Talented 10-year-old takes to the ice

Meredith Pipkin

3:54 p.m., Dec. 22, 2004--Since before she can even remember, Meredith Pipkin has been a skater. She received her first pair of single-edged skates at the age of 2 and has been on the ice ever since.

Now 10 years old and a student at The College School on the UD campus, Pipkin represented the University of Delaware at the recent U.S. Junior Figure Skating Nationals in Jamestown, N.Y.

Pipkin’s mother, Alisa, who taught skating for eight years, recognized her daughter’s talent when she first started skating and, after a few years of teaching her herself, sought a coach. Her choice was Priscilla Hill, who has recently been named Coach of the Year by the Professional Skaters Association and who also coaches Johnny Weir, who’s been called America’s top skater.

After some trial runs, Hill agreed to coach Pipkin, who was 4 years old at the time. “Meredith was a talented little kid and is special to me,” Hill said. Pipkin does some practicing at UD as well as at The Pond in Newark, where Hill does her coaching.

On the ice, Pipkin is professional. She focuses on her skating, accepts direction from a team of coaches headed by Hill and gives her skating her all. She turns into a whirling, twirling top when she performs her spins, which are one of her specialties.

She is unfazed by performing in public. For many years, she has been invited to do solo routines at New York’s Rockefeller Center rink. Her only comment: “It’s not fun when it rains.”

She also attends a skaters’ camp at Lake Placid, N.Y., where she skates in an ice show each year and has competed in regionals as a solo skater and in pairs to qualify for the Nationals.

Pipkin also takes part in a UD sports medicine study for designing a hinged skating boot that will take pressure off a skater’s back.

Off the ice, Pipkin is much like any other 10-year-old. She said she loves her friends and teachers at The College School, where math is her favorite subject. She particularly enjoys the “neat field trips,” like the one to the ocean where she saw dolphins. She also was excited about a school talent show in which she was to sing. A video of her skating was also to be a part of the show.

“The College School has been wonderful,” Alisa Pipkin said, “They work with us so that Meredith can participate in competitions, and I get to see she does her work when she’s not in school.”

Meredith has two brothers--a younger brother, Tyler, a budding ice hockey player who also attends The College School, and an older brother, Carter, who is at St. Anne’s School in Middletown. The family lives in Maryland, where Pipkin’s father, E.J., is a state senator.

Others representing UD at the Junior Nationals also performed well. Tara Greenhalgh was seventh and Hilary Ho 10th in intermediate ladies; Meg Byrne and Nate Bartholomay (who represent UD but train in Pennsylvania) came in first and Rachel DeRita and Rob Zinsmeister came in ninth in intermediate pairs; and Anastasia Cannuscio and Geoffrey Varraux came in first in juvenile dance.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photograph courtesy of Teresa Della-Volpe

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