A tumblr flashback, originally from here... edited slightly.

Michelle Kwan was, as anyone who knows anything about figure skating knows, the bronze medalist at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Perhaps six-year-old Eric Richard Bittle sat in front of the television, entranced, as this graceful lady in a beautiful red dress pulled off athletic leaps that looked like she was flying, and curled up in his mother’s lap crying when she fell and finished third instead of first.

Eight-year-old Eric, in the fall of 2003, got picked up off a football field by his mother Suzanne, having fainted the first time he was tackled, much to the confusion of the rest of his Junior Pee-Wee Football team and the dismay of his father. Football was clearly not for him.

At home, that afternoon, the family was watching a college football game on television, and an ad comes on announcing that tickets were available for the 2004 U.S. Figure Skating National Championships, coming to Atlanta, January 3-11. There was footage of Michelle Kwan in the ad. Eric’s eyes lit up as he remembered her from the Olympics. Suzanne noticed Eric’s eyes light up. Later, Suzanne suggested to her husband that the tickets are not that expensive, she checked, and it would be a good Christmas present for Eric, wouldn’t it? But the tickets for the women’s final are already sold out by the time she has a chance to buy them. He’ll be a little sad he won’t get to see that Michelle Kwan skate, she thought as she bought tickets for the men’s finals instead, but it’s all figure skating, right?

In early January, 2004, Eric Richard Bittle was in the stands as Johnny Weir, an up-and-coming skater, had the performance of his life (so far) and won gold. Eric was starstruck. A week later he was asking for skates. A week after that, after trying his new skates out at a public rink and only falling once, daddy, did you see?, Eric was asking if maybe he can play ice skating instead of football from now on.

His father was mildly distraught, but Suzanne was firm. “It’s in the Olympics, it's a real sport,” she said, as she signed Eric up for group lessons.