National Get Up Day is Feb. 1. Through the month of February, U.S. Figure Skating will be featuring its eight Get Up ambassadors. The following story appeared in the December issue of SKATING magazine.
By Ed Rabinowitz
Blake McGee understands the concept of paying something forward.
“I want to give back to everyone who has given to me,” says McGee, an emancipated 17-year-old who came from an abusive home. “I want to inspire others to develop the same passion for skating that I have.”
And that’s just what he’s doing.
But it wasn’t love at first sight when McGee initially stepped onto the ice. His best friend, a figure skater, urged him to check out the skating program at Gateway Ice Center in Fresno, California.
His reaction was lukewarm.
“I didn’t like it at first,” McGee admits. “I didn’t really get a feel for it.”
Then he met Tina McDonald, his current coach.
“She really inspired me,” McGee says. “She told me, ‘I believe in you.’ And she was there when I was going through hard times. I never had that growing up.”
McGee’s unstable home life and absence of support were not conducive to academic success. He describes his school grade-point average as “zero-point-something, mostly Fs and some Ds.” In contrast, today McGee owns a 3.90 GPA and has received the Presidential Academic Achievement Award, in recognition of “outstanding educational growth.”
He credits skating and his coach with helping him turn his life around.
“Skating is 100% what I love to do,” McGee says. “It helps me develop the positive mindset I need to be in.”
Though he started skating just 18 months ago, McGee is already a Learn to Skate USA instructor and a member of the Ice Skating Club of Fresno junior board. He says he loves to watch new skaters grow and develop the same burning passion and love for skating that he has.
“It makes me feel amazing, helping the younger generation of skaters grow,” he says.
McGee also participates in many fundraising and community service activities through the junior board. Recently, when a resident of a local nursing home turned 100 years old, he took the lead on making 100 birthday cards for her and delivered them to the nursing home.
“We just wanted to make her day,” he says.
The confidence and enthusiasm McGee exudes are contagious. Susan Reynolds, president of the Ice Skating Club of Fresno, tells the story that McGee once attended a skating competition in Santa Rosa, California. When he returned some months later for a clinic, everyone was excited to see him again.
“That’s who he is as a person,” Reynolds says. “It’s the impact he makes when he walks into the room. And it shows itself every day among his students, co-workers and all of his peer skaters. He’s well respected in both the figure skating and hockey community.”
According to Reynolds, McGee’s coach says she has never had a student advance as quickly as he has. At the beginning of 2022, McGee put together a vision board indicating that his skating goal was to progress from preliminary moves in the field to novice by the end of the year. A lofty goal for sure, but with his novice test scheduled for mid-November, he’s almost there.
“When I get passionate about something, I get this fire in me and it just grows,” McGee explains. “I push myself. Because I know, and my coach tells me, that I have what it takes. I just have to put in the time and effort. So that’s what I’m doing.”
Looking ahead, McGee is considering colleges including UCLA and University of California at Santa Barbara — schools with skating programs. He’s also been contacted by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. It’s a long way from home, but McGee prides himself on being outgoing.
“I like to think that there’s no one I might meet who I can’t talk with,” he says. “I enjoy talking with and meeting new people.”
He also wants to coach, wants to emulate his own coach. He says, “I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”
And as you might expect, McGee looks back on the home-life trauma he endured as an adolescent and takes something positive from it.
“I appreciate life now,” he says. “I appreciate the friends that I have, and the community we have at our rink. I never had that growing up, so it’s very important to me.”
