Don Laws Apprenticeship Scholarship By Kent McDill
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hattuck-St. Mary’s, the private school in Faribault, Minnesota, has one of the premier figure skating facilities in the Midwest, and caters to skaters who are competing at a high level while needing to complete their secondary education. The SSM Figure Skating Center is staffed by some of the nation’s top figure skating coaches, led by director Tom Hickey, who has coached champions at the U.S. National, International and Junior World levels. It regularly includes guest coaches from around the country and the world to provide unique coaching techniques. It is fair to call SSM Figure Skating Center a mecca. True believers, in the form of figure skating coaches, come from far and wide to enjoy the coaching intellect and atmosphere and collegiality which SSM offers. Davenport, Iowa, is one such place from which coaches trek to southern Minnesota. Ferelith Senjem, a figure skating coach at the River’s Edge Ice Arena in Davenport, has gone to SSM as a visiting coach on three separate occasions, bringing her students to enjoy the facilities and to show what is possible for anyone who might
want to attend a private school that offers figure skating excellence. But in the summer of 2019, Senjem left her students behind. She was awarded a Don Laws Apprenticeship scholarship, which allowed her to spend a week at SSM, shadowing the staff and visiting coaches in order to expand her knowledge of figure skating coaching at the highest level. Senjem said the difference between being a visiting coach and an apprentice is in the details. “As a visiting coach, you are allowed to shadow the resident coaches with your students, but if you are not working on a certain skill, you are not allowed to shadow,” Senjen said. “As an apprentice, you are taken under the wing of those coaches, and you are allowed to ask the coach anything you might want, in order to perfect your own coaching skills.” Senjem attended her apprenticeship at an odd time for her. Her home rink in Davenport suffered severe flooding from rains that seemed to be consistent throughout the month of June. She had just finished six weeks of shuttling students to rinks as far away as Chicago in order to get their training.
Spending a week at Shattuck-St. Mary’s was a welcome respite from the headaches that come from rink concerns, especially when that rink is under water. There are two appeals to the apprenticeship program at SSM. The first is the opportunity to work so closely with various coaches with decades of success on their resume. The second is being able to experience the atmosphere that surrounds a coach when they visit SSM. “The philosophy of their camps is to be on time, work hard, have a positive attitude, look professional, plan ahead, and be kind to each other and to the students,” Senjem said, explaining the relationship between coaches at SSM. “They stress giving clear directions, creating an environment that promotes 100 percent effort. They make sure coaches and students eat, exercise and have fun.” Visiting coaches may perhaps work to avoid appearing invasive when they attend SSM, trying to fit in, trying to learn as much as possible and show their students as much as possible without violating the skating center rules and guidelines for visiting coaches.
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