Tim Heffron had been an avid golfer for almost 30 years, but he’d been too busy to play in about a year when his wife brought him a newspaper clipping in 2011, telling him about the new Mulligan Tour, which had come to Fort WayneItBraxtyn Weidler’s piece of history is a tiny pair of shoes, red and green and white and black, molded to four monster polyurethane wheels. They are in-line skates, and at first glance they look as precarious as a hippo riding a tricycle.
First glances deceive, however. In more ways than one.
Once Weidler stands up on his custom Luigino skates, first of all, he goes from precarious to jet-propelled in about three seconds flat, flying around Roller Dome North at a speed all the more startling for the fact that it’s barely coasting by his standards.
Second of all, those skates really are a piece of history, because they represent a groundbreaking business deal between 10-year-old Braxtyn – who, away from the track, morphs into a quiet, bookish fifth-grader with glasses – and Nivesto Sports/Luigino Speed Skates and Atom Wheels.
As far as anyone involved knows, Braxtyn is the first speed skater in Indiana ever to have a national corporate sponsor. And he’s almost certainly the youngest Luigino has sponsored anywhere in the U.S.
“Luigino is based out of Olympia, Wash., and they’re the biggest in-line skate distributor in the U.S.,” says Brian Weidler, Braxtyn’s dad, who coaches Roller Dome North’s speed skating team. “We’re a Luigino dealer here, so just talking to the dealer last summer, he said submit a résumé, because they were interested in doing something in this region. That’s kind of how it all came about.”
Well, not quite all. What put Braxtyn on Luigino’s radar was what he did last summer, which is win his eighth national speed skating title, and his first on in-line skates. This was only his third year competing on in-lines; he’s competed on conventional skates since he was 5.
His dad, a former speed skating national champ himself back in the 1980s, first strapped a pair of skates to his feet when he was 4 years old. And not long after that, realized the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
“Yes, he’s got some natural ability,” Weidler says. “Very fast. Always been a fast runner, a natural athlete, so he always played soccer and basketball, and he always excelled at flag football.
“But he always hung out here, and I had the team going at the time, so he just gradually built up more and more a competitive edge.”
Braxtyn says the speed skating was tough at first but “then I started practicing and got better.” When he was 6, he won his first national title. When he was 7, he started on in-lines. Skating occupies most of his time; he’s going to one or two competitions a month right now virtually year-round – the next a Thanksgiving weekend date in North Carolina that’s expected to draw between 400 and 500 skaters.
That’s not an uncommon number these days. It seems there’s a boomlet going on out there in in-line speed skating, fueled in part by the fact that Winter Games short-track hero Apolo Anton Ohno got his start doing what Braxtyn does. In-line speed skating, in fact, failed by one vote to make it as an exhibition sport at the next Olympics.
In the meantime, Braxtyn Weidler is the acknowledged star of a Roller Dome North speed skating team that has more than 30 members, competes regionally and nationally and is coached by Weidler, Aaron Hoover, Cecil Hickson and Wade Yost – all of them national champs.
Next July, they’ll all be on center stage when USA Roller Sports brings its national championships to Fort Wayne.
“In-line keeps growing,” says Kim Wall of Roller Dome North. “It’s a one-on-one deal; you’re not relying on a lot of teammates. Just you against everybody.”
And occasionally history.
