Synchro Connections
Chance and choice enable Andrea Auer '19 to pursue her love of synchronized skating
Andrea Auer ‘19 always had ice in her blood. Her father was a hockey player who got her and her sister out on the rink at an early age. At 9, Auer started synchronized skating — executing intricate team formations and step sequences — and by 10, she was winning medals at competitions along the East Coast.
But at 18, she made a difficult choice that surprised herself. She passed up the opportunity to skate on a top U.S. collegiate synchronized skating team to pursue a streamlined, 5-year degree in occupational therapy at Nazareth, where synchronized skating wasn’t a team or club sport.
“I just completely fell in love with this place,” she remarked, citing Nazareth’s then-under-construction York Wellness and Rehabilitation Institute as a game-changer. “My high school in Syracuse, N.Y. also had pride in purple and gold, so it felt like home. If I had to sacrifice skating, I knew I could still skate on my own.”
What Auer didn’t know: Coming here would lead to a side career in coaching, rekindle grade-school skating friendships, enable her to create and compete in one of the first multi-college synchronized skating teams in the country — and to win 9 medals by her junior year.
This year the Mirror Images team of 13 students from 5 Rochester-area colleges won gold at the 2018 Empire State Winter Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., and bronze at the 2018 Eastern Sectional Synchronized Figure Skating Championships in Estero, Florida.
Nazareth students Andrea Auer, Kennedie Brown, Paige Ensby, Jennifer Whelan with medals at the 2018 Eastern Sectional Championship in Estero, FL.
Building a Team
It all started with a Facebook message the summer after high school.
In Nazareth's closed online community for accepted students to form connections and get answers, "I was just scrolling through to see if I knew anybody, and Paige's name popped up," Auer said of Paige Ensby '19. "We were on different teams at the same rink back in eighth grade. I sent her a message, and we started talking and decided to room together since we knew we had skating in common."
As Auer looked for rinks near her new home at Nazareth, coach Jessica Stratton from Thomas Creek Figure Skating Club in Fairport, N.Y., spread the word to area skaters about some students' interest in starting an open collegiate level synchronized skating team. Auer quickly became the team's president, offering to lead recruitment, management, and training. She had to figure out how to manage practice time, rink rental, financials, ordering apparel, and registering for competitions.
"I had to learn how to do everything my parents did for me while growing up. It was a huge realization of how much work they put in for me to do what I love to do."
Over time, Auer recruited three skaters from Nazareth to join her on the team:
- Her roommate, Paige Ensby '19 (physical therapy)
- Kennedie Brown '20 (nursing and public health) saw a post on social media
- Jennifer Whelan '20 (physical therapy) was approached after a friend of Auer's noticed Whelan was wearing a skating jacket in class
These chance encounters laid the foundation, but one big problem remained: A team requires at least 8 skaters to compete.
All in the Numbers
Auer and her new coach at Thomas Creek Figure Skating Club publicized a wider call to area rinks. Word spread fast and students from several colleges showed up to the rink.
"It was a messy process at first. We had a wide range of skill levels show up, and they were all from different schools. Some students could barely move across the ice," Auer recalls.
Today, the Mirror Images Open Collegiate team consists of 13 students from Nazareth, Rochester Institute of Technology, State University College at Brockport, Monroe Community College, and University of Buffalo. The team practices weekly at RIT, but they often move around to whatever rink will give them ice time. Auer is also coaching younger skaters at Thomas Creek and Bill Gray's ice rinks — where she often incorporates assessment skills she's learned in her OT degree program.
"I'm very analytical with the kids at the rink now, especially younger kids," Auer says. "I'm always looking to see if their muscle development is adequate to get up and march at a certain point or if they are even cognitively ready to be out on the ice."
Auer is thrilled that she could keep skating at a high level while preparing for a career in occupational therapy. She plans to focus her career on assisting aging adults like the therapists who once worked with her grandparents.
"I spent most of my time with them when I wasn't skating or at school," she remembers. "Even at a young age, I could see the difference the therapists made in improving my grandparents' lives."
By seizing opportunities, Auer has discovered and developed skills in management and coaching and built connections that cross campus boundaries.
"I love the sense of team and growing together. We're already planning on creating an adult team together when we graduate. Synchronized skating builds lifelong friendships."
2017-2018 Team
Back row (from left): Aletheia Delancey, Kennedie Brown, Kaylee Schmidt, Weston Costello, Shayna Rudy, Paige Ensby, Tyler Farber
Front row: Alaia Gross, LauraAnne Hirschler, Alexis Duke, Samantha Ruiz, Jennifer Whelan, Andrea Auer
Eastern Sectional Synchronized Figure Skating Championships
Andrea Auer '19