With a few more pumps of his legs, Adam Evans’s lanky 6′ 2″ frame glides over the ice. As he flies down the straightaway, he feels the cool air rippling against his face. “Stay low, stay low,” he says to himself, as he feels a steady but rising burning in his thighs. He approaches the corner, shifts his weight, and sets his left hand down on the ice for balance.
But there’s a twitch in his right foot and the skate slips. As Evans tumbles to the ice, he quickly sticks his legs out in front of himself to avoid getting sliced by the skates on his feet.
Weinberg freshman Evans is a budding speed skater, finally working on a lifelong interest with the sport. But beyond his own training, he is trying to bring his passion back to Northwestern by making it an official club sport.
Evans figure-skated until he was in seventh grade, but always had a fascination with speed skating, though it was hard to realize. In his hometown of Chevy Chase, Md., the sport is far from popular; Evans didn’t even meet a speed skater until he was 18 years old. He first got the chance to really work on speed skating over winter break in 2008, when he took some lessons at a local club. But the entirety of his fascination with the sport can be traced back to earlier in 2008, when he decided to go to Northwestern thanks to three-time Olympian Nathaniel Mills.
“On April 30, the day before I had to decide between Northwestern and Tufts, my high school class went on a field trip,” Evans says. “We ended up meeting not only a speed skater, but a three-time Olympic speed skater [Mills] who had graduated from Northwestern.”
Mills told Evans about the Petitt National Ice Center, a U.S. Olympic Training Facility located just 90 miles away from Northwestern, in Milwaukee. The center has the closest available long track, which Mills skated on when he attended Northwestern.
— Evans
In December 2008, Mills directed Evans to the Fort Dupont Ice Arena, where speed skating coach Chris Callis was holding a camp to give D.C. inner-city youth the opportunity to skate. Evans joined as a volunteer and started working with Callis.
But Evans wants to do more than focus on his own speed. Putting his training on hold, he wants to make speed skating available to everyone at Northwestern by making it a club sport.
Recognition as a club sport gives students access to seed money and university vans for transportation to competitions, something Evans wants to use for weekly visits to the Pettit Center for practice.
On the advice of Callis, Evans contacted the Evanston Speed Skating Club. Because of its established club structure and its biweekly practices at the Evanston-based Robert Crown Ice Center, Evans feels he can learn a lot from the club. Currently, he wants to make the Northwestern team a part of the Evanston Speed Skating club, because “they already have coaches, they already have ice time, they already have the leadership.”
Evans wants to make the Northwestern club fun and affordable, at around $100 per quarter. But even after teaming up with the Evanston Speed Skating Club, the costs could present an issue. According to Hicks, total cost consisting of ice fees, club membership, national registration and skate rental ends up at $650 per year — and that doesn’t include the $20 for each race registration.
With high overhead prices, Evans wants to use the university funding granted to recognized club sports and the availability of university vans to ease the financial burden of the club. Yet Peter Parcell, Sport Clubs Director at Northwestern, says that the funding available is not what people think.
“Most of the funding that is allocated out is what we consider to be seed money; it’s not a high percentage of the overall budget of these clubs,” Parcell says. “All these clubs are well more than three-quarters supported by their own individual dues and fundraising efforts.”
Competition for recognition runs high. There are currently 34 club sports and six conditional clubs awaiting status. The newest organization, the triathlon club, was recognized last spring after about two years of waiting for approval. Their membership numbers served as a major reason for their acceptance. Parcell says, “If an organization can generate that much interest, there are reasons for my office to want to get behind that and help support it.”
Evans would one day like to hold local practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus an additional practice at the Pettit Center in Milwaukee; however, he says the first priority is “getting the club off the ground” and into recognized status. He met with Parcell, which introduced him to the fierce competition for club sport status. In the coming months, Evans plans on doing heavy flyering to get the word out about a general address meeting, which will gauge student interest for a speed skating club on campus.
Many difficulties associated with creating a club stand in his way, but Evans has not allowed them to ruin his focus on the sport he loves. Even though he doesn’t have a pair of skates at school, he is passionate when he describes speed skating.
“You’ll see pictures of [Apolo Anton] Ohno or any of the short-track guys leaning over and they’ll have their hand on the ice, just sliding around the track,” Evans says. “It hurts your legs, it’s really hard to do — but it’s so much fun.”