Full Throttle Speed Skating’s Duree Brown, left, skates to victory in an event earlier this winter.
Submitted photo
Duree Brown was 24 years old and living in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, when he went looking for a place to train for speed skating.
The closest one he found was in Columbus.
So in 2014, Brown moved here to live and work full-time and do a little speed skating on the side.
“I told myself as a Christmas gift to myself, I was going to join where the closest rink to there was, and the closest was Elite Speed Program in Columbus, Indiana,” Brown said. “After so many trips back and forth, I thought I’m still young and fit, and I’d like to pursue this and enjoy the passion that I have for short track speed skating.”
Now 33, Brown is a Masters men’s national champion for all age groups. Competing for Full Throttle Speed Skating, he set three national records for the 30-35 age group at last weekend’s US Speed Skating Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee.
Brown was roller skating growing up and continued with an inline racing club in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, while he was in college at Tennessee State in nearby Nashville.
“When I was coming up as a youth, I was a rink rat. I’d be in the rink three, sometimes four times a week. A friend of mine used to race. There was no speed club, so when I went to college, there was a speed club, and that really fit my passion for what I wanted to do.”
Late in his college years, he discovered the ice.
“I had always been intrigued with the idea of speed skating on the ice, but growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, there was no ice to behold,” Brown said. “When I was in college, there was an ice rink almost within walking distance. I thought it would be really cool to buy some speed skates to give it a try, and I ended up loving it.”
It was about a year after moving back home to Chattanooga that Brown decided to take a leap of faith and make the move north.
“My decision was, I could probably go up there and find work, and if I could find fulfilment, the move was worth it,” said Brown, who now works as laser operator at Sacoma Specialty Products in Edinburgh. “My home state is only two states south, so I can go there pretty much at will. So I don’t feel too far from home.”
In 2016, Brown found a donor who sponsored him to go to to the Milwaukee National Training Center’s Academy of Skating Excellence Short-Track Speed Skating Program for six months. At end of 2016-17 season, he qualified and participated in the American Cup in Green Bay, but did not fare as well as he had hoped.
That would be his last competition until 2022.
“When I moved back home in 2017 after AmCup, I hadn’t really done any competitions since then,” Brown said. “In November, Taylor (Burdekin, who coaches Full Throttle, along with her husband Mikey) suggested that I go up to one of the meets in November to help support the kids, and she said, ‘Or you can go there and race.’ That last sentence kind of reverberated in my head, and I gave it some thought, and I said, ‘Why not?’”
So Brown went with Full Throttle to meets in Chicago in November and February and in Champaign, Illinois, earlier this month. He finished first in all of them.
“I certainly wasn’t expecting that at all,” Brown said.
Full Throttle Speed Skating’s Duree Brown, right, stands atop the podium after winning three events at last weekend’s US Speed Skating Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee.
Submitted photo
That set the stage for last weekend’s nationals. He set national records for men’s Masters age 30-35 in the 500 m (49.418 seconds), 1,000m (1:45.247) and 1,500 m (2:48.886).
“For the most part, I thought, “I do feel good,’” Brown said. “Since it was a national event, I knew it would attract the best skaters in the country. No matter what, I knew I was going to give it my all, and I just happened to be very successful.”
Brown is the only adult among several youth who compete for Full Throttle.
“I suspect that I have inspired other children to take up short-track,” Brown said. “For me at this point, it’s really about growing the sport of short-track speed skating on the national level and here in Columbus, Indiana, which is basically home.”
