Katherine and Beth Reutter. (Photo provided)
Editor’s Note: Here is the second part of our interview with Beth Reutter, mom of U.S. Olympic speed skater Katherine Reutter, a Champaign native and 2006 Centennial High School graduate.
By Laura Weisskopf Bleill
It’s clear by the smile in this photo that Katherine Reutter has made her parents proud. It doesn’t matter if she finished fourth (as she did in the 1,500 on Saturday) or 40th, her parents would still be beaming. But it might surprise you to know the ways she has made her parents proud during her incredible run up to and during the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Beth Reutter was reading an article earlier this month that was lamenting how many of the American athletes in the Winter Games were focused on winning for themselves. It went on to hold up Katherine as a “model” of an athlete in it to win for Team USA.
Beth Reutter said: “I couldn’t have been prouder when the author of that article went on to hold up Katherine Reutter as the model to follow for what all of our 2010 Olympians should be saying – that they are proud to be representing the USA, that if they make the podium they will be accepting their medal on behalf of the USA, that they can’t imagine the emotions that will come over them if it’s their flag that is raised and their anthem being sung. If there was a tag stuck on Katherine it would say ‘made in the USA and proud of it!’”
Like most parents of elite athletes, Reutter and her husband, Jay, made sacrifices and went to great lengths to put their daughter in a prime position to succeed. Beth Reutter said she now believes that Olympians are raised, not born.
While she and her husband didn’t set out to raise an Olympian, several factors in how she was brought up may have contributed to her success. The Reutters put a premium on exposing Katherine to Champaign-Urbana’s various programs for children, including art, music, creative dance, sports (skating of course) and drama.
“We didn’t push Katherine to be involved, we simply expected her to be involved so that she might find her passion in life,” Beth Reutter said. “Over the years that passion proved to be speedskating, always rising above other activities. It takes parents and/or caregivers to actively expose children to what life has to offer and in the process instill in our children a strong sense of values, respect for each other, and the work ethic required to rise to the top.”
The Reutters also had rules for Katherine that may have kept her more active than other children.
“In our household there was no sleeping in till noon on the weekends or in the summer,” Beth Reutter said. “Television was pretty well limited to PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney; there were no video games.”
Katherine Reutter will take to the ice once again on Wednesday, Feb. 24. If you have any questions, comments or messages of support for Beth or Katherine Reutter, please leave them here and we will pass them along.
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