Precious Medal

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For Meryl Davis and Charlie White, the past couple of months have been as head spinning as their on-ice twirls.

Less than a month after winning the silver medal for ice dancing at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, the American ice dancers boarded a plane for Torino, Italy, where they placed second at the World Figure Skating Championships in March. And they’re already entertaining golden hopes for the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Russia.

Hour Detroit met with West Bloomfield Township native Davis, 23, and Bloomfield Hills native White, 22, at the Arctic Edge ice rink in Canton, where they train.

What is your life like when you leave the rink?

Davis: I’m usually at home with my family or at my house in Ann Arbor with my [Delta Delta Delta] sorority sisters. … Last year, I lived in the [sorority] house, which was amazing and one of the best years of my life.

White: Taking it easy at my house in Ann Arbor. I live with three other skaters; we’re pretty competitive with the video games. … I’ve been taking it easy with the hockey; I haven’t played in two years. I didn’t want to get injured before the Olympics. … As soon as Worlds [Figure Skating Championships] is over, I’m going to get back out there. It’s one of my true loves, and I miss it every day.

Can you describe your personalities?

Davis: I’m generally pretty shy, but if I know someone pretty well, I’m kind of silly. 

White: I’m pretty extroverted. I enjoy being funny — or trying to be funny, at least. That’s a big part of my personality. Humor is important, especially when you have to do something so serious every day, you have to keep it light.

If you weren’t ice dancers, what would you like to be?

Davis: It’s a pretty recent discovery, but I would really like to be a snowboarder.

White: I would see myself graduating from college and going back for some sort of graduate degree or maybe law school.

How do you fit everything in and still find balance?

Davis: I think early on for us, since we were so busy, we learned time-management skills. We attended school full time, we were both doing freestyle dance, and Charlie was doing hockey and violin, so we learned to make the most of our time.

White: Every moment is really precious to us.

What’s something people don’t know about you?

Davis: How important our education is to us.

White: Playing hockey and violin are something people might not expect.

In class and on the University of Michigan campus, are you able to blend in, or do people recognize you? How do they react?

Davis: More people know who I am not because of skating, but through the Greek system.

White: No one knows who I am. … I went to Zingerman’s [after the Olympics] and there were a few students there who recognized me and said congratulations, which was totally abnormal. For the most part, I blend in.

Whom do you admire and consider role models?

Davis: I look up to people for different reasons. … I look up to a lot of figure skaters in the past, like Liz Punsalan and Jerod Swallow, for their ice-dancing career, and they’re just great people. For educational purposes, I look up to both of my parents. 

White: As a figure skater, you get to know a lot of the former figure skaters, and two that I think are really great people and advocates of the sport are Scott Hamilton and Kristi Yamaguchi. They’re two of the absolutely nicest people. They really set the standard for how a figure skater should act.

After the Olympics, other competitions, and tours are over, what’s is in your future? Will skating always be a part of it?

Davis: I think skating will always be a part of our lives since it’s been a part of it for so long. It’s kind of melded into who we are. Charlie and I are also unique in that once we’re done with our skating careers as athletes, skating will play a much smaller role. We want to pursue our educations and academic careers.

White: We owe so much to figure skating that we would be doing ourselves and the sport a disservice by just leaving it behind. We’ll definitely stay in touch.

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