For man with Asperger's, ice levels the playing field
Michael Finlay, 27, a Special Olympics medal-winner
The ice is a long oval creased with a patchwork of curlicues, staccato lines, and subtle divots left behind by skate blades.
Six figures navigate its slick surface. Most are cautious, unsteady.
One girl glides forward in slippery lurches; another wobbles, knees shaky and arms splayed.
Then, a young man -- auburn hair, black pants, blue shirt, paisley vest -- emerges. Seamlessly, he glides, leaps, and twirls.
When he stops, his left foot cuts into the ice, adding another scar to the frozen surface and sending up a small arc of white dust.
"You have to know how to use the abilities you have," the skater, 27-year-old Michael Finlay of Malden, said later. "A lot of athletes don't know how to use their disadvantage to their advantage."
Finlay was born with Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism. He's severely dyslexic, barely reading at a second-grade level. He cannot drive. Simple things, like tying shoes, might take him 20 minutes.
He doesn't catch on to subtleties -- jokes, body language, vocal inflections. Often, his internal conversations are communicated only after they've churned through his head for a while.
But out on the ice, there's no fog, no bumbling. He's graceful, and strong.
Finlay can do axels, those one-revolution, backward jumps that often send Olympic stars toppling. Camel spins, sit spins, scratch spins -- all variations on tight, twirling circles. He's even able to dance on quarter-inch thick blades.
"It's a chance to prove myself," Finlay said after a Saturday-morning skate at Buffone Arena in Worcester, where he competed in March during the Special Olympics Massachusetts Winter Games. "To show people what we can do; to let them see that not all Special Olympics skaters just scoot around the ice."
He won two gold medals at the event -- one for freestyle skating, the other for ice dancing.
The distant-eyed Finlay is what you might call a skating savant. He's the highest-ranked male figure skater in the US Special Olympics -- and he's also an anomaly within the organization, which introduces athletics to the intellectually disabled. It's hard for him to find real competition among his peers.
His proficiency on the ice allows him to skate in both the Special Olympics and regular professional competitions. Out of those various events, he's picked up "at least a rack full of medals," according to his mother, Geri Finlay.
"I don't think he's counted them lately," his father, David Finlay, said with a chuckle.
That success has been possible because his parents didn't limit or shelter him, they said. Often, the first instinct for those with intellectually disabled children is to pull back and protect them.
"Don't tell me, 'They're all retarded and can't do anything,' " said David Finlay. "They all have special abilities."
His wife agreed. "If you want more, there is more."
It just takes time to find it. Finlay didn't start skating until he was 12, after a couple of failed attempts at other sports. His parents tried T-ball and soccer. Finlay, though, found chasing butterflies and staring at grass to be more entertaining than catching outfield flies or heading soccer balls.
Finally, his mother, who has skated since she was a child, brought him and his sister to group skating classes. His sibling hated it and eventually quit, but Finlay loved it. "He just thought it was this big, neat thing," said Geri Finlay, who makes her son's costumes and helps him pick music for his routines.
She eventually enrolled him in private lessons and invested in a professional pair of skates, which run about $800.
Soon, Finlay began competing.
Still, because of his limitations, it can take quite a few tries for him to learn new maneuvers -- and he can get frustrated. "It might take a while, but he perseveres," said Marla Hebenton of Lexington, who has trained Michael for 13 years. They meet at 5:30 a.m. four times a week. "He always gets it."
With that proficiency comes expertise: Finlay can talk very technically about skating, delving so far into techniques and terms that the layman listener gets lost.
Otherwise, though, he's not much of a conversationalist. He offers short answers without much elaboration, and often does not make eye contact.
He's nearly always smiling, eyes dreamily fixed on something in the distance.
His parents acknowledge that he lacks some social skills, but call him gentle-natured, with no inhibitions, hang-ups, or cattiness.
He doesn't dwell on the fact that he's different. "He's always so grateful for what he has and what he can do," Hebenton said.
Aside from skating, Finlay works part time at a
Other hobbies include sailing, golfing, and bowling. Karaoke is another favorite; he especially likes crooning along with ABBA's disco hit, "Dancing Queen."
He also teaches skating to his peers with intellectual disabilities. He hopes to coach one day.
"It's giving back," David Finlay said as he snapped pictures from the Buffone Arena stands with a foot long telephoto lens. "Skating is his passion."
At the edge of the oval rink, Geri Finlay, wearing a lime-green helmet covered with shamrocks, yelled orders:
"Get those muscles warmed up; you're too cold!"
"Bend and push; you're too slow!"
Processional music from "The Polar Express" flourished from the ceiling's loud speakers.
Gliding around the edge of the rink, Finlay did crossovers -- passing his feet one in front of the other, like a model striding the catwalk.
Then, he skated to the center for a sit spin: Twirling in a tight circle, he moved so fast that he seemed a black-and-blue blur as he lowered into a crouch.
"That was off, to me," he said as he rose and skated over to his mother.
"This is just practice," she said. "Just warm it up."
He kicked off, then sprang into three tight, reverse jumps.
"Oh, that's so cool!" exclaimed a young woman standing at rink's edge.
Geri Finlay leaned in and said softly, "He likes to show off." 