LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Greensboro holds ‘warm’ memories for Bradley
The energy. That’s what Ryan Bradley will always remember
about the Greensboro Coliseum and his fi nal com- petitive performance on Jan. 30, 2011. Fans packed the venerable building to watch
the men’s fi nal on a Sunday afternoon. Bradley, the short program leader, was the last of 22 skaters to perform. At stake for the 27-year-old from just outside
Kansas City? His fi rst U.S. senior title in a 16-year competitive career that nearly ended a few months earlier, after he failed to make the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team. “The people in the arena were just very excit-
ed,” said Bradley, who enjoyed a standing ovation two days earlier for his short program to the iconic World War II music of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” “Even on the practice ice, you could feel the energy building, and it just led to its peak quite nicely.” And while he experienced some rough patches
early in his comedic free program to music of Mo- zart, Bradley grinded it out and gave the audience one last thrill when he exited the ice by doing his signature backfl ip. Fans cheered as the scores were read, with
Bradley standing in the kiss and cry, cupping his mouth with his hands in sheer exhilaration. “There was certainly something special in that
arena that day,” Bradley said. “It got me through and allowed me to do enough to reach my goal that year.”
One funny story Bradley tells from that fi nal
performance has to do with his longtime friend John Coughlin, who won his fi rst U.S. pairs title at the same event with partner Caitlin Yankowskas. Coughlin and Bradley grew up as friends in the
Kansas City area, shared training ground in Colora- do Springs, Colorado, and know each other’s skat- ing nuances better than anyone else. “I vividly remember the moment I landed my
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triple Salchow-triple toe (his second-to-last jump- ing pass), which should be the easiest element in my program,” Bradley said of his free skate in Greensboro. “But I remember looking up as I hit it and John Coughlin is the only person in the arena standing when I do that element. The reason he was standing was because that’s my hardest element. I have a horrible triple Salchow and that’s always been the one jump I miss, even if I’m skating well. “So the moment I hit that, I just remember John
popping out of his seat in the 18th row, and there’s just something in my head and I start laughing as I try to go through the rest of my program, thinking it’s amazing that someone knows my skating that well.”
Since that amazing day nearly four years
ago, Bradley has gone on to realize his other skat- ing dreams, traveling and performing around the world. He recently returned from Brazil and was headed to Knoxville, Tennessee, to skate in one of Scott Hamilton’s shows. “It’s pretty much been nonstop,” Bradley, now
31, said of his globetrotting and performing. “But it’s really fun. It’s something that I worked my whole life for, and I’m grateful to have this chance.” His memories, though, of Greensboro will al-
ways be special because of the people and the way they made him feel on that fi nal weekend of his competitive career. “They are just very warm,” Bradley said of those
in Greensboro, the Piedmont Triad region and North Carolina. “I think it’s that Southern culture in North Carolina. It’s a warm community anyway. “I hear Greensboro and it kind of perks me up.
That was the last day in a really, really long journey for me, so I have very warm memories of the city and the people. I not only remember how it looked and sounded, I remember how it felt.”
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4 JANUARY 2015
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