Butler figure skater lives her childhood fairy tale
When Crystal Chilcott's first-grade teacher read her a story about skating, she envisioned a fairy tale.
When Chilcott donned a pair of skates a year later, she lived it.
And she doesn't want the story to end.
Chilcott, 15, a freshman at Butler Intermediate High School, has been a figure skater for eight years. She's won more than 30 medals in competitions, including 10 golds.
She skates four times a week at Robert Morris University's Island Sports Center on Neville Island, where she trains with former Olympic gold medalist Elena Valova and field moves coach Liz Leavey, who has sent skaters to the United States Figure Skating Association's national championships.
That is where Chilcott hopes her fairy tale will take her.
"I'm not thinking about the Olympics, Stars On Ice or anything like that,"Chilcott said. "That would be unrealistic.
"But I'd love to get to nationals. That's my ideal goal."
Getting Chilcott on the ice isn't easy. Getting her off the ice is almost impossible.
Shirley Chilcott makes the hourlong drive to Island Sports Center with her daughter four to five days a week, regardless of weather conditions or gasoline prices.
She spends $75 an hour for private lessons for one coach; $60 an hour for another.
Chilcott's skates cost $1,300 and, "I hope to get three years out of them,"Mrs. Chilcott said.
Figure skates need to be sharpened every 30 hours, at a price of $13 each time. Then there's the costumes, which run anywhere from $75 to $200.
"I try not to think about the money," Mrs. Chilcott said. "This is my daughter's passion. She gave up everything — cheerleading, drama, gymnastics — to get on skates.
"If it was up to her, we'd be down here seven days a week, not just four."
Crystal Chilcott smiles at such a thought.
"I told them (my parents) we should move closer to the rink," she said.
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE42476329.MOV " width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>Chilcott's love affair with skating began at age 7. Her parents bought her a pair of skates as a birthday gift.That winter, the Butler dek hockey court was frozen over and Chilcott's youthful exuberance wanted to get on the ice."She had never skated before and we kept warning her she was going to fall a few times,"Mrs. Chilcott said. "We wanted to prepare her for it."She never fell once. She looked like she was born on skates."Chilcott has stayed with figure skating despite having no peers in the sport at Butler. No one else from the area is involved in the Island Sports Center's figure skating program.Beth Sutton, director of figure skating at the facility, has 250 kids in her Learn to Skate program there and 120 people — children and adults — in her figure skating program."We've had an adult pairs team head to the national championships,"Sutton said. "It's tough to find male partners in this area for girls who want to do pairs skating."Boys in Western Pennsylvania want to play hockey on ice, not figure skate. They want to be the next Mario Lemieux or Sidney Crosby."Sutton only has two boys in her entire figure skating program. One boy, Taylor Toth of Kittanning, eventually moved to Delaware to further develop his training.Regardless, Chilcott has no problem with going it alone."I've developed a lot of friends down here," she said of the ice rink. "My friends in school, we talk about other things."The only figure skater Chilcott knows from Butler is from the same household:12-year-old Carissa, her sister and a sixth grader at McQuistion Elementary School.Carissa began figure skating at age 5 and has won gold medals in her only two competitions. She has developed another hobby — riding and working with horses — as her greater passion."I still come down here once or twice a week," Carissa said. "Crystal has helped me a lot. She taught me all of my jumps and spins."Along with her own training, Crystal Chilcott volunteers her time on Saturday mornings, working with young skaters and teaching them different skills.She can appreciate the time it takes to learn them."It took me one and a half years to learn how to do an axle,"Chilcott said. "I can do a double-axle now, but I need to be able to do it consistently to work it into my routine."So it goes. Always another hill to climb.
Figure skaters advance their skill levels by passing testsat levels of freestyle and field moves. There are eight levels of each. Chilcott has passed four levels of freestyle and seven levels of field moves so far. She passed six field move levels in the past 2½ years."The first three (field move) levels consist of basic turns,"Leavey explained. "The higher you get, it's more about speed, quickness, agility, more intricate footwork."What I love about Crystal is her determination. When I give her a task ... You have to do A, B and C by this time next week, she'll come back and do A, B and C. Then we move on."That type of dedication, the desire to improve in such a time-consuming and physically demanding sport, it has to be inside you. It's inside Crystal,"Leavey added.Valova won an Olympic gold medal in the 1984 Games and medaled again in 1988. She has been coaching figure skaters here for nine years and has worked with national champions."A lot of kids are not goal-oriented,"Valova said. "Plenty of kids take the lessons and have no idea where they are going with it."Crystal has her goals. She stands out that way."Valova works with Chilcott's off-ice conditioning as well, which involves general exercise, jumping and endurance training."She shows incredible dedication just to skate here,"Valova said. "She's very focused. She really tries to fix the problems that I point out."Crystal absorbs everything. She accepts what I think is good for her. She trusts me."Where Chilcott goes, her skates go with her. When her family took a vacation to Florida last summer, she brought her skates."It was 90 degrees in Fort Myers and we were inside an ice rink watching her skate,"Mrs. Chilcott said.Chilcott wants to compete in regionals either this year or next year. This year's regional competition is in October at the Ice Works Complex in Aston, Pa."I still have to pass a test to be eligible for it, but I think I will," she said.Chilcott planned to see this weekend's Stars on Ice performance at Mellon Arena. Her favorite professional skater is Sasha Cohen."I pattern my style after her," she said. "Her spirals are her strong point. They're my strong point, too."As Chilcott fine-tunes her skating, her attitude toward the sport is the same as it was that first time she stepped onto the makeshift dek hockey rink eight years ago."It's fun and I just want to keep going," she said, smiling. "That's how I felt that day."My feelings haven't changed. I'm not going to quit now."
Skating facts provided by the United States Figure Skating Association:• U.S. Figure Skating membership surpassed 64,000 in 1988-89. It surpassed 175,000 in 2005-06.• Figure skating is the most popular spectator sport among American women and their teenage daughters.• U.S. figure skaters have won 44 Olympic medals, more than any other country.• The United States has won at least one figure skating medal in 16 consecutive Olympic Winter Games, dating back to 1948.• Michelle Kwan is the most decorated U.S. figure skater in the sport's history, winning nine World medals — five gold, three silver and one bronze — nine U.S. titles, one silver and one bronze Olympic medal.
