Miami Student

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Sports

Coach Heather Paige will leave to take a job in Chicago to be closer to her family. She led the synchronized skating team to four national championships while at Miami.

At the end of the semester, Heather Paige will say goodbye to the program she gave her life to for the past eight years to take a job in her hometown of Chicago, Ill.

During her four years as collegiate coach, Paige led the Miami University synchronized skating team to four consecutive national championships.

"It's a huge loss for the team, but at the same time I'm really happy for her," junior skater Paige Johnson said. "It's hard to have a life in Oxford. She's just such an amazing person and she just has so much potential to go out there and be a phenomenal coach and experience so many things."

Student athletes have the unique experience and challenge of balancing two lives. Paige, who lived both those lives as a synchronized skater for the Miami senior team, now lives in the third dimension as coach.

"For me it was such a great opportunity to have school and skating to be together," Paige said. "In high school you're used to private clubs and it's kind of separate and you have separate friends from school. It was really a great thing to have that combination and to go through college knowing that you're going to have this little family and that they were always going to be there."

Captain of the senior team for three years, Paige has a passion for the sport of synchronized skating.

When she graduated and there was a coaching position available on the team, she knew immediately that she wanted to stay.

"My years as a skater were so great-just phenomenal," Paige said. "It seemed like a good fit for me to stay and continue my passion for synchronized skating with Miami because I had such a great experience."

Since Paige took the reigns, it seems that everything she touches turns to gold.

The synchronized skating team rose to national and world prominence with the help of her leadership, winning four national championships and placing high in several world championships as well.

"Since she came on, the collegiate team has been undefeated at the national level," Johnson said. "She obviously has talent for being just a phenomenal coach. I personally was on the collegiate team my freshman and sophomore year and she's the best coach I've ever had."

Continued...

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