Spinning wheels: Figure roller-skating team members in it for sport, not fame

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 8:50 a.m.

The afternoon public session has ended. The disco lights have come to a standstill. And video games flicker quietly along the walls.

The waiting skaters roll onto the floor, moving fluidly across the wooden slats, each with their own routine to practice.

There are jumps to refine, steps to master and spins that demand more grace. From the center of the rink their coach, Leslie Niles, rolls slowly, studying them.

Parents and grandparents wait at the snack bar, conversing. Siblings play cards and look on.

For members of the Crystal Palace Artistic Club and their families, there will be hours of this ahead.

The group of competitive freestyle roller-skaters meets daily at the Crystal Palace roller rink on Boulder Highway. Some practice as much as 15 hours a week, hoping to master grace and velocity on the clunky equipment on their feet.

They travel throughout the country, competing at events sanctioned by USA Rollersports, the national governing body for roller-skating.

There is no money awaiting a stellar performance. There are no sponsors to fund their excursions. No televised competitions of the skaters decked in colorful costumes and, to their disappointment, no hopes of taking home the gold from the Olympics.

But for some, the feel of the wheels and placing in competitions is worth their efforts.

"I like the competitions, the challenges, everything," said 15-year-old Las Vegas resident Nicole Fields before a recent practice.

"My friends tell me I could make a lot of money (ice skating)," she said. "But I don't want to sell out. I love what I do."

Fields has been roller-skating since she was 7 years old, and she placed second in the nation in freshman ladies singles at last year's national competition in Lincoln, Neb.

She is one of 35 students of local instructor Niles, who was a three-time Southeast Regional Champion in her home state of Virginia by the time she was 15.

Niles, in her early 30s, teaches full time with the help of two assistants. Her students range in age from 3 to 25 years.

She has been coaching Dakota Wolf, 10, a two-time national champion, since he began skating and competing at age 3.

"All these kids came from my beginner classes," Niles said, pointing to a group of students. "I have a beginner class on Saturday. They can go any way -- hockey, speed (skating) -- but I kind of push them this way (toward freestyle)."

Competitive spirits

The training can be grueling. But Niles' students are as dedicated to her as she is to them.

"It teaches a lot of life lessons," Niles said. "You go through a lot with these kids -- even 25-year-olds, just telling them they can do it. It's tough. Besides having parents that support them, there's the drive, the discipline. You get beat down.

"For me it's learning 35 different personalities and figuring out how they tick. I'm tough. Kids are tough. They're going to push your boundaries. (But) watching them go from losing to winning -- it's huge."

And despite their ages, the young students accept the highs and lows that accompany performing.

"You get butterflies when you first start," said 10-year-old Miranda Malone, who has been competing in free-style skating for four years. "Sometimes you get nervous watching the other girls because they're so good.

"At finals, when they didn't make it, a lot of them cried. I did."

But she added, it's all about the "feeling of thinking you did a good job, that you've tried your best, you did your best."

Family affair

Since its peak in the 1980s, the number of competitive figure roller-skaters has decreased nearly 50 percent, Bill Wolf, spokesman for USA Rollersports, said.

Wolf speculates that children's soccer, school sports, in-line skating and computers have added to the decreasing number of youths participating in roller-figure skating.

Still, he said, there are 700 roller-skating clubs nationwide. Within those clubs are nearly 15,000 members and 6,500 figure skaters who compete at sanctioned events.

"It's strictly for pride and medals," he said, adding that USA Rollersports is working to promote figure roller skating as a potential Olympic event, as well as changing its image to increase interest in the sport.

Some parents choose roller-skating over ice skating because the cost is considerably less, Niles said. Parents spend about $250 each month on roller-skating, which is roughly half the cost of ice skating, she said. This includes traveling, lessons, club dues and costumes.

Parents and clubs hold fund-raisers to generate money for traveling to national competitions.

"Everything comes out of our pockets," said Margaret Ehnis, whose teenage daughter, Cori, and 8-year-old son, Cassidy, travel to meets in Southern California every six weeks.

"We do garage sales, car washes. We started out with simple costumes (compared) to last year's costume cost of $250 because she went to nationals," Margaret Ehnis said.

But it's an effort the Ehnis family doesn't mind undertaking. Roller-skating is in their blood.

Ehnis met her husband, Bob, at a roller rink in Dallas 18 years ago, where she worked in the snack bar and he was a floor guard. Essentially, they never left the roller rink.

"I skated the day before she was born," she said, pointing to Cori, who was skating the floor with her boyfriend and pairs partner, Jesse Jenkins. "I skated that Sunday. I had my scheduled C-section Monday morning.

"I have pictures of them (on roller skates) when they were about 1," she said of her children. "But they didn't learn anything artistic -- jumps and spins -- until we met Leslie.

"Now they get up at 5 a.m. so we can get to the rink by 6," she said. "I have a hall full of medals.

"We really expect my son and his partner to go to nationals this year," Ehnis said. "Then we have to figure out how to get to Florida. They're really good for 7 and 8 years old. I can't wait until they're 14, 15 and 16. I can't imagine what they'll be doing then."

Hopelessly devoted

Similar to Sylvia Marshall, who is 20 years old and has been competing for 10 years, Cori Ehnis said she plans to continue skating throughout her life.

To keep themselves on wheels, both say they plan to someday coach younger kids.

They can always continue competing, because the age divisions in the competitions go up to age 60.

Marshall said she would like to see roller-skaters get more recognition, and nearly all of the students would like to see their sport in the Olympics. "My whole life, and I'm sure when the (older students) were little, they were under the assumption that they were gonna be (in the Olympics)," Niles said.

"I'd like to see us marketed better. I'd like to see us on TV. We just had World Championship in Massachusetts and there was no television coverage. Our top skaters were there and not a soul knew about it."

But even without the recognition, the skaters have accomplished personal milestones, such as 25-year-old Sheri Falwell, who quit skating at age 14 because she could no longer afford it.

Three years ago she returned to the sport and last year made it to nationals.

"It was my goal," said Falwell, who three years ago moved to Las Vegas from California.

"I knew that when I first came back I had to work. I just pushed and pushed. When I did it, it was amazing for me. I had never done it before."

Niles considers Falwell one of her greatest success stories, and she expects to see more.

Niles is newly married to Tom Davis, a skating coach from Oxnard, Calif. The couple will train the students in Las Vegas together.

Davis trained a world champion skater from the beginner level, Niles said. "We'll teach together," she said. "We'll be a team from now on. We'll see some growth.

"We were the outcasts," she said, referring to Las Vegas before she began teaching. "Now we're doing good. They know Las Vegas. They know my kids."

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