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LISC ARTICLES & PRESS RELEASES

~~~Year 2005~~~

October, 2005 -  Rohene Ward - Article for Golden Skate™

• "Under the Radar" - October 26, 2005 - Article and Photos by Kathleen Bangs

  • You may not have heard yet about 22 year-old Rohene Ward, and that's understandable – he's had a tendency to skate under the mainstream radar. His highest ever finish at US Nationals was 14th, but rankings can be deceiving. One has only to see Rohene skate at just a practice session to be amazed by his almost unheard-of-in-a-men's skater flexibility coupled with a rare ability to rotate and land triple jumps in either direction. To make it to the top of the podium – at Nationals or all the way to Torino– a man needs a quad to be considered a deserving champion. Rohene Ward has that quad. US men's competitors should be wary if Ward again makes it to Nationals this Olympic season, because this time he finally has determination to go along with his considerable talent.

    Kathleen: I couldn't help but notice at the Campbell's International event recently how thin many of the skaters are, and that doesn't just mean the ladies. What's your regimen and what's your take on what seems an unhealthy diet obsession for some competitors?

    Rohene: I've never given a thought to what I eat. I eat everything and anything from junk food to healthy, although I don't have as much of a craving for junk as I did when I was younger. I certainly don't limit myself to anything based on calories or carbs, and I don't have a regimen about what I eat because I'm really not concerned. I don't plan out my meals, so if I'm really, really hungry I'll make a stop (laughs) at the Wendy's drive-through because it's not like I'm counting my breads points throughout the day.

    Kathleen: That's refreshing to hear because as a total food junkie, I always thought the greatest aspect of being a top athlete would be the fringe benefit of getting to eat as much as you want due to the tremendous amount of calories you're burning off.

    Rohene: Exactly – that's how it works for me. Between skating and working out, it makes it so that I don't have to think about gaining weight. Personally, I thought I looked too skinny before. I'd look at people at the gym, and then look at myself in the mirror, and my arms were like skinny little bird wings. My legs were normal, but not my upper body, so I started lifting weights. Initially I did tons of reps to get muscle definition, but this year I began lifting more to actually gain weight and have now put on about seven pounds. I think the weight addition looks better. It's funny, because I remember being in the locker room in Atlanta at 2004 Nationals and everybody saying how they were at 150 pounds and obsessing about losing weight. I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, that's not me." It's strange, because some of them have eating disorders and it was very surprising more than anything to see this happening with men.

    Kathleen: Brian Joubert once told me he had to stop lifting weights almost as soon as he started because of the rapid development to his upper body, which was making it harder to rotate.

    Rohene: With guys like Brian Joubert or Alexei Yagudin I can understand - they're naturally a bit bulkier, so that I can see. But take someone like Johnny Weir or Evan Lysacek - they're naturally slim, so they don't need to be concerned. I don't know what Johnny's regimen is, but I know that Evan runs. This morning I had French toast covered in syrup and strawberries and bananas, with eggs on the side. If I feel like it, I'll have pizza right before I skate, becauseif I don't have something in my system when I take the ice I feel much worse. I've never once gone into a competition day and thought, "Oh no! What have I done! Look at how much I've eaten – I won't be able to jump now." I figure if I shove down cheeseburgers on the way to practice sessions at home (laughing), why change the routine? Definitely, I am not a nutritionist but the other day I did have a salad I made at a whole foods grocery store. Of course, on the side I had a roast beef with mayo sandwich.

    Kathleen: So what's your plan? You've got enormous talent – you're basically the Sasha Cohen of men's skating when it comes to flexibility. You have this unique ability to triple-jump in either direction plus you have the quad. On top of those skills, you have speed, deep edges and your own sense of style. When are we going to see you make the national team?

    Rohene: I want to go to the Olympics as the reigning national champion, I'm not looking to be second or third. At this point, I'm not looking for anything but the top and I'm not big on 'almost' making it. There's nothing wrong with being second or third but this year I believe I have an advantage. I've already landed my quad at every competition in both the short and long program. Evan (Lysacek) has put one out there, Johnny (Weir) hasn't, and Michael (Weiss) does them inconsistently, so Scott Smith and I are the lone guys landing them right now. Even Timmy hasn't landed one in a while.

    Kathleen: You obviously don't look like the typical USFS poster-boy champion, and somehow I get the idea you didn't exactly live a privileged childhood. What can you tell me about your heritage and how you ended up getting into figure skating?

    Rohene: I grew up in basically the ghetto of North Minneapolis. My father was black and my mom Puerto Rican. They met in Minnesota, where I was born, and I still live and train here. My parents never married and they split up a long time ago. I have five brothers and sisters, so spoiled (laughs) doesn't even enter into my category! My mom wisely put me in a summer program every year when I was a child and one year when I was about seven years old, we took a field trip to an ice rink. A coach that was on-hand told the camp counselor that I should take lessons and I've been skating ever since.

    Kathleen: You're from Minnesota so surely you had to have at least considered hockey?

    Rohene: I started out playing hockey too in the beginning, but then my mom said, "I'm not going to pay for all of this (laughs) if you're always off doing twirls in the corner!" So I played on my little hockey team for one year, and I liked it but I wanted to be the one making all of the goals, all of the time – I didn't want to rotate positions. I certainly never wanted to be the goalie (laughs) because I wanted to be the star at center ice all of the time.

    Kathleen: Tell us a little about your coaching situation.

    Rohene: My coach, and I've been with her since I was about ten years old, is Page Lipe. But Gailene Norwood, who has been like the grandmother I never had, has been my benefactor since I was a child. She really took me under her wing, guided me, coached me – and is still there for me now. Eventually I outgrew her technically and that's when she asked Page (Lipe) to take over the training. Gailene (Norwood) paid for everything – travel, hotels, costumes - and just totally took me in and provided all of things that I couldn't get on my own.

    Kathleen: So you grew up with out a lot of financial resources, as part of a big family with no father present, and in an area of the country where it's much more popular for boys to be hockey players rather than figure skaters. Did you ever think of giving up?

    Rohene: Never. I never thought of giving up. I have what could be called a complete love of skating. For years I never even had that childhood dream of 'winning the Olympics,' instead it was just more of a way to get out of 'the hood', out of the ghetto. Skating brought me into a different world – a wonderful world. My mom bought my first pair of skates from the Salvation Army and they were about five sizes too large. They were made out of cheap vinyl. My ankles wobbled all over the place, but I refused to rent skates because it really meant a lot for me to have my own skates. I just had this attitude that I could overcome anything.

    Kathleen: The area you grew up in has a lot of criminal gang activity, and you didn't have the protective cocoon of an urban private school. Were you pressured to join a gang or did other teenagers hassle you for skating?

    Rohene: My high school and my neighborhood did have a lot of gangs. Now that I'm older and my features are more defined, people can easily recognize that I'm something 'beyond Caucasian,' but they're not sure exactly what. Growing up, most people just assumed I was a mix of black and white, and oddly I was never hassled because of that. In terms of joining a gang, by the third grade I was skating everyday so I didn't get pressured as I was always gone, always catching a bus (laughs) to get to the rink. It certainly wasn't on my mind and during the summers when I had more time to be out running with the neighborhood, there was no pressure on me – everybody knew I was a skater and they thought it was cool.

    Kathleen: What's it going to take to get to Nationals this season?

    Rohene: Midwest Sectionals is in November, in Denver. It depends on who qualifies from some other regions, like the Southwestern Region, to determine who I'll compete against. There's a lot of talent out there - Ryan Bradley, Ryan Jahnke, Parker Pennington, Jeremy Abbott– a bunch of good guys. I'll have to score in the top four to skate at Nationals, and there are three slots from that event to go to the Olympics.

    Kathleen: One can see from the practice session how good you are, in fact I don't think 'amazing' would be over-selling it. What's the problem, why aren't you a famous champion yet in the US?

    Rohene: My highest rank at Nationals was 14th, and I skated like crap. For one year I skated for Puerto Rico to increase my chances of making it to international events, but there were many problems beyond my control with that arrangement, and I decided to move on and again try and compete for the US team. With the Puerto Rico thing, I had to take two years total off from ISU competitions so I lost substantial time. The main reason I even tried skating for Puerto Rico was so I could get on the Grand Prix circuit, skate at Worlds, and then hopefully the Olympics.

    Kathleen: You are one-half Puerto Rican, did any good come out of that deal?

    Rohene: Yes, especially in my personal life. My mom hadn't spoken to her dad in 40 years. To be able to represent Puerto Rico, I actually had to prove my Puerto Rican bloodline. I searched very hard to find the man that was my grandfather, and just the search was an experience. All we had was his name and the year he was born, but we found him and were able to reunite he and my mom. Since then she has visited him twice and she's happier than she's ever been, and that was a very positive outcome. We always knew we were Puerto Rican, but my mom never had any contact and now it turns out we have a huge family down there.

    Kathleen: Have you competed at any international events?

    Rohene: Yes, I've done the Vienna Cup, Triglav Trophy and was slated to compete on the junior Grand Prix circuit (which was cancelled for US competitors after the 9-11 terrorist attacks). At Triglav, I came in first in the short program and second in the long. In Vienna my results weren't as good but I was honored by being invited to skate in the exhibition as normally only the top three skaters from each event make the exhibition, but they said they really liked my style.

    Kathleen: How did you become so flexible?

    Rohene: I only did gymnastics as a very young child, around age five, so it was really nothing to speak of. But I did take tap dancing, tumbling, African dance and jazz for many years. When I got older I also did hip-hop and dance has been an everyday part of my life. As a teenager I started ballet to help my skating and that was when the real flexibility came. I was taking lessons intensely for almost five years which meant classes almost every day, plus going to extra group and private classes. Now I try to do seasonal things. For instance, last Fall I didn't lift weights so I danced instead, and then in the Spring I did kick boxing and weights.

    Kathleen: Kick boxing is a great workout – what do you think of it?

    Rohene: I really like kick boxing for actual defensive fighting and also as a tough aerobic and anaerobic sport. It teaches you to focus your energy and improves balance and core strength. It also forces you to learn how to breathe and move properly at the same time because you're constantly moving around. Its been good training for competitions on the ice because it helps me focus on one particular thing at a time instead of being distracted by all that's going on around me. I'm also more comfortable now in my own skin and feel I can defend myself if I have to.

    Kathleen: Your skating displays so many unique elements, is there any one thing that you consider a 'signature' move?

    Rohene: I do certain things in exhibitions and shows that I don't do in competition, but there isn't one distinct thing that I consider my signature. For instance, most skaters jump left – counter-clockwise – and I can go either direction on the triple salchow, triple toe and triple lutz. I attribute that ability to early training under the ISI (a recreational organization separate from the USFS) skating program in which to pass different levels you had to jump singles and even doubles in both directions. For fun, I started doing every move in both directions. Eventually I went up through all the levels doing moves, jumps, and spins in either direction just for my own satisfaction and because it was fun.

    Kathleen: This season is the main event – the XX Olympiad. Are you going to be able to keep it together and not only get to Torino, but also show the world what Rohene Ward is capable of?

    Rohene: Yes. My mindset is now completely changed. For the longest time I didn't believe in my ability. I heard about it from others, but you need to believe it for yourself. It took a really long time to even accept my ability, and I had some reservations about what happens to your life when you become a champion. You lose your privacy – was I ready to accept that? But things have changed, I've matured, and now I'm ready. I believe I went through a fairly tumultuous life for a reason, and that all of it has led me up to this moment. Persistence is key. People keep saying, 'Rohene, you need to do it now – before you get old!' But I say, "Heck no, I'm 22 years old, my body is actually getting stronger and better, and right now I don't think anything can stop me from what I want to do." Finally, I'm ready to accept the responsibilities that come with the gift of talent. Ultimately I believe that the gift comes from God, and that it was my fate to become a figure skater. Some people say it's their destiny to be a champion, and I don't know about that, but I do know that it was God's way to send me on that first field trip to the ice arena – to get the pieces into place.

July 27, 2005 - Corenne Bruhns - Mention in the North Jersey Online.

• Article

  • World's skaters flock to ice in North Jersey
    Wednesday, July 27, 2005
    By ROBERT RATISH
    Quote from middle of article about the rink:
    "It's cool because you learn about different cultures and everyone's there to be your friend, not to be a competitor," said 14-year-old Corenne Bruhns of Mexico.

June/July, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Mention in the Skating Magazine Magazine - Ice Breakers Section. (Eliot is 3rd from the right in photo)

May 1, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Mention in the Blades on Ice Magazine - News Briefs and Results Section online.

• Link to Monthly update (listed May 1, 2005)

  • US Skaters Dominate Triglav Trophy
    Jesenice, Slovenia, April 13-17
    by Alexandra Stevenson
    Quote from first 2 paragraphs of the section:
    American skaters took the gold medals in 5 events, plus 2 silvers and a bronze in mid April in Slovenia.
    Katrina Hacker, Rachel Flatt and Eliot Halverson gained first place in both short and long programs in their events to win Junior Ladies, Novice Ladies and Novice Men's titles.

May 1, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Articles from St. Paul Pioneer Press (Newspaper in St. Paul, Minnesota).

• Article (registration required - Online version via twincities.com)

  • Determined to skate
    BY RICHARD CHIN
    
    Pioneer Press
    Here's what it takes to be a world-class athlete: You've got to train so much it's practically a full-time job, and you've got to do it for years on end.
    You've got spend thousands of dollars on travel, coaching, training and gear and ask your family to change their lives to accommodate your goals.
    You have to have not only the physical gifts to reach the rarified ranks of the elite but also the will and drive to sustain the discipline of the daily grind as well as the pressure of competition.
    Kind of a lot to expect of a skinny 14-year-old. But it's what St. Paul resident Eliot Halverson has been doing in his quest to become a top-ranked figure skater.
    Eliot took a big step in that direction recently. A good showing in the 2005 U.S. Championships resulted in an invitation to compete for the United States in his first big international competition last month in Slovenia, where he won his category, novice men.
    Right now, Eliot's coaches at the St. Paul Figure Skating Club are a little careful not to overstate how much he could accomplish. But they do say the sorts of things you usually reserve for a wunderkind with a chance to reach the very top.
    "Someone like Eliot is a little bit of a freak of nature, to have this kind of talent. It's a genetic freak to have this kind of ability to be able to jump this way," said coach Ted Engelking.
    "He's the most talented 14-year-old I've worked with," said club director Ann Eidson.
    "For the first time, I thought, 'This could be a reality.' Sitting there, I thought, 'He could really do this,' " Deborah Halverson said of watching her son skating the "first time in the big time" at the senior U.S. National Championship in Portland, Ore., last January.
    "This" means vying for a senior national title and making it to the Olympics five years from now.
    "That's our goal," Eidson said.

    ALWAYS AN ATHLETE

    Eliot has a lot of work to do before he can accomplish something like that. But he already has invested years of effort and sacrifice fueled by an almost obsessive love of his sport.
    Born in Bogota, Colombia, Eliot was adopted as an infant. From a very young age, he showed athletic talent. He was good at the gymnastics, which he started taking at age 3. "They wanted him to be on the gymnastics team at age 6," Deborah Halverson said.
    He also demonstrated a knack for horseback riding. "They wanted him to start showing. They wanted him to buy a horse," she said.
    But it was being on ice that most fascinated Eliot. He loved watching figure skating on television. When the world figure-skating championship was held at Target Center, Eliot got his mother to let him skip his first-grade classes for a week so he could attend everything from practices to competitions.
    "Twelve hours a day. He would never leave his seat," Deborah Halverson said.
    When Eliot got his first set of real figure skates, he spent all day on the frozen pond next to his house in Plymouth, trying to copy the moves he saw on television.
    "I wanted to sleep out on the ice," he said.
    The world championships were held at Target Center in March 1998. By May, Eliot had persuaded his mom — who had also given him dance, gymnastics, horseback riding and piano lessons — to let him try figure skating lessons as well.
    "She did it reluctantly," he said.
    By August, he was in his first competition.
    "He just loved it. Every part of it," his mother said.
    According to Eliot and his mother, the sport takes advantage of his athletic skills as well as his love of being in the spotlight: the costumes, the music, the feeling of gliding on the ice, even the workouts. He liked all of it.
    "I think it brings in everything that I really like to do. I like to perform. I've always liked to perform in front of an audience," he said.
    Soon, "I wanted to be like those top skaters so badly. I wanted to do this full time," he said.
    For a while, he would wake at 5:30 a.m., get his breakfast, pack his lunch, make his mom's coffee and start her car to warm it up and then wake his mother for the drive from the western suburbs into Minneapolis for his training.
    "I loved coming to the rink so much I was willing to do anything to get here," he said.
    "He's very tenacious. He's very determined," Halverson said. "He wants to be the best. He wants to be good."

    FAMILY EFFORT

    That kind of drive and discipline pulled his family, including an older brother and a younger sister, along with him.
    When the St. Paul Figure Skating Club relocated from the Depot skating rink in Minneapolis to Pleasant Arena in St. Paul about a year ago, Deborah Halverson moved the family from a spacious townhouse in the suburbs to a little house within walking distance of the Ramsey County facility.
    To take advantage of ice time during the day, Halverson started home-schooling her son.
    Money is tight. The sport gets more expensive the higher you climb in the competitive ranks, with ice time, lessons, event fees, costumes, choreographers and travel expenses.
    Eliot has gotten good enough he is starting to get some funding from the U.S. Figure Skating Association and the Twin Cities Figure Skating Association, but he isn't at the level yet where he could get some corporate sponsorship, said his mother.
    She estimated figure skating costs her more than $30,000 a year. Halverson, now divorced, said she manages to get by on spousal maintenance, child support, refinancing mortgages, maxing out credit cards and acts of generosity from neighbors and friends.
    "I should have bought the horse, by the way. It would have been cheaper," she said. "It's hard. There's no doubt about it. There are days when I say, 'Are you sure you want to do this? Tell me any day that you want to quit.' "
    "This is a lifestyle," said Engelking. "This is 365 days a year. Your vacations revolve around this sport."
    But Halverson said she couldn't deny her son the chance to be the best when he has so much talent and the discipline.
    "How could you say no when he's doing it all on his own?" she said.

    HUGE GOALS

    Eliot doesn't think what he has been doing for the past few years — training four to five hours a day, on and off the ice, five days a week — has been a sacrifice for him.
    "I love skating. I love coming here every day and working with my coaches," he said. He describes the sport as "what I was put on earth to do." The ice also has been a sort of sanctuary to him.
    "When my parents were going through their divorce, I could go on the rink and forget about everything," he said.
    Of his family, he said, "I owe them the world. I appreciate them so much, and I love them so much because they're behind me 100 percent."
    At his competition in Slovenia, Eliot and his coaches were not only pleased he won his event but also that he landed his first triple/triple combination jump in competition.
    "That was a huge goal," Eidson said. "He has amazing focus. He loves the thrill of competition, the excitement of the event. He loves to do it under pressure."
    His mother wasn't there to see it. The event was supposed to be a sort of training experience for young skaters in international competition, which meant traveling with a team and not a parent. It was the first time she had missed one of his competitions.
    "It was horrible. I cried the whole week," she said.
    But Eliot told her, "Don't worry, Mom. You'll be at an international competition soon."
    If he doesn't make it to the top, it still will all be worth it, Deborah Halverson said.
    "He's accomplished so much already," she said.
    "Of course, I have a dream like everyone else to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal," Eliot said. But he said the real goal is to be a great athlete, to perform up to his own expectations, not just those of the judges.
    "I want to be known in the sport as a great skater, not as someone who has achieved a gold medal."

April 25, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Articles from WCCO-TV (CBS Affiliate in Minneapolis, Minnesota).

• Article (with link to video on site - direct link is gone but you can do search on main site)

  • World-Class Skating Coach Comes To St. Paul
    Apr 25, 2005 8:59 am US/Central
    St. Paul (WCCO) A world-class figure skating coach may help a St. Paul boy’s dream one day come true.
    Eliot Halverson, 14, spins and moves with finesse. He is already a national winner for his level and trains at least four hours a day at the St. Paul Figure Skating Club.
    “It’s amazing, that’s what I skate for,” said Halverson. “I love competing, hearing the audience and getting into the character of the music.”
    This week, Alexei Mishin is in town, training kids who are aspiring for greatness. Mishin has coached several Russian Olympic and world champion skaters. One of the skaters he is working his week is Halverson.
    Mishin believes there are three conditions a world champion skater needs: talent, a smart coach and the right situation for training.
    “It’s not simple to combine those conditions,” Mishin said.
    At the rink, banners of the skating club’s past winners are everywhere. Halvorson hopes one day his name will be on the Olympic side.
    He has already won the Junior National Intermediate Men’s Championship. He thinks a world-class coach will help him strive for the gold.
    “It’s unbelievable,” Halverson said. “He has taught so many great skaters (and) he’s teaching me. That’s almost unreal.”
    Skaters from Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada are in town to study with Mishin. It is part of the St. Paul Figure Skating Club’s spring training program.

April 13, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Articles from the 2005 Triglav Trophy.

• Article on US Figure Skating

• Start orders and results

January 10-13, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Photos and article mention from 2005 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships

• Freeskate Photo

• Backstage Photo

• Podium Photo

• Article on Novice Men's Competition

  • Quote last line:
    Fourth place went to Eliot Halverson (St. Paul FSC), who jumped up to fourth overall with a third-place finish in the free skate. He was eighth after the short program.

• Article in Ice Skating International: Online on the Novice Men's event (photo included) by Martha L. Kimball

  • Quote last line (Men's Free):
    Eliot Halverson must have thought that he hit the jackpot when he saw his name go up in fourth place. After an eighth-placed short program, he was doomed to compete sixth out of twelve skaters. The battlefield before him was strewn with victims, and some of those who followed, in the second warm-up group, fared little better.
    Halverson kept his head and skated clean to "Cappriccio Espagnol," better known as Torvill & Dean’s paso doble.
    The 14-year-old, born in Bogota, Columbia, lives and trains in St. Paul, MN. Coached by Ted Engelking and Ann Edison, Halverson skated stylishly to Chicka Maruta’s choreography and took third in the Free Skate, fourth overall.

• Review and Photos of Novice Men's Competition - from SkateyGirl.com

  • Novice Men's Short Program

    • Eliot Halverson, St. Paul FSC- Photos: Short
      SP: Music: Addams Family. Nice interesting program - Chor: Chicka Maruta. Great use of hands and arms. His 2 axel is swingy, but he does it. Popped Lutz. "tano 2 loop. Great closing combo spin. Not many photos cuz I was so involved in the program.

  • Novice Men's Free Program

    • Eliot Halverson, St. Paul FSC - Photos
      Capriccio Espanol. Ohhhh I love this skater. Great balletic arms - wonderful posture. Yippee. 3 sal. 3 flip-2toe. 2.75 lutz-2 loop. 2.75 toe. 3 loop (great jump for him). 2 Axel. hand down on 3 lutz. fell on 3 toe.

January 9, 2005 - Eliot Halverson - Interview with Spotlight on Unseen Skaters with Eliot during US Nationals in Portland, Oregon.

~~~Year 2004~~~

September, 2004 - Eliot Halverson - Photos from NACS Waterloo from the USFSA site.

August 27, 2004 - Eliot Halverson - relating to North American Challenge Skate - Held in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

• 2004 North American Challenge Skate Wraps Up in Waterloo, Ontario

  • Quote section:  Novice Men
    In the novice men's event, leading the field will be William Brewster, who finished sixth on the novice level at the 2004 U.S. Championships and was also the U.S. juvenile champion in 2002 and the U.S. intermediate champion in 2003. He is the only one of the four U.S. novice men to have NACS experience as he won gold in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, in 2003. The reigning U.S. intermediate champion, Eliot Halverson, will join Brewster in Waterloo, along with the 2004 U.S. intermediate bronze medalist Roger Corvasce. Finishing out the U.S. field is Brandon Mroz, who finished seventh in the 2004 U.S. Championships as a novice.

2004 - Eliot Halverson, Midwestern Intermediate Men's, Second Place in the United States summer-long series called the 2003 Future Champions Series