U-M represents at the Winter Olympics

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 | Source: The Michigan Daily

The Ann Arbor area is famous for its athletics, and not just the revenue sports at the University of Michigan. A number of amateur athletes are making a name for themselves at this year's Olympic games.

Excerpt:

He was eight years old and had been skating since he was three but after playing ice hockey he had developed bad habits. To improve his skating, White’s parents decided to sign him up for ice dancing lessons.

One town over in West Bloomfield, Mich., nine-year-old Meryl Davis was in a similar situation. She, too, had decided to take up ice dancing and was looking for a partner. The choice seemed obvious. The two young skaters had both trained at the Detroit Skating Club for years, and White’s single skating coach at the time, Seth Chafetz, thought to himself, “Why not give it a try?”

The way White, who grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Davis came together couldn’t be further from a storybook beginning. Their first skating session was so insignificant at the time that Davis said she barely even remembers when she met her partner.

“I have absolutely no recollection of it,” she said trying to think back to the introduction. “I can only remember someone asking me to skate with this crazy kid and thinking that I had no idea what I was doing.”

Read the rest of the story here and more about Ann Arbor's Olympic prowess here and here.