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Thehours upon hours of practice. The pain of injury. The pressures of performance. The bouquets of boosters. The roar of the crowds. The glamorous travel. The highâ€"profile recognition. The ultimate reaping of rewards. Memories, all. Warm, wonderful memories, but memories. Because in the photo album that is life, Waterloo figure skater Mary Jo Fedy has turned another page. Figures will continue to be foremost in her daily routine, but now they will be scrawled on the ledger, not spun on the ice rink. Not long ago, Mary Jo Fedy met a crossroads in her life, confronted it with her customary maturity and poise, and built on it. Pure and simply, her competitive skating career had ended, she . a victim of a dissolved partnership. But having been taught since day one that skating, regardless of the success she achieved, was never to totally dorniinate her life, Mary Jo learned to live with the disappointment. She picked up the pieces, and tackled another love, education, with the same tenacity and determination that made her such a competitor on the ice. Several weeks ago, at St. Mary‘s high school Honor Graduation Night, Mary Jo Fedy was the recipient of no less than four awards, including the treasured Mabel Dunham award, annually directed to the grade 13 student from the previous year with the highest overall average. To some, it seemed astounding that Mary Jo could achieve a 90 per cent plus average given her hectic schedule throughout her high school years. To others it was amazing that an **athlete"‘ could excel so well "academically.‘""‘ But to those in the know, those close to Mary Jo Fedy, the accomplishment was but further proof that there is no substitute for hard work and determination. Poised and friendly, she no longer plays the pixie part she did when she and partner Tim Mills captured medal after medal in Canadian championships and performed so well on the international scene from 1978â€"82. Now a glamorous, sophisticated young woman, she is wellâ€"settled into her first year at University of Waterloo, loaded down with a 30â€"hour a week schedule in the demanding Honors Coâ€"op Chartered An 80â€"plus per cent student throughout her St. Mary‘s days, Mary Jo upped that to 90 in her final year, taking the Dunham award, a university entrance scholarship, UW Arts Award, and of course, Ontario scholarship. Playing no small part in her academic rise was the fact she attended St. Mary‘s for all of grade 13, a bittersweet circumstance created by the absence of a competitive skating schedule that occupied the winter months of previous years. f Because after the 1982 nationals in Halifax, Mary Jo‘s partner of many years, Tim Milis, announced his intention to bow out of competitive skating. Three years his junior, Mary Jo found the decision a tough one to handle â€" initially. *"I was only 17 then and I felt I was too young. I didn‘t want to quit at that time being so young. I felt by quitting somehow I was copping out. But now that I‘m 19, I now realize his point of view. I could see where he was coming from, that the decision he made was a rational one." "Still it didn‘t hit me until spring school (1982) when Tim didn‘t arrive at the rink. All the other pairs were there. 1 just looked around and said ‘he‘s not showing up. This is it‘." Suddenly single, with no viable replacement for Mills, Mary hwwum.nam.nuymgdm pairs, she spent a lot of hard work last winter gaining gold in figures and freeâ€"skate. True to her sportsmanlike form, she continued helping out with the Preston Figure Skating Club as well, teaching, handing out pointers, guiding upâ€"andâ€"coming skaters, even attending the 1983 Canadians. _ "And while I was there, I just kept watching the competitors and wondering to myself, ‘how would we have done‘." Her active skating career behind her, Mary Jo dove hea« ong int _ >r studies last year, crediting her success to ‘"jusi oeing i. chool on a dayâ€"toâ€"day basis, getting a grasp on things."" In previous years, especially during the winter semester when she missed so much school, she relied on a partial timetable involving independent study to make her way through. Plus, she is quick to add, the tremendous help and support of her classmates, as well as St. Mary‘s principal Sister Barbara Frank and guidance counsellor Helen Gelinas, herself the mother of a young skater. ‘"‘The most outstanding thing about Mary Jo," said Gelinas, *was that when she stopped skating, her organizationâ€" al and selfâ€"discipline skills continued ... another factor was her competitiveness. Since she had been exposed to so much competition, she was a more relaxed person because of it. She‘d take tests in stride with none of the usual signs of anxiâ€" ety." b *‘*One of the things that attracted kids to her, she‘d come back from some important international event and say ‘hey, what did I miss?‘ She was more interested in them than in her accomplishments, and that heiped make her one of the most popular kids in her class. _ _ _ would accompany her mother, Carolyn, to the rink and "bum around in the corners‘‘ while Mom taught other skaters. About 18 months ago, her career winding down, she began doing the books for her mother‘s newlyâ€"established skating boutique and her interest in accounting took off. And what of her "other‘" love? Teac! figure skating is something she could fall back on, she , but she would prefer schooling average youngsters to elite competitors. "It‘s so rewarding to see regular kids, y: kids with no egos, no tempers, not moody, just break their necks to please chosen endeavours, Mary Jo modestly shifts the credit to her coach, Kerry Leitch, and her family, especially her mother. ‘"I‘ll miss the competing, miss going places, miss the ‘whole scene.‘ I‘m now just another normai person in the world again, but that‘s not hard to accept because I was taught that skating was not the be all and end alil. And for that 1 can thank my Mom. If things had been left up to me, 1 would have screwed them up, but she always made sure skating was balanced with other things. She was a great motivating influence. My parents were always there to back me in case 1 fell, but I was never pushed, just always encouraged." And would she have changed any .of it, given the opportuniâ€" ty? * ‘‘Uh, uh. No. Not a bit of it," she replied. And giggled. And so bring on the real world. All the best to you, pixie, and thanks for the memories. _ **For every kid who makes it, there are thousands who won‘t. Lots of kids have talent, but not the will, the sense of achievement, and that‘s what separates the winners from the Mary Jo Fedy got an early start in figure skating, when she Ironically, for one who has achieved so much success in her WATERLOC CHRONMICLE, WEDNESOAY; NOVIEMBGEN 0. 1983 â€" PAGE o LIMITED TIME ONLY]| 95%, Monday to Saturday st EXCEPT ERB ST. LOCATION > L‘Lâ€"““ e ALTERATIONS m e REPAIRS e>iZ# 480 Albert St. Parkdale Plaza 884â€"0044 355 Erb St. W. Maple Hill Plaza _ (Beside Kentucky Fried Chicken) _ 884â€"1340 TUESDAY IS HAPPY DAY ? 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