Augustana Club Figure Skating — a community for skaters of all levels — has its first head coach. Riley Block has been selected to lead the university’s inaugural club figure skating program, which is currently led by students.
“It's been a passion of mine to show and teach skaters that figure skating can be a lifelong passion,” Block, who is from Sioux Falls, said. “For a while, it really was the norm that skaters would skate until they graduated from high school, and then they'd go off to college and skating would take a backburner, or they would retire and hang up their skates.
“And, I really have been passionate about showing people that you can keep skating after high school. So, the fact that there is an option for that here in town is amazing to me, and it's something I want to be part of.”
Block is the director of the Sioux Falls Figure Skating Club (SFFSC), overseeing its general programming, as well as the founder and director of its Hockey Academy. She is also the program coordinator for the South Dakota Theatre on Ice Team and competition director of the first adult United States Figure Skating (USFS) competition in South Dakota, which showcased 130 athletes for the 2024 Adult Midwestern Sectionals Championship.
Block’s skating career began at just six years old when she saw a commercial for Disney on Ice. She decided then that she wanted to be an on-ice princess.
“I kept pestering my parents, and it started because they took me to an outdoor skating pond,” Block remembered. “My dad was like, ‘This will be brilliant. It'll be cold and miserable. She'll hate it, and we can move on.’ But, we were there for three-and-a-half hours before they could get me off the ice.
“Then, my mom's coworker had a skater in the Sioux Falls Figure Skating Club, and she was like, ‘They have learn-to-skate classes — sign her up for a session and see if she likes it.’ It stuck, and I never quit.”
Block skated with SFFSC through high school and into college, and began coaching for the club at a young age. In all, she has been part of the SFFSC for 20 of its 26 years. Block now has five foster kids of her own — four of whom also skate.
Now, Block is excited for her next journey with Augustana and to extend her influence to college students. Because the Augustana Figure Skating Club is up and running, she said her first goal is to ensure that the students already part of the program get out of it what they’re expecting.
“A lot of the wishes that I hear from them is that they want to get back to the skating skills and levels they were at prior to graduation from high school. They want to compete. They want to hold a show at home where they can show their classmates and their families what they're working on,” said Block. “I would love to do that for them. I'd obviously love to make a name for the Augustana program at some of these area competitions.”
The club will be a sanctioned part of the USFS Midwestern Collegiate Conference — competing at Western Michigan University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Ohio State University and, hopefully, the intercollegiate final in Lake Placid, New York. The intercollegiate competitive season runs November through April, with two to three competitions held in each conference, concluding with the National Intercollegiate Final, held each spring. Colleges and universities can compete as a team or send students to compete individually.
Block said she can’t wait to show the high school skaters she works with that not only are there options to skate beyond high school, there are now local opportunities.
“Even our graduating class two years ago, all of those skaters that wanted to keep skating, they're on the East Coast now because that's where the options were,” Block said. “I have connections with some high schoolers, not just in Sioux Falls, but in other area clubs as well, that I would love to reach out to right away and say, ‘This is the program and this is what you should look into doing.’”
The Augustana Figure Skating Club practices in Midco Arena, which Block described as “fabulous.”
“The arena is beautiful. It's gorgeous,” Block said. “I'm envious of all our athletes that get to train there. I couldn't have even dreamed of something like that.”
Students interested in Augustana Club Figure Skating should visit augie.edu/ClubFS. For information on other Augustana Club Sports opportunities, visit augie.edu/ClubSports.