LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Greensboro serves up Southern hospitality One morning before
I caught the shuttle to the Greensboro Coliseum, I stopped by the café in the host hotel lob- by and had a nice conversation while waiting in line with a lady from Raleigh, North Carolina. Jean Spooner and her hus-
band, Robert Fisher, were in town to watch the 2015 Pruden- tial U.S. Figure Skating Champi- onships. They had met up with Jean’s brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Marti Spooner, from Jacksonville, Florida. “We bought our tickets 18 months ago,” Jean
told me. “We’re excited to be here.” Jean and her family had just arrived the day
of the men’s championship short program, and the thrill of watching that competition was fresh in her mind. “Well, Jason Brown was pretty amazing and
second place (Josh Farris) had a beautiful style,” Jean said. “It was a lot of fun.” The Spooner family experience played out
countless times during the week, with fans arriving from all over the country enthusiastic to watch the best fi gure skaters in the land compete on the big- gest of stages. The show that took place behind the scenes,
however, was equally impressive. One woman that I met during my media duties
at the Greensboro Coliseum hailed from Alabama. She came up on her own dime to volunteer for the event. Her job was to monitor the athlete locker rooms and check credentials. I could tell she loved being there because she was friendly and took her job seriously. Kim Strable, president of the Greensboro
Sports Commission, has helped woo and work many major sporting events in Greensboro for sev- eral years, including ACC basketball tournaments and PGA events. He headed up some of the volun- teer eff orts and jumped in wherever he was need- ed. During the Friends of Figure Skating breakfast, for example, Strable walked around the room to make sure there was plenty of food and place set- tings for everyone. “Most of the athletes, coaches, offi cials and U.S.
Figure Skating staff were very receptive to how we do things,” Strable said. “We like to make eye con- tact, we like to be friendly, we like to be engaging if they want to be engaged. From what I could see, things were mutual. People felt good about being welcomed and people cared that they were there.” Local organizing committee chair Hill Carrow,
who brought the event to Greensboro for the fi rst time in 2011 and again this year, gushed about how things went. “We received numerous positive comments
from athletes and U.S. Figure Skating offi cials re- garding the quality of the venue, hotel accommo- dations, event setup, operations, volunteers and en-
4 MARCH 2015
thusiastic crowds,” Carrow said. “As a whole, our local orga-
nizing committee took all those areas up several notches from 2011, including the Coliseum and host hotel renovations and our enhancements to both Fan- Fest and the WFMY News 2 Rink (secondary rink). Our volunteers were warm and welcoming, our sponsors provided great sup- port, our media partners were over the top, and the perfor- mances by the skaters were re- cord-breaking.
“The most ringing endorsements came from
Jason Brown, who proclaimed on NBC’s broadcast that he loves Greensboro, and from Tara Lipinski, who stated during the national coverage that the Championships ought to be held in Greensboro ev- ery year. We couldn’t ask for better than that.” One of the biggest changes for fans attending
the senior events was the enhanced production and presentation that was seen throughout the arena. Utilizing the Greensboro Coliseum’s new HD video board, each athlete had his or her own mini-feature shown during the group’s six-minute warmup. To take full advantage of the state-of-the- art video board, U.S. Figure Skating used social me- dia aggregator Tagboard to feature fan and athlete posts, which elicited joyous reactions from many of the competitors as they awaited their scores in the kiss and cry. Credit for this goes to U.S. Figure Skating’s staff
members, who collaborated on the in-arena pre- sentation. They spent the week hunting down ath- letes to create dozens of videos onsite that were on display throughout the event. This entire production truly enhanced the
in-arena experience. Ideas are already being for- mulated to make next year’s U.S. Championships in Saint Paul, Minnesota, even more entertaining for spectators. Also, Prudential gave away 12,000 “Skate Radi-
os” to fans as they walked into the Greensboro Col- iseum. There were three channels to choose from, including one that provided technical commen- tary of what was taking place during each skater’s performance. This boosted the fans’ experience immensely; hats off to Prudential for making this major contribution. I need to also give props to all the local me-
dia, which provided blanket coverage of the event, from before we arrived in Greensboro through the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular on the fi nal night. Very impressive. Once again, for the second time in fi ve years, Greensboro stepped up to the plate and launched U.S. Figure Skating into the next Olympic quadren- nium with a memorable U.S. Championships. Con- grats to everyone!
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