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Figure Skating Sunday, February 07, 1999 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Michael Weiss will never forget the feeling. It was 2:13 a.m. on Sept. 22, 1998, and he was standing in the delivery room, watching as his wife delivered their first child. "You're so excited, and you want to rush over there, but you're kind of in awe," he said.
So Weiss stood his ground until the nurses cleaned his daughter, who promptly started to scream. Then his wife, Lisa, suggested, "Talk to her."
And Weiss did. "I talked to her belly all the time," he said. "I said something, and she instantly stopped crying. It was like she recognized me. She was in a new world, she was breathing for the first time, and the only thing she recognized was her mom and her daddy's voice."
Which gave Weiss, 22, who has faced plenty of difficult situations in his 14-year figure skating career, a brand new set of challenges.
The birth of Annie Mae, who was named for Lisa's grandmother, is just the latest in a series of events that has brought new maturity to Weiss' skating and helped to make him the favorite to win the men's singles title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Salt Lake City.
"I've always been a family man," Weiss said. "Now just the term family has changed for me. Your priorities change, but there's also that new inspiration, there's that new excitement in life that you didn't really have before and sometimes didn't know you were missing."
Five-time champion Todd Eldredge won't be competing this week, so Weiss, as last year's runner-up and the other U.S. representative at the Olympics (competing with two injured hips, he finished seventh), would likely be the heir apparent no matter what. But Weiss is in the midst of the best competitive season of his career, winning silver medals at SkateAmerica and Trophy LaLique and qualifying for the Grand Prix series final.
"I think the last two years at the national championships has given me a lot of experience competing against Todd, watching him handle the national championship title, watching the way he works and does things," Weiss said. "That was a great experience for me. I'm ready to step into that position now."
Best of all for Weiss, he isn't stepping into the spotlight alone. Lisa has been a part of his skating career for years, choreographing his routines. Now he makes sure Annie Mae is along, too. So far, she has traveled to all of his competitions.
"We usually feed her before we leave, and then she falls asleep," Weiss said. "When we went to Paris, we left at 9:30 at night and she slept the entire flight and didn't wake up for seven hours. She woke up when we were getting to the baggage claim."
Weiss laughed as he called himself "kind of a corny father," the kind who played classical music to Lisa's belly. Those close to him agree.
"He just glows when he talks about Annie Mae," his long-time coach, Audrey Weisinger, told USA Today. "He called me from Canada to tell me how he did, but he spent most of the time talking about how Annie Mae was holding her bottle. He knows there is life and priorities beyond skating.
"He has a beautiful daughter, a wonderful wife, and that makes it easier for him to work. The skating isn't as mind-boggling."
Weiss had been known primarily for his jumping. At last year's national championships, which also served as the Olympic Trials, he nearly landed a quadruple lutz - television replays showed that he had two-footed the landing.
Weiss still has a quad, but he's no longer focusing on one big jump. One thing he learned at the Olympics was that big jumps mean little unless they're in the context of a balanced program, especially now that all of the top men have a quad in their long programs.
And don't think becoming a father has completely domesticated Weiss, who is also known for his sensuous routines to flamenco guitar music and tight-fitting, masculine costumes.
He skates his short program to a medley of Van Halen tunes; "You always want to skate to a program that inspires you, and Van Halen is something that always gets your juices flowing," said Weiss, who listened to the band often as a teen-ager.
His long program, however, uses music from the Disney movie Mulan, music Weiss picked after skating a special with Michelle Kwan. Plus, he enjoyed the movie. "I really wanted a long program that I could get into," Weiss said. "Not necessarily the jumps and spins - I wanted to be able to get into the character of the program. Mulan provided that for me."
Just as important, Weiss wanted to be able to get out of his skating persona when he's away from the rink, and Annie Mae has provided that. Now he books two hotel rooms; one for himself and Lisa, the other for Annie Mae and one of her grandmothers. When Weiss needs to sleep, Annie Mae hangs out with grandma. When he's away from the rink, looking for a way to relax, Annie Mae hangs out with her dad.
"I like to spend a lot of time with her during the day," Weiss said. "It's almost a good distraction for me."
On the ice, however, Weiss makes sure his focus is razor-sharp.
"Obviously the ultimate goal in figure skating is an Olympic title," he said. "It's what everybody strives for and tries to get. To get to that position, along the way you've got to win national and world championships in order to position yourself correctly. Over the next three years, I feel I've really got to establish myself as one of the top skaters in the world. I feel like I'm on the right track now."
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