Against the odds
Brown, coaching team overcome great adversity during Olympic season by TROY SCHWINDT
Jason Brown doesn’t hesitate when asked
about his favorite Olympic moment. “It was definitely standing on the podium
with the team,” said Brown, who with his U.S. teammates captured the bronze medal in the in- augural Team Event. “It wasn’t because we got a medal, it was just that moment when you finally got to sit back, in one place, with your teammates, and take everything in.” Brown’s eyes welled up, he said, as he looked
into the large crowd and saw his coach of 15 years, Kori Ade, and his parents, Marla and Steve, who were also overcome with emotion. “It was dark outside, the Olympic torch was
glowing right in front of me,” Brown said. “It was one of those moments when they put the medal on us and I started crying. When you look at any of the pictures, my eyes are this big.” Standing there, the teenager from Highland
Park, Ill., couldn’t help but replay in his mind all of the time spent practicing, improving his craft; his methodical climb under Ade, from a begin- ning skater at age 4 to an Olympian at age 19; and the love he shared with his parents and two siblings while growing up near Chicago. Most vivid, though, was the adversity he and
his coaching team faced in the 11 months leading up to and through the Sochi Games. It all started with Brown graduating from
high school a semester early and the decision by Ade to move to a new ice facility in Colorado. Her objective was to train Brown in a different environment, with a new “vibe.” Unfortunately, things fell through with the Colorado rink just two weeks before Ade, Brown and choreographer Rohene Ward were supposed to leave Chicago for Colorado. Undeterred, Ade made numerous phone calls in an attempt to find an ice rink that would open its doors for full-time training.
“I was eight months pregnant and my mov-
ing truck was coming the next day, and I got one more phone call from a rink in Colorado Springs saying, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t accommodate you.’” Ade pushed on and finally secured full-time ice at the Colorado Sports Center in Monument, Colo., about eight miles north of Colorado Springs, just off of Interstate 25. While in Monument, Ade has built a com-
prehensive competitive figure skating program that she prides herself on as being “athlete cen- tered.”Jason’s training mates include another long time student of Ade’s, 2014 U.S. junior silver medalist Jordan Moeller, as well as 2013 U.S. ju- nior silver medalist Mariah Bell. “I think the amount of adversity that we
24 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014
faced moving here really pushed all three of us to say, ‘We can get this done and we can get this done better,’” said Ade, who left behind 23 stu- dents in Chicago to start anew. “We could have looked at it as a roadblock, but I think we looked at it as an amazing opportunity to start something from scratch, to do it our way. We have created the same family dynamic that we created in Chi- cago.
“So as much as it was difficult, it was a bless-
ing in disguise because we had to create some- thing that probably if we were in someone else’s paradigm, we wouldn’t have been able to create: have ice all day and the ability for Jason to run his programs without restrictions.” Ward, who has worked with Ade and her
students for several years, maintained that same never-say-die attitude during the uncertain tran- sition.
“I don’t necessarily come from a well-off
environment, so I understand how trying to get out of something negative can be a motivator,” Ward said. “When people were saying, ‘No, we can’t come’ or ‘No, we can’t do this,’ or ‘No, we can’t do that,’ I was used to hearing no. So for me, I was like, ‘We don’t need it; all we need is a piece of ice. It doesn’t need to be the best piece of ice in the state, it just needs to be a piece of ice and we’ll get the job done regardless.’” Now with a place to call home, Brown faced other challenges, such as living on his own for the first time, finding the right off-ice experts and ad- justing to a new schedule, which included starting college at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. He also faced a major hurdle when it came to skating at 7,000-feet elevation and the ambitious Riverdance program that Ward had crafted for him. Bottom line, the program was so physically demanding that Brown didn’t think he would ever be able to perform it like Ward envisioned. “Tere were so many times I told Rohene that I need to take something out,” Brown said. “It took me six months to run one clean program and that’s with me being able to consistently land all the jumps; it shouldn’t have been that hard for me. It typically takes me two or three months to run that first, full, clean long program.” Brown said the intricate steps leading into the jumps zapped his wind. “I’d say, ‘Rohene, I need to breathe,’” Brown
said. “He’d say, ‘No you don’t. You can breathe when it’s over. Figure it out.’” With his first senior international event just
a couple of weeks away at Nebelhorn Trophy, Brown still carried heavy doubt about being able
to get through the program, let alone perform it to the highest of standards. “For so long, I could envision it and I could
see the crowd coming to its feet,” Brown said. “But in reality I’d be falling all over the place and tripping over my feet. Rohene would be scream- ing at me and Kori wouldn’t be happy. ” Finally, though, Brown figured out the nec-
essary pacing for the program and was able to concentrate more on the performance and forget about the endurance that was required. He placed second at Nebelhorn Trophy, fifth at his first Grand Prix Series event at Hilton HHonors Skate America and third at Trophée Bompard in France. By the time the 2014 Prudential U.S. Cham-
pionships arrived in early January, Brown was well-trained and confident.
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