A former McComb resident is trying to bring a small-town feel to her daughter’s demanding life in figure skating.
Jennifer Jones Schroeder, a 1974 graduate of McComb High School, and her family live in Palo Alto, Calif. She is using her small-town roots to help her daughter Hope chase her ice skating dreams.
Hope is an award-winning ice dancer — similar to ballroom dancing on ice. She has been skating since she was 3, and in September, the 18-year-old high school senior won the title of 2012 U.S. Figure Skating Association National Solo Dance Junior Champion.
“I think that being from a small town, you have so much support and such a tight community,” Jennifer said.
She said she talks with her friends in McComb every day, and she has seen that same support and sense of community within the ice skating family that Hope has found.
“I have been very happy because I have seen a community like that around her,” Jennifer said.
Jennifer said she wanted Hope to find a group of people that she could look back on and celebrate life with.
However, ice skating wasn’t always something her parents thought would be beneficial, especially after their daughter faced setbacks such as illness and injury.
Hope has broken her foot twice, and not long after she came back from the most recent injury, she had to sit out for seven months because of an illness.
“At that point it was like, ‘Why did I let her do this? It is too demanding and stressful,’ “ Jennifer said.
That’s when she encouraged Hope to focus more on piano or regular dance. Her father, John, didn’t like the idea of skating either.
John travels all over the world as a professor at Stanford University and enjoys having Hope and Jennifer with him, but once Hope became competitive in figure skating, she spent much more time on the ice.
Jennifer said the time away from family is the biggest sacrifice that she’s made for Hope’s skating.
Despite having encouraged her daughter to try other things when ice skating became more and more demanding, Jennifer said she has been there for every second of Hope’s competitions.
“The more I encouraged her to open up about other things, she became more focused on skating,” Jennifer said. “I am glad she chose it because she chose something that was her choice and not something that her parents chose.”
Hope had a skating partner before her injuries. But solo ice dancing— which is skating more like a ballroom dancer— began in 2011 and Hope returned to the ice to compete in the new category, Jennifer said.
Watching her daughter compete keeps Jennifer on the edge of her seat, she said.
“Watching Ann Romney and Michelle Obama and hearing what they had to say about watching their husbands get up there and speak, is exactly what I feel,” she said. “It is everything within me to sit there and be cool.”
Jennifer said that anxiety could increase if Hope finds the right partner and tries to compete in the Olympic Games.
“Solo (dancing) is not an Olympic sport,” Jennifer said. “If curling can be an Olympic sport, then individual dance could be.”
