INTRUDERS (Chapter 128)


Warren and Sophia quickly dropped Betsy off at the day care, and hustled over to the rink. Kathy was waiting for them. She directed them into her office.

"Look, guys, I had to. I didn't know what was going on with you guys," Kathy started.

"Bullshit," Warren spat. "You knew we were coming back."

"Well, I thought that with the baby, plus since you won Worlds....."

"Worlds isn't the Olympics," Sophia told her.

"The Olympics?" Kathy laughed. "You guys don't get it, do you? You completely sabotaged your career with that stunt you pulled at Worlds. You'll be lucky if you win another National championship. I thought you'd see that, and get out while you had your World Championship."

"You don't have much confidence in us," Warren said.

"This is still a judged sport. And too many judges think you're bad for it," Kathy countered.

"The only American ice dance team to ever win a World Championship, and we're bad for the sport," Sophia snorted. "Well, Kathy, we're not going away. We're the best ice dancers in the world, and we're just going to be so good we force the judges into acknowledging it."

"If anyone can pull it off...." Kathy laughed. "But you understand why I don't want all my eggs in one basket."

"We understand that part of it," Warren said. "What we don't understand is who."

"They're the up and coming dance team," Kathy shrugged.

"They're also first-class slimebags. Well, she is, anyway," Sophia pointed out.

"She's not that bad," Kathy said.

"She took a run at us on the practice ice at Nationals," Sophia pointed out. "She's said nasty things in the press. And now Courtney Rogers and Ryan Killen are here? Sharing our ice? Our coach?"

"Look, competitors do share ice and coaches," Kathy pointed out.

"And if it were anyone else, we wouldn't care," Warren told her. "But we don't trust her. They are never going to beat us fair and square, and I don't put it past her to do something underhanded. And, while we trust you, it's clear that you don't believe in us either, if you think the judges are out to get us."

"And taking them on as students isn't a ringing vote of confidence, either," Sophia added.

"I needed to expand," Kathy maintained.

Warren took a deep breath. "Do you have a copy of our contract?"

Kathy looked startled. "Yes."

"Could I see it?"

"I suppose. Hold on, it's not here." She left the room. Warren and Sophia talked about the situation while she was gone. She came back quickly, and handed the contract to Warren.

After reading it, he said, "This is what I thought. Our deal for free ice time in exchange for promotional help is for the club."

"Yes," Kathy said, confused.

"You signed it in your capacity as president of the club."

"Right."

"Not as our coach," Warren said.

"Well, now we're talking to Kathy the coach, not Kathy the president of the club," Sophia said. "You're fired."

"WHAT?" Kathy asked.

"We're still going to train here," Sophia told her, "since we don't have much of a choice. And we'll do the promotional stuff we're supposed to, and we expect the free ice time, like it says in this contract. But we don't want you coaching us anymore. Not if you're going to be coaching them. We won't stand for it. Courtney Rogers is bad news. We're not going to share a coach with her."

"Who's going to coach you?" Kathy asked incredulously.

"June is our coach," Warren told her. "We'll send videotapes if we're having a problem. She pretty much helped us work out our programs before the wedding. Other than that, we'll coach ourselves. We've done it before."

"You guys are making a big mistake," Kathy told them.

"No, we're not," Warren claimed, and they walked out of her office.


A few days later, Warren was in the locker room when he was approached by Ryan Killen.

"Warren? I'm sorry." Warren just looked at him. "I tried to talk Courtney out of this. I even told Kathy I didn't think it was a good idea."

"Water under the bridge," Warren said. "What are you going to do?"

"Look," Ryan sighed, "Courtney's going to make your life a living hell."

"She can try," Warren said with amusement. "Ryan? We're not worried about Courtney, OK?"

"She's a great skater. We work well together on the ice," Ryan told him. "But, Warren, she's ruthless." His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "You don't know. You don't know the half of it."

"I'll keep that in mind, Ryan, OK?"


They had their programs for the coming year.

This was the first year for the two original dances. For the Bossa Nova, they'd picked the Austin Powers theme, and had worked up a humorous program. The other OD was the Polka, and they were skating to "The Lonely Goatherd" from the Sound of Music. "The Duschesnays did it," Warren had told Sophia, "but they sucked. It was a reach for them. It's right up our alley."

Their free dance was a bit of a departure. It was the closest they'd ever gotten to skating to classical. They'd picked the music of Aaron Copeland, two selections from his "Rodeo". They started with the slow section, Saturday Night Waltz, and then finished with Roundup-or, as Sophie insisted on calling it, The Steak Commercial Song. She'd giggled when Warren had suggested skating to it. It was, however, fantastic to skate to.

A few days after Warren's conversation with Ryan, he arrived at the rink, with Caitlin, Papa Bear, and Betsy. Sophie had a meeting with one of her professors and would be a few minutes late.

When Warren arrived, Courtney was still on the ice. "Your time's over," Warren said brusquely.

"Where's Sophia?" she asked.

"Meeting with a professor."

"You know what, Warren?" Courtney said. "You shouldn't be skating with her, anyway. You should be skating with me. I'm far better than she is."

"Oh, really," Warren said, bemused. "What about Ryan?"

"He's good, but not as good as you are," Courtney cooed, laying it on thick. "We'd be a dynamite team."

"Are you forgetting that she's my wife?" Warren laughed.

"Oh, who cares? I'm still a better skater than she is."

"You think?"

"I know it."

"Fine, come here." She skated over to him. "How's your memory for dance steps?"

"Fantastic."

"Good. This is the transition out of the side-by-side step sequence. It starts with a lift." He showed her. "Then this." He showed her a series of steps. They ran through it a couple of times. What Courtney didn't know-but Warren did-is that he was showing it to her at half-speed.

Papa Bear and Caitlin were watching all this, trying to figure out just what was going on.

"OK, pick it up," Warren told Courtney. They did the sequence faster. Courtney was just able to keep up. Warren chuckled to himself-they were still only at about three-quarter speed. Just then, Sophia walked into the rink. She came to a dead stop, and looked out on the ice, dumbfounded at seeing her husband skating with that bitch. She was just about to say something, when Warren shot her a "trust me" look.

"OK, Courtney, you've got the steps. Let's try it. Caitlin, music please?"

Cait started the music. They went into the lift, came out of it, started the steps-and Courtney just could not keep up. She had had problems at three-quarter speed; at full-speed, she was lost.

"Come on, Courtney, keep up!" Warren hollered at her. They ran through it a couple of more times, and Courtney was getting more lost. The fifth time, desperately trying to keep up, Courtney clicked skate blades and went down in a heap.

Warren looked at her, chuckling. Then he turned to Sophia, still standing by the entrance to the rink. "Hey, Pookie. You wanna show her how it's done?"

"Don't mind if I do," Sophia grinned. She skated over to Warren. Cait started the music, and they flew through the sequence flawlessly. 

"She was trying to convince me she's a better skater than you are," Warren grinned at Sophia when they were done. "Hey, Courtney? You're not even close."

Courtney stormed off in a huff.


After they had eaten supper that night and put Betsy to bed, they were in the living room of their apartment. They were both studying-classes had started.

"Pookie, you seem a little out of it tonight," Warren told her.

She sighed, and smiled at him. "It's stupid." Warren just looked at her. "That's the first time you've ever skated with anyone other than me. I mean, I know about being on the ice with other skaters when you're choreographing them. But we've never choreographed for another dance team, and, besides, that's different. I saw you skating with her, and my heart was in my throat."

"I only did it to prove a point."

"I know," she smiled. "It's just that we've always been very possessive about dancing." Warren cracked up laughing. "What?"

"We've been more possessive about dancing than we ever have about sex," Warren laughed.

"Too true," Sophia giggled. "Well, I hope Courtney didn't figure out the truth."

"Huh?"

"That if you had been trying to help her instead of show her up, she would've been able to keep up with you. You're the best partner in the world. You could skate with anyone, and make them better."

"Yeah, but why should I have to do that when I already have the best female ice dancer in the world as my partner?"

"Awwww," Sophie giggled. "Now, that's enough talk. Study."

"OK."

"And be quick about it."

"Why?"

She giggled. "Because I need you to fuck my brains out, o loving husband."

"And you expect me to concentrate on studying now?"

"You're a genius," she giggled. "You can do it."

"Uh-huh."


Two days later, they were preparing to get on the ice to train. Courtney was just getting off.  She skated over to them. "Listen. I was wondering. If I got some ice time tomorrow or the next day, could I ask you guys for some help? You especially, Warren, but Sophia too. I want you to teach me how you keep your speed through the steps like you do."

Warren and Sophia looked at each other incredulously. Then Warren turned back to Courtney. "You've got to be kidding. First of all, I don't know if we even could teach that."

"It's a gift," Sophie interjected with an evil grin.

"Second of all, you're competition. That alone, I wouldn't care-if you were Shawna Vickers, I'd do it. But you took a run at us at Nationals. You've said some nasty stuff about us to the press. You were the only one that didn't sign the petition for us. And, now, you've stolen our coach-and don't tell me for a second that you did it just because Kathy's a good coach."

"And now you want us to tell you all our tricks? Nice try, Courtney. Now get off our ice." She did, angrily.


Courtney's antipathy towards the duo only increased when she happened by a newsstand a few days later. There they were, Warren and Sophia-on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

They had done an interview two weeks before. They themselves got the issue, and were thrilled with it. They were on the cover, sitting on their couch, arms around one another, grinning. The cover blurb said, "Figure Skating Will Never Be The Same."

When Courtney-and the rest of the world-turned to the article, this is what they read.




HEAT ON ICE
How Two Young Lovers Transformed American Ice Dance, For Better Or Worse
And How the Figure Skating World Might Bite Back

It's a rather small apartment. With their recent endorsement deals, Warren and Sophia Kelleher probably could afford better-but this one's on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, and thus convenient. 

It's cluttered. "Who has time to clean?" Sophia Kelleher laughs. She's got a point. 

Warren and Sophia Kelleher are 20 and 21 years old, respectively. They took last year off from school, but they are now back at Wisconsin, in their Junior years. Warren is pre-med, with a 3.8 GPA. Sophia is a meteorology major, keeping up a 3.4. They are newlyweds. They have an adorable one-year-old bundle of energy named Betsy.

And, if that's not enough, they're also the best ice dancers in the world.

"Sometimes I'm so busy I forget my name," Warren laughs. Even with their hectic life, laughter comes easily to this couple. "Classes, studying, skating, Betsy. It's too much, and we know it. But there's nothing dispensable here-it's all necessary."

"We're not willing to put off schooling any more," Sophia adds. "And this is our time for skating. What would we get rid of?" She lets out a huge grin. "It's bad enough that we have to schedule sex."

Ah, yes. Sex. It's important to understand something-sex is important to the Kellehers. It is, frankly, part of their appeal. It's also part of the controversy.

It probably all started before the last Olympics. A tabloid printed an article about Sophia, alleging all kinds of sexual improprieties. The Kellehers dealt with the issue-revealing that Sophia had been abused in her early teens-but also revealed another one. Sophia, 19 and unmarried at the time, was pregnant.

"In the upper echelons of the sport, her pregnancy was absolutely frowned upon," Tina Bowman, a veteran skating reporter for USA Today, said. "That started their troubles with the USFSA, make no mistake about it. What happened afterwards only added to it."

What happened afterwards? A racy photo shoot of Sophia in Maxim magazine. An exhibition program at last year's nationals to Aerosmith's "Pink" that was so hot it just about melted the ice. And then, in what they say was protest against the flak they got for the first two things, an exhibition performance at the World Championships done completely in the nude. 

The Powers That Be in figure skating have murmured behind the scenes since then. The rumor is it that the USFSA is rescinding all support for the couple. Since they get no financial support, they can only believe that the USFSA is talking about one thing-support with the judges.

Has someone forgotten that Warren and Sophia Kelleher are the most successful American ice dance team in history?

Some friends of theirs have come to take care of their daughter for the afternoon. Without having to worry about their daughter, they're relaxed and charming. They are asked if some of the rumor swirling around about lack of judging support give credence to the belief that figure skating isn't a "real" sport. They answer, in unison, "Yes."

"And ice dancing's the worst of them, without all the jumps to separate people," Warren adds.

"So, yeah, they can put us in fifth place next year, and most fans couldn't tell the difference," Sophia says.

But hasn't their always been an element of sexuality in figure skating? "To a point," Warren says. "First of all, relentless male heterosexuality has always been applauded. Somehow I didn't get put in with that, but it's been applauded with other people. Michael Weiss rips his shirt off and that's cool. The problem is with female sexuality."

"And only one aspect of that," Sophia added. "There's a girl, Allison Bowman, finished third at Nationals this year. She's 15 but she looks 12. Her competition programs were fine. Her exhibition-they dressed her up like a 12-year-old tart and had her skate to 'Brick House'. And nobody says a word to her."

Why do you think that is, she is asked.

"Because it's not real. It's fantasyland. Somehow, that's better. I don't agree, but that's the way some people see it."

"Look," Warren interjected, "Allison's costume and movements were far more lascivious than ours in 'Pink'. You know what the difference is? She was acting. We were not. 'Pink' isn't an act, it's foreplay!"

"And somehow that's better," Sophia repeated. "Taking a fifteen year old and making her look like a pedophile's dream, with absolutely no conviction behind it, is somehow better than two people who have a great sex life celebrating that-and mildly, I might add."

"It's the Madison Avenue commercialization of sex, is what it is," Warren asserted. "Of course, we by into it a bit with that Diet Coke commercial Sophie did. We're not innocent."

Tina Bowman, longtime figure skating writer for USA Today, tends to agree with the Kellehers. But she adds one more thing. "Singles skaters and female pairs skaters are small, almost by definition. But ice dancers, especially here in the USA, tend to be just as small, especially in weight. Sophie's not the only tall female ice dancer-but she's one of the few that isn't rail-thin. She's fairly voluptuous. I don't think that helps. They break the mold in a lot of different ways."

Sophia, when told of this quote, laughs and agrees. "Somehow, the sexuality of someone who looks 12 is less threatening than someone with a little T&A."

Warren and Sophia were both born and brought up in Oceanview, Massachusetts, a city of about 45,000 people 20 miles north of Boston. Warren comes from a stable home. Sophia, for a while there, did not. "My father left when I was three. I didn't see him again until I was sixteen. It's fine now. But I had some crap to deal with." She met Warren, at an after-school job, when they were both all of fourteen. "And I had one foot in the grave," she says. "Without Warren, it's hard to say what would have happened to me."

"And I was a bookish nerdy outsider," Warren reveals. "We found the best in each other."

It shows, and that includes on the ice. That's another part of their appeal, even when you take the sex out of it. The long program that won them an Olympic silver medal, "Romeo and Juliet," was a gorgeous display of sustained romanticism. 

Their friend Evan Pogdar, the male half of the number-two American ice dance team, chuckles when reminded of it. "It's no secret that Shawna, my partner, and I are both gay. So, obviously, there's nothing romantic between us. We're very, very good friends, but that's it. And we have to go compete with those two," he laughs. "I swear, at times, it looks like they're one person with four arms and four legs. There's a level of completeness with those two that other dance teams just don't get."

"Actually, I think that's the most important part of our appeal," Warren says. "Quite honestly, I think that was part of the appeal for 'True Colors'. We may have skated it nude, but that program was, quite deliberately, not salacious. It was meant to be romantic, and I think it shows. And I think most of our fans, when they think of us, think of 'Romeo and Juliet' before they think of 'Pink'."

That's not why they're successful, though. Tina Bowman has some thoughts on that. "First of all, they do the most complex steps in the world and at incredible speed. Second of all, they really do think like one person so their unison is superb. And, lastly, they are fantastic at picking out music and choreographing to that music. They are unbelievably musical. That's another thing the bigwigs don't realize about them. They just won the Brian Wright Trophy for choreographer of the year. They not only did their own programs, they did Liz Cushman's long program and Brett Tomlinson and Andrea Wallach's short program. That's all three American World champions, folks. And they're doing Tom Bellamy's long program this year, too."

We go to the rink, and they show me their programs. There are two Original Dances this year. The first one, to a bossa nova beat, they use the Austin Powers theme. Not only is it snappy and difficult, it's absolutely hilarious. The Kellehers camp it up from start to end, without losing the difficulty of the skating. The second one, to a polka beat, is a whimsical, lighthearted program done to "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound Of Music. 

Their free dance is done to Aaron Copland. The first part, the slow section, superbly displays their romanticism. The second part, skated to what Sophia laughingly calls "the steak commercial song" shows their quick feet and explosiveness.

Are these programs enough to defend a World Championship? They should be. But, then, they show me an exhibition they're working on, one that truly shows how special they are. It's to "At My Most Beautiful" by REM. It's not what you'd call a 'danceable' song. It's probably not difficult enough to be a competitive program, which is why it's an exhibition. "The steps aren't too quick," Warren tells me. But it's absolutely gorgeous. If dancing is supposed to be two people becoming as one, in time with music, "At My Most Beautiful" is dancing at its height. And it's them, the Kellehers, at their most beautiful.

After showing me their programs, the Kellehers grab their daughter and then take me to their favorite Chinese restaurant, right at the edge of the campus. We talk for a while, about their first meeting, about their wedding this August ("It was fantastic," Sophia informs me), about how they manage to juggle the various parts of their life.

And, the more you spend time with this couple, the more you're struck. Now, as Tina Bowman informs me, "Their skating absolutely speaks for itself. No question." But the skating really isn't the problem. 

The thing of it is, the more time you spend with them, the more you realize that there shouldn't be any problem. Warren and Sophia Kelleher are sweet, charming, and personable. At dinner, they were interrupted constantly by friends and well-wishers. They are highly intelligent. They have an artistic gift that's present in other people's choreography besides their own. They're caring, doting parents. They have definite sex appeal-but definite romantic appeal as well. They have an easy, comfortable way with each other that's delightful. They smile at each other often, laugh often, finish each other's sentences. 

Tina Bowman says, "The skating world is full of skating drones, and Sophia and Warren are so far away from that." I know what she means. They're lovely, charming people with full lives ("Too full," Warren laughs) of which skating is only a part. 

And, again, let's not forget, they're the most successful American ice dance team ever.

In other words, they're a gold mine-and they know it. They're perfectly willing to be that. "If the skating world wants to use us to sell skating, great," Sophia says. "If they want us to be the public face of skating, sure. But they don't seem to want that."

It's a puzzle. The Kellehers, because they have an active sex life and don't hide it, are rapidly becoming pariahs. But the rest of what makes them tick is so special and unique that the skating world could absolutely benefit from it.

"We don't need skating," Warren points out astutely. These two have other things going for them, with their ambition and grades. Warren plans on going to medical school. They have other options.

But skating needs them. Will the skating world figure it out in time?

We'll all find out in March, at the next World Championships. If they're where they should be, then maybe there's hope for the skating world. If they're in eighth place, well, skating will have missed out.

Not the Kellehers-skating. Warren and Sophia will be fine. If the skating world screws around with them, it's skating that will suffer.



After the article came out, the duo got a call from June, their coach back in Massachusetts. "It's perfect. It nailed you guys. There couldn't have been a better profile." She started laughing. "And prepare for another shitstorm. You guys put the USFSA on notice, with the help of that reporter."

"We know," Warren told her. "We'll see what happens."


--end of chapter-














