Home News Product Reviews Health & Fitness Features Healthy Eating

ARCHIVE NEWS

If it is not your content, try to search here:
Figure Skating - 26. April 2007.

Emily Hughes to Attend Harvard University


U.S. silver medalist and 2006 Olympian Emily Hughes announced today she will attend Harvard University in the fall as a full-time student while continuing to pursue her promising skating career. While at school, she will train under coaches Mark Mitchell and Peter Johansson at the Skating Club of Boston. She will continue to skate with longtime coach Bonni Retzkin, who has been her coach since starting out in the sport as a young skater, while at home in Great Neck, N.Y. “I’m really excited about going to college and starting to work with Mark and Peter,” said Hughes, who finished ninth at the 2007 World Figure Skating Championships. “Bonni’s been great. She knows how close I feel to her, and whenever I’m home I’ll take from her. It’s great that she supports me, and she’s been behind me the whole time. Mark choreographed my short program last year, so I have worked with him already. I think he and Peter are great coaches; plus, the Skating Club of Boston is really close to Harvard. It’s fortunate because they’re world-class coaches, and I’m really excited to start a new chapter.”



Hughes applied to seven universities and was accepted to all of them: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Barnard College and NYU. Her immediate family has close ties to many of those schools. Her sister Sarah, the 2002 Olympic figure skating champion, is a junior at Yale working toward a degree in American studies. Her oldest sister, Rebecca Parker, went to Harvard for her undergraduate degree and Columbia for law school. Her brother David and her parents Amy and John all graduated from Cornell.



“All of the schools were great, and trying to narrow it down was difficult,” Hughes said. “Not only do I want to get a good education, I want to be able to skate and train as hard as I can. After visiting Harvard and visiting the Skating Club of Boston, I realized that Harvard was the most ideal place for me because I can go to class, get an education, the rink is really close, and there is a great skating community.”



Hughes will move to Cambridge, Mass., during the weekend of Sept. 8 for new student orientation, and then begin classes on Sept. 10. She will take a full load of courses and is undecided on a major. She will live in the dorms with a roommate assigned by Harvard University.



Other skating greats who have attended and graduated from Harvard University include 1992 Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie and two-time Olympic champion Dick Button. Hughes had the opportunity to talk about the school with Wylie while performing at “An Evening of Champions,” an annual exhibition fundraiser held at Harvard to raise money for the Jimmy Fund.



“I think education is extremely important,” Hughes said. “I’m skating right now, but you never know what will happen in the future. Having a college degree and getting that experience and opening my mind to new and different things will help me on the ice and in the future.”



- U.S. Figure Skating -
Media contact Lindsay Dewall (719) 635 5200

Thank you so much, if you tweet or share
UP
Have you read it?
England Women squads named for white-ball tour to New Zealand
Gilles & Poirier Golden at ISU Four Continents Championships
Please follow us