YOUTH ESSAY CONTEST


INSPIRATIONAL STORIES Ryan Taylor, Raquel Gastelum, Julianna Galitz and Brennan Costello are the winners of the 2015 RISE Youth


Essay Contest. Te Memorial Fund Committee considered more than 70 essays, selecting one winner from each of the four discipline categories: pre-preliminary, preliminary, pre-juvenile and juvenile. Each winner received an award of $1,000. Featured here are their winning essays.


When Jeremy fell and slid into the boards,


I began screaming at the television, “Get up! Get up!” I kept yelling it over and over. Finally, he did stand back up and finished his program. Immediately, I thought of all of the times


when I have fallen in the middle of my free skate programs. No matter how perfect I can skate one day, I know there is always the chance that the very next time it might not go as well. Watching Jeremy fall, I remembered my parents and my coach saying to me, “Ryan, no matter how prepared you are, sometimes, things just happen.” But it was that night, last February, when I realized that, even when I someday work my way up to the senior men’s level, no matter how good of a skater I might become, I am still (hopefully, only occasionally) going to make mistakes. It was an important lesson to learn that no


YOU CAN’T JUST QUIT


(PRELIMINARY) I am a preliminary-level skater with the


Coyotes Skating Club of Arizona. Because I am only 11 years old, I don’t remember too much about any of the Winter Olympics, ex- cept for this year’s Games in Sochi. I certainly loved watching the figure skating events. As a boy, I most remember all of the men’s skating events. In particular, I remember when Jeremy Abbott fell during his short program. Tis event has been so memorable for many reasons. It was even memorable for some reasons that I didn’t initially expect. My whole family was watching the men


skate on TV that night. My older sister, Grace, is also a competitive skater and my parents spend a lot of time at the rink with both of us. As a result, we all wanted to see how Jason Brown and Jeremy would skate.


36 MAY 2015


athlete is perfect. As a skater, and as a person in general, I’ll always have to deal with setbacks and mistakes. However, I later realized another, even more important lesson from watching Jer- emy fall. Tat lesson came from watching him get back up. It seemed like I was screaming at the TV


for forever, practically begging Jeremy to get back up and continue skating. I began to won- der what he was thinking while he was lying on the ice. Was he hurting? Probably. Was he com- pletely disappointed and bummed? I am sure he was. But was he asking himself, “Should I just quit?”


A couple of weeks after the Olympics were


over, I saw some highlights of the Games in a magazine and I remembered Jeremy’s fall. It was then that I thought, “I’m so glad he got up and finished skating. It would have been terrible to just quit at the Olympic Games.” I began to imagine if that had been me, instead of him. All that time, all that work, all the money and missed events with my friends. And to finally have that pay off with a dream come true — being in the Olympics. You just can’t quit in the middle of your dream.


Ten I thought of my family — all the mornings my parents get up to take me to the


rink in the dark before school. I thought about how my mom works at the ice rink now, just to earn credit for ice time to help pay for my skating. Ice skating really is a family sport. My whole skating family, which includes my coach, Larry Schrier, has done so much to support me. I know I wouldn’t want to let them down by being a quitter.


I am so glad that Jeremy got up from his


fall and finished his program. He has a skat- ing family behind him, too. In some ways, we are all a part of his skating family; every Team USA fan, cheering for our athletes to do their best and enjoy their dreams coming true. I wish Jeremy had not made a mistake in the Olym- pics, but because of it I was reminded that we all make mistakes. More importantly, I learned that when people sacrifice so much to help you realize a dream, you can’t just be a quitter when life doesn’t work out exactly as you hope it will.


RISE (PRE-PRELIMINARY)


When skaters fall, they rise. Te skaters that perished in the Feb. 15, 1961, flight live on within me and every other skater with a dream. Whenever my blade touches the ice and I feel the cool air in the rink touch my face, I take a deep breath, letting the cool air into my lungs. I feel as if I am transformed. Any fear, anger, sad- ness or frustration that I feel suddenly turns into focus, determination and pure love for skating. Nothing else makes me feel happier or feel freer than gliding on the ice and lifting myself into the air while spinning and landing an Axel. I am sure that those skaters on that flight had all shared in that experience, with a dream to go to the Olympics in their hearts. When the Winter Olympics of 2014 was


on TV, my dad was getting chemotherapy. From my living room, I watched Julia Lipnitskaia draw in the ice with her finger like a little kid playing


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