Spencer skates (part 3)

Spencer skates part 2 left off in October 2022, when Spencer visited the Skating Club of Boston for the first time to attend Skate America, an elite international competition. In addition to being a great time, seeing competition at the highest level so close to home opened Spencer's eyes to a pathway between where he was and the top of the sport.

The club facility also made a strong impression on all of us. Most local figure skating clubs are labors of love, often forced to compete with youth and high school hockey teams for ice time at shared rinks. At the Skating Club of Boston, ice time for figure skating is virtually unlimited. The club has three ice surfaces, two dedicated exclusively to figure skating. It's actually jarring to a newcomer to view the ice without plexiglass. It’s simply not needed on ice that never sees a hockey puck.

In the six months following Skate America 2022, Spencer continued training with Warwick Figure Skaters, progressing rapidly. But the four or five hours per week of ice time was never enough. He would beg Christine or me to take him to any public skate he could find, including the outdoor rink in Providence where his journey started. It was here that he willed his way to his first double-rotation jumps.

I also began driving him up to the Skating Club of Boston for occasional walk-on sessions. I remember him mentioning how cool it felt to skate on the same ice as his heroes from Skate America.

Spencer documented his progress in detail on his TikTok account. The figure skating community is tight-knit. Even people from distant rinks get to know each other through years of training, traveling to competitions, and following results online. There wasn't much figure skating content on TikTok then, so suddenly many established skaters began seeing this curly-haired Korean kid pop up in their feed, who came out of nowhere and seemed to master challenging new skills weekly.

Adding to the intrigue was his ever-present Team USA jacket. This was odd because you cannot buy one. Generally, the only way to get one is by reaching a level where you represent the U.S. at international competitions, which Spencer most certainly had not done yet. Even very accomplished skaters covet these jackets. But in true Spencer fashion, he charmed someone from U.S. Figure Skating headquarters who was at Skate America, and one day a box showed up at our house with a few jackets, including a size extra-small Team USA jacket.

During Skate America, we also learned about Ice Chips, the Skating Club of Boston's annual show. It's the longest-running figure skating carnival in the world, dating back to 1911. Over the years, up-and-coming club skaters have performed alongside Olympic legends like Tenley Albright, Dick Button, Brian Boitano, Scott Hamilton, and Jason Brown.

In early 2023, the club was adding another Olympian to the list: Nathan Chen. We bought tickets, and Christine, Spencer, Milo, and I watched from the front row. Like the Providence holiday show I described in part one, Spencer was thrilled to see Nathan Chen perform live, but seeing people his age perform at a high level was even more impactful. And as with Patrick Blackwell at the holiday show, he was watching many people who were then strangers but would later become his closest friends.

As is customary at skating shows, the event concluded with performers skating around the edge, high-fiving audience members in the front rows. I noticed several do a double-take as they skated by Spencer, clearly thinking, "hey, that's the TikTok kid."

As soon as Spencer saw the Skating Club of Boston during Skate America, I think we all assumed the day would come when he would want to train there. But Ice Chips flipped the switch. It was time.

In the weeks that followed, we researched the many excellent coaches at the club. Finding the right fit was challenging. Spencer clearly had extraordinary talent and no limits on how far he could go. At the same time, he was still missing many basic foundational skills that most skaters develop gradually over years.

The husband and wife coaching team of Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova stood out as a potentially ideal match. They were former World Champions and Olympians who had also guided their son, Maxim Naumov, to the highest levels of men's singles skating. At the same time, they made helping young skaters master fundamentals their life's work through their pioneering "Tomorrow's Champions" program.

A few weeks after Ice Chips, on April 25, 2023, I wrote an email to Vadim to explore whether there was a mutual fit. After some back and forth, we scheduled a trial lesson with Vadim for Saturday, May 6, 2023.

Spencer was nervous going into the lesson. Vadim and Genia didn't just take anyone on as a student. To Spencer, it felt like a "try out" to prove that even though he was a late starter with raw talent, he had the potential to go all the way.

But once the lesson got underway, it all clicked. Vadim chuckled at this kid who could do double jumps but still tripped himself up on basic skills that most skaters master as young children. Meanwhile, Spencer soaked in Vadim's knowledge about jump technique and what it would take to get from doubles to quads.

After the lesson, we were all enthusiastic about moving forward together. The competitive skating season was just about to begin, but Vadim recommended that Spencer take a season off from competition to spend a year focusing entirely on building his skating skills and refining his jump technique.

This was tough for Spencer. He wanted to be moving on to triple jumps—not perfecting the technique of his singles. But he trusted Vadim and worked diligently to understand and apply his technique. He also worked closely with Genia on spins and the more artistic aspects of skating, which didn't come to him nearly as naturally as jumps.

During the summer, Christine and I brought him up to Boston a few days per week to train with Vadim and Genia. While this increased his frequency of lessons and ice time over what he was doing in Rhode Island, it was still much less than those training to compete at an elite level—many of whom attend school online and train at the club five or six days per week.

Spencer's freshman year of high school, which had just ended, didn't go particularly well. Spencer had ADHD, so the structured classroom setting was always a challenge. He struggled socially as well. He had some wonderful friends and enjoyed usual high school activities like hanging out at football games, but he didn't really fit into the social structure and often had conflicts with his peers.

In contrast, he was completely in his element at the Skating Club of Boston. In addition to his passion and drive on the ice, he relished the friendships he quickly formed and time spent off the ice talking and laughing with "his people."

Throughout that first summer, Spencer lobbied hard to go all-in on full-time training in September rather than returning to high school. Christine and I were hesitant. We had moved to our town largely so Spencer and Milo could take advantage of the excellent school system. What Spencer wanted would mean shifting from that more traditional path to something much less conventional or certain.

There were also some practical obstacles. Full-time training with elite coaches at an elite facility represented a major financial stretch. Costs for memberships, ice time, coaching, equipment, costumes, test fees, competition fees, travel, and various other expenses can quickly exceed $60,000 per year—and can go much higher as you move up the ladder. It would be like college costs, which we were already stressing about, arriving three years early.

On August 13, 2023, we were visiting my sister-in-law, Kathleen, and her family near Syracuse, NY. This was the day the photo of my family dressed in blue—the one that was all over the news after the crash—was taken. (Much overdue photo credit: @kylenelynnphotography.)

While we were enjoying our time with family, Christine and I were acutely aware that we were running out of time to make a decision about Spencer's future. Spencer, of course, had nothing but skating on his brain and was doing his best to turn the family photo shoot into an off-ice exhibition.

At one point, I excused myself from the group to take a call from Vadim. I walked around Kathleen's yard as we discussed Spencer's progress over the summer, his potential, what it would take to realize it, and possible ways to make it work financially.

Soon after, Christine, Spencer, and I spoke and made a decision: we were going to take a leap of faith.