icenetwork.com

Kassy Kova and Justin Ross at the 2008 U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships. (Mickey Brown )

By Lynn Rutherford, special to icenetwork.com

(04/30/2008) - When Kassy Kova saw Justin Ross stroking around the San Diego Ice Arena during a freestyle session three years ago, a thought popped into her mind.

"It was, 'hey, he looks like me!''' the 15-year-old laughed. "I mean, there are not many African-American skaters, especially in ice dance. I guess it's just not a typical sport."

Beyond color, the now 17-year-old Ross seemed like a good match for Kova, who needed an ice dance partner. Although a beginner, he moved about the ice fluidly. He was the right age and height. (Ross now stands 5'11, while Kova is 5'8). So Kova's mom, Suzan Cioffi, made an offer: team up with my daughter.

The only trouble, Ross wasn't interested.

"It was something I wasn't really sure about," he remembered. "I didn't know anything about [U.S. Figure Skating] or dance. I was a singles' skater; it was recreational, not competitive at all."

But after several other partners didn't work out, Cioffi picked up the idea again. She pointed Ross out to Kova's coach, Suzy Semanick.

"I saw Justin do group classes and public sessions," Semanick, a three-time U.S. dance champion, said. "Basically, everything looked good. He was a great height and he could skate. I figured, 'Why not talk to this young man?' To get two African-American skaters together at the same rink is so rare."

For Kova, that final fact was important.

"Most definitely, that attracted me," she said. "It's such a great thing to be the only African-American dance team in the United States."

There have been other African-American ice dancers. Most recently, at the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Nathan Truesdell won a novice silver medal with Megan Evans (they have since ended their partnership). But teams with two African-American members are rare.

It took a bit of persuasion, but once Ross took to the ice with Kova in May 2005, he was hooked.

"You can't just put one foot in the pool," Semanick explained. "He knew we would have to be on the ice at 4:30 a.m., so we could get in 90 minutes before the freestyle sessions started. Oh my gosh, once he got into it he was a ham! They really play off one another."

Pairing the inexperienced Ross with Kova, already an accomplished ice dancer, was a challenge. Semanick estimates that over the three years they have skated together, Ross has passed 28 USFS dance tests.

"I'll ask him: do you remember taking this test? And he'll say, 'no,'" she said. "He lives at the rink. They train four or five hours a day. His extended family is here.

"Nothing gets to him; he's easy-going. They have what I would call a brother-and-sister relationship. Their partnership is very healthy; they're laughing all the way. If they don't get something the first time, they get it the tenth time."

"I had a long way to catch up to Kassy, so it was work as hard as I could and as much as I could," Ross admitted.

"And as fast as he could," Kova jokingly added.

The skaters, who will both begin classes at San Diego Community College this summer, have competed at the U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships three times. They will make their novice debut at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Competition at the end of July; later in the season, they will try their luck at the Pacific Coast Sectional Championships, a qualifying competition for the 2009 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Like all good competitors, they are confident and ambitious.

"We want to make nationals this year, and we want to medal," Ross said.

January through April, they compete in ballroom dance to improve their musicality and sharpen their skills.

"It helps to refine attitude, facial expressions and body movements," Semanick said.

In Lake Placid, the couple will debut their new free dance, choreographed by Semanick to Frank Sinatra's "That's Life" and "Luck be a Lady."

"We've been doing [Latin] pieces for years, so we figured it was time for a change," Kova said. "We really needed to get out of that so that the judges didn't think we were stuck in one category."

Ah, the judges. While other teens worry about the opinions of their peers, ice dancers spend many of their waking moments mulling over what an often middle-aged and older panel of experts will think of their costumes, hairstyles and music choices, not to mention their lifts and twizzles.

"It's definitely a dominant theme," Kova said. "We always have to think about how the judges will perceive what we're doing. We want to skate at the Olympics, maybe in 2014."

While the couple hopes to progress through the U.S. ice dance ranks, they may have another option. It's possible they could one day represent Ivory Coast, should that nation become an ISU member. The country is home to West Africa's only skating rink, at Abidjan's Hôtel Ivoire, although it is not available year-round.

"I think [Ivory Coast] has had a freestyle skater or two," Semanick said. "Suzan [Kova] has lived there, she knows the country. She met Kassy's father there. [Ivory Coast] might put in a proposal [to the ISU] in a year or two. Obviously, it's still under development."

Both skaters have single, working moms; Cioffi is director of the University of California, San Diego Retirement Resource Center, while Ross is an emergency room nurse. With other children to consider -- Justin has a twin brother and an older sister, while Kassy has a sister -- money is tight.

"We both work to help as much as we can," Ross said. "Kassy models, and I'm one of the instructors for the skating school here. I teach a lot of the basic skills classes."

The driven teenagers are media savvy; they maintain a Web site and have courted local media attention, including a prominent article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, in hopes of attracting sponsors.

"That's what we're hoping for," Kova said. "It hasn't happened yet, because [the press attention] has only been a short time."

In the meantime, they don't let mounting costs discourage them.

"Absolutely not, we are very hopeful," Ross said.

"They have to pick and choose [their expenses]," Semanick said. "He doesn't drive, even though he will be 18 [on May 25th]. It comes down to insurance for a car, or skating. But they're going into this with wide open eyes; they haven't turned sour. They love it."