New Synchronized Skating Coach Brings Lifetime of Experience
By: Thomas Garverick
Posted on:
https://www.facebook.com/OhioUSychronizedSkating/videos/852617881582202/
Sixteen.
That’s the number of years that Ohio University Junior Jess Huber has been carving up the ice.
How did her love for skating begin? “Disney on Ice” – of course.
“I remember when I was little going to see Disney on Ice,” Huber said. “Especially with all of the Disney characters being in it, and as a little girl, it was easy to fall in love with it. Then, I went to my local ice rink and found a coach and went from there.”
From there, the Cleveland, Ohio native took her talents to Adrian College, a small school in Michigan.
“I decided to go [to Adrian College] for the experience, and because ice skating was considered a varsity sport, so I didn’t have to pay anything to skate – which was great.”
Huber said being a full-time athlete at the school took a toll on her and she wanted to go to the place that she always wanted to go to: Ohio University.
“I was skating six hours a day sometimes, which was a lot,” she said. “So, I decided I wanted to take a step back and come to OHIO and focus on my education because it was my first choice to come to Athens.”
Ohio University became the perfect fit for Huber. She’s pursing her career in journalism as a Strategic Communication major at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Then, when she heard that there was an up-and-coming ice skating team developing on campus, she said she felt obligated to offer her expertise.
“I have a lot of experience with coaching in the past,” she said. “I used to skate on Team USA and have a background in choreography and thought it would be fun to help out.”
“Helping out” has turned into becoming the assistant head coach for the team. She works hand-in-hand with Head Coach Anne McBride, a senior at OU.
Ohio University’s Synchronized Ice Skating Team is the only team coached by a student. With McBride set to graduate this year, she will pass the torch to Huber.
McBride has already begun to relinquish some of her duties to Huber.
“[Huber’s] more than prepared,” McBride said. “I’ve talked about this with the team and told them that Jess will be running practices so that she will be more than ready to take over next year.”
McBride led the team to a top-half finish in their division at the team’s invitational in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Huber has even higher aspirations as a head coach.
“This year, we placed fourth out of 11th at our biggest competition of the year, which came as a surprise to us because we are the only self-coached team in college,” she said. “Next year, I hope we do even better and come away with a medal by placing in the top-three.”
While Huber said she is excited to lead 15 other girls to a top-three finish, she also understands the challenges of coaching girls who are some of her best friends.
“It’s very difficult coaching a team when you’re coaching them,” Huber said. “All 15 girls I see outside of practice and we hang out all the time, which makes it hard to transition to on the ice and be that coach that has to be the bad guy sometimes. But for the most part, we’ve a done a very good job knowing that divide and what the boundaries are.”
Follow the Ohio University synchronized skating team on Twitter @OUSynchro and on Facebook @OhioUSychronizedSkating.