But after a few minutes of convincing myself that I really wanted to go - telling myself that I love skating and that my coach is there waiting for me - I would get up and go. And my mother would always get up and eat breakfast with me!

There is no age, height, or weight requirement to skate. It is good exercise no matter what your age is. If you want to be competitive, most start young. But, I practice with many adult competitors.

And I love what I do and I love skating.

It was always fun to skate with Paul Wylie and Paul Martini.

Sometimes it was difficult to make friends and be social in school because I was always practicing while other kids were getting together and doing things. But it just made me closer to my family, and I realized that they would always be there no matter what.

My life has been a whirlwind since the '94 Olympics.

It is a process of finding the right music then planning a costume to fit that style of music.

My hobbies are painting, crafts, and I like golfing.

I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.

I won my first medal when I was nine years old. It was at the Boston Open.

I was a tomboy who liked to play rough just like my two older brothers. That's probably why I liked the athletic part of skating - especially the jumping!

I started skating when I was six years old.

I was thrilled one year when I was younger when not only did my brothers get hockey sticks for Christmas - but I did too!

My dad worked several jobs to pay for my expense in skating.

Even now, my husband Jerry, our son Matthew and I live only five minutes away from my parents home, and my brothers live about ten minutes away. It's been great having such a supportive family.

I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.

I get to see the different sides of skating now which involves not only competing, but entertainment.

But it seems that the judging maybe they shouldn't at least see the practices all week long. That can taint the way they go into the judging and the outlook of what's going to happen, instead of just watching those four minutes and judging on those minutes alone.

My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.

I think it's a lot harder for the pros to have a long career in ice dance and in pairs. It seems the singles have a little bit of a longer career.

It wasn't always easy getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to the rink. Sometimes I wanted to just go back to sleep.

But after a few minutes of convincing myself that I really wanted to go - telling myself that I love skating and that my coach is there waiting for me - I would get up and go. And my mother would always get up and eat breakfast with me!

I like to try all kinds of styles so it always challenges me and forces me to try to look different.

People are really sick of seeing the winner not win and what the public thinks should happen.

One of the things I like best about the Halloween show is that I change outfits about six times in the show. It is a lot of fun to play the different characters.

People would ask me why I was doing what I was doing - but I always told them that I just loved to skate. There was no other explanation.

Falling down became second nature and it really didn't bother me.

I do not have any pets. We travel too much.

Even now I can't describe why I love skating so much.

It was never about winning medals or being famous.

There's a picture of the real Coach Gary Gaines in the book and he's sitting in the locker room after a game, and he just looks so much like Billy Bob, that we went to him.

I learned a great many things in the Marines that helped me as a football coach. The Marines train men hard and to do things the right way, just as a football team must train.

I was on Oprah's show recently talking about the people who impacted me the most. One was a teacher and one was my soccer coach. I didn't even go into my family, who had the most influence.

It's not just about a coach telling you what to do and just following it unthinkingly.

The accent got lost somewhere along the way. I'm a little embarrassed about it. When I arrived in LA I assumed I'd be able to put on the American accent. It proved difficult so I had six months working with a dialect coach and it's become a habit.

So you get two good hours on the field about every day, you get about an hour and a half in the meeting room and that's pretty much all you need to thoroughly coach your team.

My coach was a great politician, so he did most of the work. He was good.

Nobody gives a crap about hockey down here - nobody. I coach kids' hockey down here and you can start to see the disinterest in the game here with the kids.

But as my voice coach keeps saying, if we actually spoke the way they imagine the Elizabethan voice might have been, we wouldn't be able to understand it.

I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.

If I came in to recruit your son, I would tell you, your wife, and your son, that I will be the most demanding coach your son can play for.

When you coach as long as I did, you can't help but miss those Saturdays - dealing with the players, the game preparation, the challenges, the excitement.

But as a coach I wanted to keep things from being too complicated.

Working with my new coach has helped a lot. I've been a lot more focused and I'm doing all the little things in order to get faster. It's been a total lifestyle change really.

I am a coach on the outside of the establishment and that works.

My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach.

I played from the time I was seven years old. My father was my first baseman coach. I had opportunities that I never really pursued - with some Miami teams and a few larger colleges, and then I ended up bailing and began cooking.

I wasn't naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that's the way I'll be as a coach.

I coach a few guys and they work very, very hard, but in our day we did it because we just loved it.