Howard recently became the only HBCU among more than 100 schools with a collegiate program under U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body for the sport. The Bison made history Saturday when they competed in the Blue Hen Ice Classic at the University of Delaware.
Princeton, North Carolina State, Maryland, and South Florida were among the schools that participated in the event. “It was our inaugural competition and all of our kids skated amazingly,” Howard skating coach Joel Savary told theGrio. “It was just an absolutely wonderful event.”
Savary said the Bison took nine skaters and they demonstrated specific skills in team maneuvers. He said junior Maya James competed and placed fifth in a solo competition that featured 11 schools. “That was really great, especially coming in as a brand new school,” Savary said. “We are really proud of them because there were a lot of schools participating. It was a great starting point for Howard University.”
The process began over a year ago when James and a fellow student, senior Cheyenne Walker, explored the idea of starting a school figure skating team. Both had skated since childhood but chose Howard over other schools that had figure skating opportunities.
“I just missed the sport honestly,” James told U.S. Figure Skating (USFS). “I didn’t really skate that much during the pandemic; I stopped skating for like two years. As I was coming to college, I also saw a lot of the U.S. collegiate Instagram pages and how they went to competitions and how the competitions look so fun and welcoming.”
James learned about Walker during winter break in 2022 and suggested they join forces to build a skating team at Howard.
“When Maya reached out to me, I was so excited because I was speaking to other girls from Figure Skating in Harlem who go to Howard and we would always speak about how we wish there was skating, but we didn’t know how to go about it,” Walker told…
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