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Ice Escapades Olympian's Former Skating Coach Shows Reporter Basic Moves

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 February 2006, 21:00 CST

By Jill Jedlowski Daily Herald Staff Writer

Among life's few absolutes is this: A big slab of ice is unforgiving to the human body.

So it's pretty remarkable that once in a while, a skater emerges with such awesome talent that he ought to be compelled to apologize for how deceptively easy he makes it all look.

Naperville's Evan Lysacek will demonstrate that rare and wondrous ability beginning Tuesday when he makes his Olympic debut during the short program as part of the U.S. Men's Figure Skating Team in Turin, Italy. He's one of those magical athletes who's just that good.

This reporter, however, is not.

Lysacek's first coach, Candy Brown Burek, knows there's no such thing as "effortless" when it comes to skating. She also knows potential when she sees it.

And when she doesn't.

As she gently put it to me after my recent skating lesson with her: "I don't think the Olympics are probably in the cards for you right now."

Even we non-skaters know the sport isn't as simple as the experts make it look. But it wasn't until I connected skate with ice Monday for the first time in about 12 years that I understood how painfully true that is.

People aren't meant to stroll on ice. That's why penguins were created. That's also why we need special footwear outfitted with meat cleavers to tackle the task.

Maybe that's the reason why, when Burek and I took to the rink in Geneva, the first thing she taught me was how to fall properly. I got the impression she was able to skip that step with the far more graceful and skilled Lysacek.

Evan is now 20 years old, but he was still a prodigy when he began working with Burek and continued to grow while working with several other coaches.

Today, he owns a silver medal from last month's U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis and is gearing up for what he hopes will be the performance of a lifetime on the world stage.

The Olympics, Burek says, are "a time to put everything out there that they own."

She met Lysacek when he was about 9 years old - just a few months after he started skating.

The story has sort of a fairy tale ring to it.

One young skater at a random practice session catches the eye of a spectator, who happens to be a coach with a penchant for recognizing raw talent. She moseys over to his parents, who tell her that, no, he doesn't have a trainer. She urges them to consider taking his skating to the next level with a personal coach because the kid has star written all over him.

"I looked across the ice and saw him and thought he had potential," Burek says when telling the story. "You could see the passion, even at a very elementary stage. I was struck by that."

As their one-on-one training progressed for the next three years, the boy wonder's skating flourished.

His mother, Tanya, says she and her husband picked Burek because they wanted a talented but accessible coach to help mold their son's formative skating years.

"Evan always loved Candy as a person because she was so fun," Tanya said Wednesday morning as she prepared for her trip to Italy to cheer her son. "She was really good at teaching the whole package."

Lysacek built up an insatiable appetite for the sport. He was attentive, committed and eager. And his talent pool, albeit frozen and slick, runneth over.

"He came in the rink and he'd meet me 100 percent," Burek says.

His biggest obstacle: Mustering the patience to practice, practice, practice.

So, as Lysacek prepares to test whether 12 years of hard-work and endless practices will reap the ultimate prize, I took some basic pointers from his old coach to understand how it all began.

Before I could even grab my skates from the rental desk at the Fox Valley Ice Arena in Geneva, Burek already was in full-blown instructional mode. She grabbed them, expertly running her fingers along the blades to inspect them.

"Oooooh no-no-no-no-no. These won't do. Too dull. We at least want to give her a chance out there, don't we?" the 30-year instructor said to the guy behind the counter.

And then they shared a knowing chuckle. It was the first of several laughs at my expense during the lesson.

Not that I could blame anyone. If there were a gold medal for best impression of a newborn fawn attempting to stand, I'd be wearing it.

As children half my size and a quarter my age swirled around me, I S-L-O-W-L-Y embarked on my first lap. It took more than 10 minutes, but at least I didn't bite it. Yet.

I tried techniques, including swizzles, one-foot glides, dips, and snow-plow stops (though I never really got up enough speed to warrant them).

"It's such a fun, beautiful feeling to be gliding across the ice, feeling the breeze against your face," Burek told me. "It's very euphoric."

I will have to take her word for it, because I barely felt a puff at my snail's pace.

But I came to understand the attraction, the addiction, to skating. I now can appreciate wanting your next fix, because you know it will be just a little sweeter than the one before.

I came away with all bones intact and having wiped out just once. I'm pretty sure I even had a smile on my face most of the time.

It was a challenge, to be sure. It was just plain fun, too.

And I'll have you know that while Burek estimates it takes 10 years to mold an Olympian, I landed my first jump in just an hour and a half.

OK, so all I did was stand still and hop an inch without collapsing. But Burek assured me the move qualified as a legitimate jump. Who am I to challenge the judgment of such an experienced, knowledgeable coach and skater?

The rest of Burek's students, though, mainly look to her record and to Lysacek as proof that she knows her stuff.

"The nice part is when kids see that close to home," she says of Lysacek's success, "they realize they could live that dream, too."

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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