As 16 women glided over the ice at the Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion, their feet and heads all moving in unison, a high-pitched voice yelled instructions. The coach of the Orange Experience Synchronized Skating team, Lisa Mirabito, called for her skaters to “keep smiling” and “use your shoulders.” Her guidance has helped lead them to their best season since 2013, when the team didn’t exist due to a lack of skaters.

This year, Mirabito’s SU Synchronized Skating team has placed first in three competitions, its most successful season since she started coaching the team 10 years ago. Three competitions remain, including the Eastern Synchronized Skating Sectional Championships, the largest competition the Orange will compete in. The six are the highest number of competitions SU has participated in since Mirabito began in 2008. In Mirabito’s time with the Orange Experience, she’s coached skaters from all across the country — California, Virginia, Vermont, Texas, among others — and at all levels of experience.

“I like the fact that we’re able to bring these skaters from all over and put them on the ice and make them a team,” Mirabito said. “I enjoy that challenge, I enjoy that.”

Mirabito had never planned to be a professional ice skating coach, let alone return to her alma mater and coach a synchronized skating team through, so far, an undefeated season. Mirabito brings more than 20 years of coaching experience to the ice each time she laces up her skates, ones encrusted with Swarovski crystals.

She had given up ice skating in high school. After graduating from SU in 1984, Mirabito became a designer in Skaneateles but said she needed an outlet outside of her job. There was a rink near where she worked, and she coached part-time for individual ice skaters. After she had kids, she stopped working as a designer and worked only at the rink.

Molly Gibbs | Photo Editor

In 2008, Orange Experience put out a call for a coach who was familiar with the then-recently updated rules of synchronized skating. Prior to that year, there was a change in how the competitions were judged. With her experience from coaching at the Skaneateles rink, she gained the knowledge SU sought, and got the job.

“I was sort of consulting, I wasn’t really coaching. I didn’t choreograph,” Mirabito said. “They were still managing all of that, they were handling all their practices.”

After a few years, she took a larger role with the team as a coach. Orange Experience trains three times per week — two on-ice practices and one workout. After each run-through of its program, Mirabito floats across the rink to her team and gives suggestions like telling them to “use their shoulders to skate.” Then, she’ll instruct which part she wants to see, and they get in formation. Mirabito said she often brings tissues and bandages, cleans up if a skater has left something behind and turns in music for competitions, acting as a mother — on and off the ice.

Senior Hannah Butler, on-ice captain of Orange Experience, said she was on the team when they took fourth at the Eastern Sectionals in 2016. Now, as a captain, she leads one practice per week, and Mirabito leads the other.

“I think that we definitely would not be as competitive if we didn’t have her coaching us,” Butler said. “Specifically in the performance aspects, she pulls a lot out of the girls that we wouldn’t be able to pull out of ourselves on ice.”

The sport, though not as contact-driven as field sports like soccer and field hockey, requires precision and practice. If one member of the team falls, she runs the risk of taking down her teammates too.

Molly Gibbs | Photo Editor

During a morning practice last month, a week between two first place finishes at competitions, a couple of the skaters fell because one tripped on her skate. They both hit the ground but popped back up and skated into formation, leaving ice falling from their clothes. Both Butler and Mirabito provide technical advice and tips for the skaters to prevent mistakes, but Butler is in the routine. Mirabito watches from the outside.

Mirabito said one of her best memories from her time as a coach at SU was when the team finished in fourth place at the Eastern Sectionals three seasons ago. But just two years before that, there wasn’t a team.

Butler, who has skated competitively for more than 10 years, describes the sport as a “cutthroat” environment, but said the Orange Experience team is closer than other teams she’s seen. Before each competition, Butler said, the skaters all yell a cheer together. Other skaters frequently comment on how much fun it looks like they’re having.

“I think that everyone’s familiar with figure skating as a sport, but not a lot of people are familiar with synchronized skating as a sport,” Butler said. “I think it’s such a fun and beautiful sport to watch. When people find out the team exists and comes to a show, they always have so much fun.”

Though skaters graduate and leave the team, Mirabito, in her busiest year with the team, said she plans on staying.

“If they will have me, I will continue,” Mirabito said. “I love the sport, I love skating in general and I do enjoy working with the group of skaters right now…If they want me to continue I will continue as long as they need me to or until I retire.”

Published on December 6, 2018 at 12:19 am

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert