By Ethan Moore, sports editor.
When you think of the Olympics, you probably think of the athletes and their otherworldly abilities. They train their whole lives for a chance to compete at the highest level and bring honor to their country. You wouldn’t expect to associate this kind of achievement with Delta College, but what if I told you greatness walks among us in these very halls? Political Science professor Kim Klein was a nationally recognized speed skater back in her day,but she started out as just a kid trying to impress her father.
“My father claimed to be a speed skater,” says Klein. “Even though if you saw him skate now you’d question it.”
Her father took her to an event in Bay City, when she was just six years-old known as “novice meets,” which were essentially open races for anybody on skates.
“I’ll never forget it,” says Klein. “I was six years old and on figure skates when I entered these meets, and I actually won them.”
Her outstanding performance caught the eye of a local speed skating coach named Dick Somalski. He suggested to her father that she should get into the sport herself. So a six year-old Klein began training and competing in speed skating. As Klein recalls, her early days as a speed skater were mostly fun.
“One of the ways we used to practice to sprinting was going as fast as you could and then diving into a snowbank to see who would land the furthest,” says Klein. “As time went on, these days stopped and it started to get really serious.”
When she was 13, Klein was invited to her first national training camp. She continued to get better and when she turned 14 she made the national team for the first time. She was one of the youngest ones there and trained with former and current Olympians. According to Klein, she tried to just go with the flow, but she never quite realized the enormity of what was happening around her.
As the training got more intense, it started to take more of a toll on Klein’s adolescence. She was constantly being pulled out of school to make trips with the national team to places such as Europe. These trips were completely unsupervised, which can be a little intense for a 14 year-old girl.
“You’re being put in situations where you don’t know the language and there’s nobody around to help,” says Klein. “Heck, I didn’t even know how to do my own laundry.”
The stressful atmosphere forced her to grow up faster than normal. Having to constantly project mental and physical maturity that she lacked marred a time in her life that she reflects on as lost time she could’ve used just being a kid.
The 1980 Olympic trials for speed skating took place over a two week period, where skaters would attempt to qualify for the four events, the 500m, the 1000m, the 1500m, and the 3000m. Klein was trying out for two events, the 500m and 1000m. Contenders skated twice a week for both events and the committee would average the top three times they posted and use that time to pick the Olympians. The rules were that if you made the top five in any event then you would make the team and qualify for the Olympics, and the team would be made up of eight members. After week one, Klein was in fourth for the 500m, which would comfortably have put her through. She then had the whole weekend to reflect on where she was staying with all of her fellow competitors.
“You’re with these people all week, and nobody is talking to anybody,” says Klein.” “The tension was something that I’d never felt, nor have I ever felt since then, and the pressure just kept building through the week.”
The nerves possibly got to her, and she fell from fourth to fifth in the 500m, while finishing sixth in 1000m. She missed the fourth place spot in the 500m by only .08 seconds. The final race of the 500m had to be reviewed, because the naked eye couldn’t tell the difference from fourth or fifth.
After all the races were done, they had nine eligible skaters, including Klein, who qualified by the rules. The team could only take eight, so they had to eliminate one of the two contenders who had only qualified in one event. Klein’s opponent had qualified in the 3000m, so the two couldn’t have a race-off which is what the rules say must happen next. The Olympic committee got together to decide what to do. Klein was hopeful she would get voted in because two of the members on the committee were from Bay City, including Dick Somalski. Unfortunately, both voted along with the majority to deny both skaters from the Olympics.
“I thought I was golden, because the rule was that if you get top five you’re in,” says Klein, “But the committee apparently felt differently.”
Her coach took her out to dinner that night, and Klein didn’t say a single word in the three hours they spent there.
“(My coach) tried to console me,” says Klein, fighting back tears. “But there was just too much pain.”
She came back home where she came down Mono and missed extended time from school. Now 16, her parents wanted her to quit skating so she could try to focus on school and make-up what she had lost after all those years. Klein, with a chip on her shoulder, wanted to keep going. Her parents begrudgingly agreed, and Klein went on to make three consecutive national teams. After high school her family pushed her to stop skating, but she wanted no part of it, and moved out on her own to try and train for one last Olympic run. She eventually ran out of money and dropped out of skating for two years. She attempted a comeback for the 84’ Olympic trials, but an untimely groin injury and lack of conditioning kept her from being competitive.
Klein then left speed skating, feeling bitter, and attempted to get her life together by attending Delta College. She walked on the basketball team and eventually earned a scholarship to play for Oakland University. Basketball started to take up her time, allowing her to forget about skating, that is, until one call changed her life.
“I got a phone call from one of my friends from high school,” says Klein. “He said his twelve year-old son had started roller-blading, and that he thought he might be good, so he wanted me to take a look.”
Klein was apprehensive at first, but finally agreed to take a look at the kid for her friend’s sake. Enter Alex Izykowski, the twelve year-old kid who happened to be a much better skater than she anticipated.
“I knew right away that this kid was special,” says Klein, “and I thought, ‘crap, I’m going to get pulled back into this.’”
Izykowski’s family asked her to coach him, and she agreed without hesitation. Just like that, Klein was right back where she started. She was used to coaching other sports so the transition wasn’t hard, and her presence alone shaped a lot for Izykowski.
“When I first met Kim in the coaching capacity, I would say I was intimidated,” says Izykowski. “I was just getting into the sport and I knew that she had reached the pinnacle of speed skating when she was younger, so I was always trying to prove myself to her.”
As the two started to build a relationship with one another, Klein found it hard to communicate with Izykowski, because he was such a quiet kid.
“I’m pretty vocal and high-strung,” says Klein, “but I couldn’t get more than two words out of this kid.”
With the communication barrier continuing to hinder their relationship, Klein decided to try using a mutual journal so the two could be on the same page, regardless of how vocal they were.
“I’m non-confrontational and I’m not the most vocal person, but I could always express myself through pen and paper,” says Izykowski. “I think that was just a way of her thinking outside the box trying to get an idea of what’s going on in my mind.”
After that, they turned a corner and started to really mesh as a team. He continued to work hard in practice, and she continued to guide him as best she could. Klein wasn’t a stranger to the struggles of being an Olympic hopeful, so she tried to ask him questions and make sure he was still getting plenty out of speed skating.
“I remember one time on a training bike ride out to the Zilwaukee Bridge when I was maybe 15 years old, Kim and I took a pit stop next to the river and she asked me if (speed skating) is what I really wanted to do,” says Izykowski. “Without hesitation I said yes, and I don’t know if she remembers that moment, but looking back, I find it to be a pivotal moment in my life.”
The Olympic trials eventually came around, and with all of the pressure on him, Izykowski found a way to skate what he described as “the best I’ve ever skated in my life, period.”
Izykowski qualified for the 1500m individual event, as well as a relay event. He competed in both events in the 2006 Olympic Games, and earned a bronze medal as part of the relay team.
“The only moment I actually got nervous was during a warm-up session before my first race,” says Izykowski. “I got on the ice and started doing my thing and looked up in the stands and saw a whole Bay City contingent, including Kim, and that’s when it became real all of the sudden.”
Klein felt a similar sentiment when she traveled to watch him.
“I got to take my daughter to watch him skate, which was great,” says Klein. “The feeling of watching someone you trained compete in that arena was emotional and unforgettable.”
After all the struggle and heartbreak of her career, Klein says she finally found redemption in the form of Alex Izykowski.
“It was really good for me to do it,” says Klein. “It healed me of all the pain and bitterness that I associated with the sport.”
Klein was able to not only heal herself, but she was also able to make a profound impact in the life of Izykowski.
“I feel like I owe much of my life to coach Kim Klein, because much of my life has come from the sport she taught me,” says Izykowski. “When you start doing all the small things correctly your skill-set becomes immense and you have a huge foundation to build on, I owe all that to what Kim taught me and for that I’m forever grateful.”
Izykowski went on to become the women’s speedskating short track coach for the US Olympic team.