Olympic Figure Skater Evan Lysacek: The Artistry of Giving Back

The skater talks to Tonic about finding his passion for doing good — both on, and off, the ice.

**Updated Feb. 18, 2010 7:35 p.m. EST**

It's difficult for most people to fathom the countless hours of dedication and hard work it takes to become a champion in almost any sport. But in a sport like figure skating (or skeleton, or even downhill) — a solo sport in which the pressure of winning rests entirely on the shoulders of an individual, and not a team — those hours, days and years spent in practice can often leave an athlete feeling removed from the world.

"My life is pretty much the same every day," admits figure skater Evan Lysacek. "I wake up, I go work out, I go home, I shower, I train all day, I work out again, have dinner and go to sleep. Because it's an individual sport, I don't really interact that much with other people; I don't see friends as much as I would like to."

The remarkable thing about Lysacek, who began his highly anticipated quest for gold in Vancouver by earning a personal-best 90.3 in the men's short program competition Tuesday night — and will continue with the long-program competition live on NBC's Winter Olympics coverage tonight, Feb. 18, starting at 8 p.m. EST — is that he chooses to spend so much of what little time he has off the ice giving back.

When he isn't practicing, Lysacek — whose everyman, grounded approach to the sport is constantly contrasted by his far-more-flamboyant American skating rival, Johnny Weir; and whose heated rivalry with Russia's Yevgeny Plushenko could make Thursday's match-up one of the 2010 Olympics most-watched events — can constantly be found doing good things for others. He does so through such organizations as Ronald McDonald House, the Make-a-Wish Foundation and an inspiring program for young girls called Figure Skating in Harlem.

"It's something that I enjoy," says Lysacek. "I guess my first taste of working with nonprofits was when we would go on tour after the Olympics and World Championships."

At every stop, in towns all across America, he and other skaters would take the time to meet with families affected by life-threatening and terminal illnesses, and spend time with "a little girl or boy that's a skater and they want to skate with us, or an opportunity to work with special Olympics and there's a program in that town or state. It started as something sports-specific with me, but I just loved it. I started to keep in touch with the families that I worked with, and the kids from Make-a-Wish."

Through the years, as he's met children through Make-a-Wish and at Ronald McDonald Houses, Lysacek has opened his heart and developed bonds with them, one-on-one. And every individual bond has spurred his desire to do more, he says — including putting on his own skating show in his hometown of Chicago to benefit Make-a-Wish last year. "That was very successful, so I'm going to try to do that again," he tells Tonic.

On a Rink in Harlem

When it comes to skating, though, his deepest bonds have been made through Figure Skating in Harlem. "That's so easy for me to get behind, because it is a skating organization," he says of the program that puts inner-city girls grades K through 12 on the ice as a way to build self-esteem, confidence, discipline and more.

"A lot of these girls are from single parent homes, or have no parents — they're being raised by grandparents or friends. They're living in Harlem, and would never have access to great tutoring, academics and figure skating at all. They write an essay of why they want to be a part of this program, and they accept about a third of the girls," he says, touting the recent addition of Amway as a sponsor, which will allow more girls than ever to be accepted in the program going forward.

"They give them incredible, unparalleled academic attention," Lysacek notes. "Figure skating lessons to teach discipline and dedication. Synchronized skating, so they can learn to be part of a team in an individual sport."

Over time, the girls in the organization come to feel that they're part of a bigger family. "They give them another loving and supportive family to nurture their education and athleticism," he notes. And the results speak for themselves. "Some of these girls go on and get scholarships to the best private schools in New York City. Some have become doctors, lawyers, politicians. They're bright, they're smart. And to see first hand — I know so many of the girls and have watched them grow up in the last six years under that system, and it's overwhelming to just be a part of it."

While his Olympic training has kept him away from Harlem more than he would have liked in the past year, "Next year I'll be right back there and working with them," he says — not to mention being a part of the organizations annual Gala at Central Park's Wollman Rink in the spring; an event that is co-sponsored by Donald Trump (who owns the rink, and who supports the cause).

"It's really special," Lysacek says. "I have sisters, and I'm so proud of them — to see them grow — and I see that same sort of connection to girls in this program. I'm so proud of them. It's easy growing up in any location in any city in the world to get distracted and succumb to temptation. For them, to learn that amount of discipline and be that focused, in Harlem, that's why I'm so proud of them."

"For me it just makes me happy," he adds. "But for them, they now have life opportunities that they would not normally have had."

Artistry on the Ice

Making that human connection is something Lysacek strives for on and off the ice.

Watch for it in his routines. In addition to working on extensions and fine-tuning every technical point imaginable, Lysacek spent many of those countless practice hours in the off-season leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics focused on the artistry of his sport: studying the music of Stravinsky, and Arabian Nights themes, delving into the passions and emotion of the music.  "I studied and learned how to emote and make it believable. When you're doing stories about battles and love [lost] and struggle and heartbreak, even if you've never experienced it you still have to sell that story to the judges and the audience. I spent a lot of time working on that."

Clearly that work paid off, as Lysacek got off to a fantastic start in Vancouver, wowing both the audiences and the judges on Tuesday night with a sharp, energetic and emotional performance that led to his personal-best score in the event and put him in second place behind Russia's Plushenko heading into the long-program competition on Thursday.

But it's the artistry of giving back that has turned out to be his favorite pastime off the ice. "To work with people who are changing the world and making the world better for everyone," he tells Tonic, "that's a personal connection to me that I don't get on a daily basis. So for me, it's even more rewarding, because I don't get that personal connection with people every day. I don't take it for granted."

In that respect, no matter what the outcome of his bid for Olympic gold, Lysacek is already a winner. "I can't imagine my life without the connections and relationships I've established and made with people from Ronald McDonald House, the kids from Make-a-Wish foundation, and the girls form Harlem," Lysacek says. "It's pretty cool."

Photos courtesy NBC-Universal