Alexa Hewitt is a junior majoring in communications and the president of the Club Figure Skating Team on campus. She has been a member since her freshman year. The team accepts any new members with any level of experience to be a part of the team.

Below is what she had to say about the team and its culture:

Q: How does your season start? What does it look like in the spring versus the fall?

A: It kind of varies because we rely on when the rink opens and when the rink closes for the season. I think this year, the rink is closing earlier than usual.

Q: How does the season run with competitions and events for both semesters?

A: Both semesters, they have collegiate competitions where we go to different colleges in the Midwest. In the fall, we only have one collegiate competition, and then in the spring, we have two. Along with that, we have our own team fundraisers. We do open skates with bake sales. Usually, for our Halloween open skate, we have a raffle basket, and then at the end of every semester, we have our exhibitions. In the fall, it’s more winter or holiday themed. In the spring, it’s more fun stuff for the exhibition. So, the members have more of a choice of what they would like to do for the show and all of the themes are voted on.

Q: How many members did you have for both seasons?

A: It was probably around 30 to 40. It kind of varied because some people were more active in the fall, or they were more active in the spring. Because of graduation, that’s another thing where people kind of go on with their lives. It’s been harder on our team because for the past two years, our team had consistent 8 a.m. practices, but for the majority of this year, it’s been 7 a.m. practices, and people can’t really get up for that.

Q: With new members joining anywhere from freshman to seniors, do most come into this sport with experience?

A: No. A lot of them joined with friends, or they see us at campus events or see us on social media. Actually, my freshman year was the big wave of new skaters to the team. So there’s a lot of variation of experienced and not experienced skaters, because they just want to try something new and make more friends. We’re always very welcoming and supportive for our members and our new or returning members.

Q: How do you go about teaching members with less experience? Does it go throughout the whole season?

A: It is just like in school – people’s learning styles are different, so some people might learn faster than others. A lot of the experienced skaters are more than happy to step up and help teach. The vice president or president of the team are both expected to kind of coach the members because they’re more experienced. In our team constitution, the presidents have to have a certain amount of experience to get that role.

Q: In your experience with being on the team, what is the pace beginners catch on to this sport? Do you feel it might be harder to learn than other sports?

A: I think it varies, but I think it’s a lot easier to learn than people expect. People are really nervous about figure skating, and they think, “Oh, I could never do this thing.” The first few things people learn after becoming comfortable with the simple skills is how to do a spin. People don’t really think they could ever immediately learn this, but they do.

Q: What does your team do to involve themselves on campus?

A: We do hockey performances. So at halftime, we do a little performance. We all have a blue outfit that matches, and it’s all gender inclusive. You don’t have to wear a certain outfit. If you identify differently it does not matter, as long as everyone is wearing the same shade of blue. We also do on-campus student organization promotions as well. So like blast off and other student organizations. They are just to have people be more aware of our team, and then we do fundraising as well. On Valentine’s Day, we do a carnation sale, which makes people more aware of our team as well.

Q: What specifically about your club sport do you think would make people want to join?

A: I think it’s because of our inclusiveness. We just have a wide variety of members, like age, experience, any sort of other backgrounds and majors as well. I think we just have a lot of opportunities because we have a lot of opportunities to travel, to have shows and make new friends. It’s not just a one note thing.

Q: When a student is looking to join a club sport, why do you think they should consider taking a look at figure skating and even consider joining?

A: I think that people should take a look at figure skating more because even though there are a lot of negative stereotypes about the sport, most of them are not true, especially in college. No one is as crazy competitive as they would be in high school or a lot of other team sports. We really just want to help people learn new skills, make new friends and have fun. Our team is never focused on winning – it is about having fun and letting people have more experiences while they’re in college.

Q: If anyone is interested in this club sport at Kent State, what should they do?

A: If anyone wants to follow our team, we do have an Instagram. It is @ksufigureskating. We do have a TikTok as well @kentstatefigureskating. Our email, if anyone wants to join the club, is [email protected].

Taegan Evans is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].