The Tribune Ames Iowa December 9, 1999 |
| Mid-Iowa Profile: Jan Schmidt No, no, no, she surely would have protested if she had been asked about those leg lifts. Those weren’t kicks. They were swings. At least that’s what they’re called in competitive roller skating. Schmidt, at 65, is still a competitive skate dancer. She has the trophies to prove it. There on her television this week was video proof, too. On the screen was Schmidt’s performance at last summer’s regional competition sponsored by USA Roller Skating. The tape showed Schmidt looping the floor of Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, Neb. She held her arms out. She wore a No. 54 so the judges could identify her. Her four-wheeled skates pushed and they rolled. Shiny decorations brightened her navy costume. She skated three minutes of a tango, three minutes of a waltz, then three minutes of a blues number. All those dance steps were set by the sport’s rule book. Schmidt didn’t have to choreograph them, but she had to learn them, had to match her steps to the music and had to execute every turn. That blues tune on the tape, for example, was a lively one. It featured lots of time with one skate on the floor and one in the air. The waltz was a smooth glide. And the tango had lots of sway to it. And what about her performance? How would she rate herself in the veterans (55 and older) solo dance? “It wasn’t bad,” she said, sounding every bit like somebody who grew up in Queens and moved to Ames with her Bronx-born husband, the late Joe Schmidt. “I leaned forward a little bit. And my arms were a little high; they should be waist high.” The judges agreed. It wasn’t a winning performance. But that wasn’t the point. Once a skater... She was just hoping for a Girl Scout badge. So Schmidt tied on a pair of skates and gave them a roll. That was at 14. She’s skated just about every year since. The only time she stopped was to raise her kids. Skating was even how she met her husband. They were paired as skate partners back in 1956, she said, because they both had long arms and legs. They were a perfect physical match for competitive skate dancing. But it wasn’t exactly love at first skate. “We hated each other,” Schmidt said. But they kept skating. They kept getting closer. They became “two peas in a pod.” And they married in 1959. (“But I knew I wanted to marry him in ’58.”) Kids came and the skating stopped. Until, that is, her husband was transferred from New York to a job in Mid-Iowa. One Sunday after the move they were looking for something to do. They decided to find a skating rink. They skated again the following week. Before long they met other adult skaters and were skating regulars. Don Herren, a 70-year-old skater from Norwalk, met them at a skate session in Des Moines and invited them to give competitive skating another try. They did. And they kept at it until illness kept Joe Schmidt off skates from 1991 until his death in 1998. So Schmidt, with her husband’s encouragement, started skating in solo competitions. Schmidt, Herren said, is a hard-working skater. She still shows up for weekly practice sessions in Marshalltown and even makes some sessions in Creston. She drives to Omaha every few months to work with a skating professional. “She is as dedicated as anyone,” he said. “She spends as much or more time on the floor during practice sessions as anyone.” He also said Schmidt is a personality. She’s energetic and curious and always wondering what people are talking about. When she’s talking, she’s not afraid to say what she thinks. Mary Perry is another Norwalk skater who met Schmidt at a roller rink. Perry, who’s 60, can understand what keeps Schmidt on wheels. “She’s like I am,” Perry said. “She started as a very young person and grew up with the sport. Once it gets in your blood — honestly, it never gets out.” Perry and Schmidt skate different events, so they don’t compete against each other. But they used to. And Perry said Schmidt was always a good sport. “We both knew whoever skated the best would win,” she said. “[The competition] always was on a friendship basis.” That’s right, Schmidt said, she’s not skating for the trophies. “It’s fun,” she said. “I love to skate dance. I love the music and skating to the music. It’s relaxing. It’s good exercise. I’ve been doing it all my life and I’m still able to do it. So why quit?” Keep on skatin’ There are about 25,000 American skaters registered for competition. Bill Wolf, the sports information director and magazine editor for USA Roller Skating in Lincoln, Neb., said about half of those skaters play roller hockey. The rest are divided between speed skaters and artistic skaters. The sport’s hockey numbers are booming, he said. The number of artistic skaters, including Schmidt, peaked in the 1980s at about 20,000. That’s dropped to about 7,000 these days. Most of those competitors are moving into the older age groups. But there’s some hope for the future. Wolf said America’s artistic skating team just finished second (behind Italy) at the recent World Class Artistic Championships in Australia. And competitive skating’s governing body is making plans to rebuild interest in roller sports. Roller skating, however, will not be part of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 or the Athens Olympics in 2004. But skating will be contested at international competitions such as the Pan American Games, Wolf said. Schmidt isn’t worried about all that. There are bowling leagues to keep her busy over the winter. There are skating practices to get to, too. Her next skating competition will be Mother’s Day in Minnesota. She’ll have to work on her steps, watch her edges, keep her posture, hit the beat and do something about that lean. She doesn’t mind all the work. It’s who she is. And when the time comes, she said, “put a bowling ball in my hands, skates on my feet and bury me.” |