While many students have trouble balancing just the workload and demanding schedule of being a pre-med major, freshman Casey McCraw accomplishes all this - and makes time to practice his figure skating three hours a day, five days a week.
Along with practicing every weekday, McCraw's time is taken up by many competitions on the weekends. "In the beginning I was so stressed, but you get used to the stresses - it's still stressful, but it has gotten easier," he said.
"I went to regionals last month, in October, and I got second in that, so next weekend, I'll be going to sectionals in North Dakota," he said. "The top four will go to nationals, and I expect to go to that."
McCraw's family moved to Colorado when he was 14-years-old in order for him to have a better opportunity to succeed in figure skating.
"Moving has never been that hard for me," McCraw said. "You meet new people, which is always exciting. Plus, Colorado had a huge training facility and lots of good coaches."
"The high schools are also better, which was a big part of it," he added. "I've become very good at moving. We also moved to L.A. for two years because I wanted to act."
McCraw first became interested in skating at age six while attending a birthday ice-skating party in Albequerque. "My two best friends did it, and they were sisters," he said. "I liked it and I was good at it. I started out in group lessons; then I started taking private lessons."
McCraw doesn't really know when exactly it was he knew that he wanted to focus on figure skating. "I did the group lessons and then halfway through them I got bored," he said. "I talked to my mom about it and she said that she had paid up to a certain point so I had to keep taking lessons until then. It was during that time period that I really started liking it."
McCraw spends many hours of his day perfecting his figure skating at the Boston Skating Club in Cambridge.
For the upcoming sectionals in North Dakota, the top four competitors will be asked to move on to the nationals and then international competitions. McCraw, as well as all other competitors, will perform two programs. In the first program, skaters must incorporate a list of required moves. The second, longer program does not have any specific requirements, but usually involves many more jumps. Each skater hires professionals to choreograph their programs.
At all competitions, McCraw competes within the junior level, composed of skaters between the ages of 16 and 20.
"I've grown up with a lot of the kids that I'm going to be competing against," McCraw said. "You know what you have to do to win, but sometimes you get a surprise in there."
Each competitor works throughout the year to perfect his skills and jumps, but in each competition, each skater is only given a short period of competition time to illustrate his skill: two and a half minutes in the short program, and four minutes in the long program.
"You put a lot into it, and you only get six and half minutes total to prove what you have been working on for an entire year," McCraw said. "If you mess up the six minutes, that is an entire year wasted."
Although sometimes the outcome of the event may be disappointing, the competitions can also be very rewarding. "The best part of the competitions is the adrenaline rush that you get competing," McCraw said. "The winning is also nice, too."
McCraw competed for the first time at the sectional level two years ago and came away with a first place win. "It was the first one I went to and I got first at it," McCraw said. "Nationals after that was a disappointment though, because I got fifth place, and the top four get to go onto an international competition. It was frustrating that I missed out by that one place."
When McCraw is not practicing or studying for biology, he enjoys shopping, watching movies, and going to parties with friends. In addition to skating, he likes sports including skiing and tennis - he even went skydiving with friends recently.
"I'm not sure about the skating in the long run, but I would love to make it to the Olympics in 2008," McCraw said. "I also have big goals of being a plastic surgeon. Skating is for fun and I'll probably stop doing it when it stops being fun, but hopefully in the long run, I'll be able to do both plastic surgery and skating."<$>
