg in the first week of practice. And we haven't even mentioned the traditional catalog of jock hurts: sprains, strains, knots, and bruises. The cold tub is never empty.
These are not dainty people. They just look that way when they're skating.
More than that, though, more than the strength, skill, and coordination required, is the ability to get 16 human beings skating in perfect time, to their music and to each other. "In some ways," DeGirolamo says, "it's the ultimate team sport."
The concepts of synchronized skating are the same you'd find in singles or pairs competitions. Teams are judged the same way. According to a description from the U.S. Figure Skating Association, synchro is "characterized by teamwork, speed, intricate formations, and challenging step sequences. The variety and difficulty of elements require that each team member is a highly skilled skater."
DeGirolamo has her own explanation: "You can do double axels and triple jumps until the cows come home. But doing that sort of thing while skating in close proximity to 15 other people is a whole different story."
Synchronized skating is a varsity sport at Miami, but there are no scholarships. Miami covers travel expenses, a pair of skates every two years for each skater, one dress, and ice time. But there is no scholarship money. And since the RedHawks have no "home" competitions, the locals get to see the skaters only when they perform exhibitions, usually between periods at men's hockey games.
The most successful sports team in school history – get back to me when you find another with seven consecutive national titles – isn't quite anonymous in Oxford. But it's close.
DeGirolamo is optimistic that is changing. "We're getting more press than ever. Every year gets better and better," she says.
You never know. One of these days, the Miami synchronized skaters might get regular media coverage from a sports type who knows the difference between a swizzle and a twizzle.
Now, pardon me while I go stand on my head in six feet of water.
Paul Daugherty is an award-winning sports columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer. He wrote about Don Treadwell '82, Miami's new head football coach, in the Winter 2011 Miamian. Photos are by Cynthia Slawter.
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