My Skating History

I began skating at the age of 8 in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri.  My first competition was the Heart of America competition when I was 10 years old. 

My first coach was Randy Brilliantine, whom I worked with for 13 years.  He is a PSA Master Rated coach who trained in Singles, Pairs, and Dance under Ron Ludington.  Ron who resides in Wilmington, Delaware and has trained many Olympic skaters.  Randy was my coach from the very beginning all the way through my first few years as a Senior competitor.  In this time, we had been successful in achieving a Silver Medal in both the Novice and Junior level at the U.S. National Championships, as well as two Gold Medals in International Competitions (France and Yugoslavia) as a member of the USA International Team.  

After 13 years of working with Randy, I made a my first coaching change.  In 1991, I relocated to Cleveland, Ohio to train with former Olympic Gold Medalist Carol Heiss-Jenkins and Glyn Watts.  I worked with Carol and Glyn for a total of four competitive seasons.  In this time, we achieved two Bronze medals at the U.S. National Championships in the Senior level and became a member of the 1994 U.S. World Team.  I missed the Olympic Team by one place... for the first time since 1972 the United States was only allowed to send two skaters to the Olympics. The skater who was 1 place ahead of me at the National Championships was former Olympic Champion, Brian Boitano. Ironically, he had been mentoring me for the previous two seasons and beat me for a spot on the Olympic Team.

My final two years as a competitive skater were spent at the Atlanta IceForum training with Don Laws.  He was the coach of Olympic Champion, Scott Hamilton. 

After 19 years of competing, training and participating in numerous ice shows, I retired from skating.  I was very fortunate to have my family, sponsors, and amazing coaches to support, guide and inspire me throughout the years.  I absolutely could not have done it without all of them.  Looking back... it was a fantastic journey.  There were many difficult times, but enough highlights along the way to make it all worth while. I am thankful that I now have the opportunity to pass this knowledge, experience, and skill set to each new generation that I coach.  I am hoping they too will look back at their time spent with me on the ice with a sense of accomplishment and joy.