Me, A Sports Writer?

Those who know me wouldn't consider me a sports enthusiast. I'm one of those people who comes up with excuses why not to attend most popular sporting events. I look forward to the Superbowl commercials, I pretend not to know the difference between soccer and lacrosse, and I refuse to watch any basketball except the Kansas Jayhawks (who somehow revived their football team this year in surprise to many). This is simply because it's more of a religion than a sport when you grow up in Kansas.

Well, now I'm going to be reporting about the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships next week for BlogHer in their Sports and Fitness area, and I realized that technically makes me a sports writer. Who would've thought? As a freelance writer, I've written about skating before for newsletters and here (see skating category; see also my post about last year's nationals), but this will be my first professional project and I can't be more thrilled.

I've been skating since I was five, I competed some as a kid and then more as an adult including winning medals at national and international events in my age and test category, and one of the most major accomplishments of my life was passing my Adult Gold Figure Skating Test. That took a lot of time and dedication. I've worked behind the scenes on countless figure skating events, I've done a little judging, and now my two year-old is taking to skating so I'm moving into the role of skating parent. I understand most of the angles and pressures involved in the sport as well as the physical mechanics involved and the number system as to why some things are ranked with more difficulty than others. So I'm looking forward to infusing some of my knowledge into what I write about the event.

For the Nationals TV schedule, current news and an online skating challenge, check out the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) site. And to get more coverage of the event for figure skating fans, it's inexpensive to join icenetwork.com and see the events from the whole 2007-2008 season online.