'Common Thread': An Oral History of Miami's Wrap Skirt Tradition

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What is a wrap skirt?

Why is Miami Skating known for its culture of 'pass-downs'?

And how does a tradition that's been around for nearly all of the varsity program's three-decade existence epitomize what makes the RedHawks' team culture so unique and special?

With alumni weekend just a few days away, we talked to Miami student-athletes, coaches, and alumni to understand the legacy of the wrap skirt...and here's what we learned.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD – senior team skater (2006-10), assistant coach (2010-18), mental training coach (2018-present):
When I was an athlete and when I was coaching, we did not have practice uniforms, so we just wore wrap skirts, leotards, dresses, whatever.

ASHLEY KORN – collegiate team skater (2006-10), volunteer intern (2010-13):
We never really had a set 'You have to wear this' type of thing. For a long time, you could kind of do whatever you wanted...

When we moved over into the new arena and Goggin opened in 2006-07, we obviously had a brand-new locker room. It was my first year as an athlete there. They didn't have a locker room prior to that, so you didn't have places to put anything [besides] putting your skates in the physical lockers...you had to carry your stuff to the rink. When we got the locker rooms at the new facility, we had more room and space, and there became more uniformity in what we were doing...

My mom [Hall of Fame coach Vicki Korn] used to always want the skaters to look generally the same at practices. We wore dark clothing for the most part, or you could wear a Miami-branded shirt or something like that. Typically, the expectation was that you wore what was given to you.

I can't even pinpoint how the leotard and wrap skirt evolved, but it just sort of did. I think it was the easiest thing to get everybody: a black leotard, tan tights (the color was called 'toast'), and a skirt. That was the easiest thing to match, right? And frankly, the cheapest thing.

So that's kind of the base of it, where my mom was [putting] everybody in something uniform: "Here's the leotard, here's the tights." And then we got some creative freedom to wear the wrap skirt.

KATEY NYQUIST – head coach (2024-present):
A wrap skirt is a basic ballet skirt. It has ribbon and you wrap it around your waist, like what ballerinas wear. Wearing one became a tradition at Miami; that's what they used to wear for practice for varsity teams. Now we have set practice wear for each day, but they all still have the old wrap skirts...it's super-nostalgic, for sure.

I remember from the outside looking in —because I wasn't a part of the program as an athlete— people know that the wrap skirt is a Miami tradition.

LEE ANN SHOKER – varsity skater (1995-96), assistant coach (2006-2024):
We didn't have practice uniforms; I mean, that's literally part of the legend...at different points in time, there were different things provided…

But skating goes through styles. If you think about Tonya Harding and the '80s and '90s skating, everything was really short skirts. So we wore short skirts, and then leggings and stuff like that when we practiced.

The wrap skirts came into style, and the true origin of it is we had some parents that were incredibly good seamstresses. Mary Halling's mother stands out in my mind; she made a bevy of amazing skirts. I believe Sarah Arnold's mom also made a ton.

Miami Skating wrap skirts

ASHLEY KORN:
Molly Clingan's mom used to make all of her skating dresses...so when we got to school and realized that the wrap skirt was going to be our opportunity to have creativity or individuality in our clothing, she made a ton of skirts for everybody. We were able to have them in our little bins in our lockers, and we could kind of float and change who wore what [based] on what shirt you're wearing or whatever that looked like for the day. And it just became how we dressed at practice.

I think that it's evolved, for sure, since then. But that was the first moment where we all realized, "This is where we all want to look the same, but still have a little bit of creative freedom in what you're wearing day-in and day-out."

LEE ANN SHOKER:
One of the skirts that has lived on is a 'Happy Birthday' skirt that Mary's mom made. That's definitely a classic and one that's fun to see that it's still surviving.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
It literally just says 'Happy Birthday' and has little birthday candles on it.

And it was such a thing, like, "Oh, where's the birthday skirt? Who has it now? I need to wear that."

It was a silly way to bond and have an interest in something that wasn't difficult, because we're training super-hard and coaches are demanding, so, "What's a way to bring some levity to this?"

SAMMIE LEVINE – senior team skater (2020-24), assistant coach (2024-present):
There are a few pieces that are just like, 'Who thought of this?' There's this wrap skirt that's neon green and has digital puppies. There's another one that's just corn; the whole pattern is corn. They're hilarious.

JULIE PAGE – collegiate team skater (2025-present):
We all just share everything throughout the season. We have free days where you [are allowed to] wear a fun wrap skirt that someone has, or it might be themed.

CARLA DeGIROLAMO – senior team skater (1999-2003), assistant coach (2003-09), head coach (2009-24):
We used to have two days a week with a practice outfit and then the other days we got to wear whatever we had in our own stash. Then, as we added more team gear and budget allowed, it became one free day a week. That's whittled down, and toward the end of my tenure we had a dress code every single day, but every once in a while we would allow them a free day to wear what they wanted for a fun practice.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
We would have different days where we'd try to coordinate with each other. "We're all going to do floral things today." Or, "we're all going to do animal print." Or wear solid black with a solid color skirt. Silly stuff.

SAMMIE LEVINE:
A lot of our free days are holiday-based: Halloween practice, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day. Our athletes will come up with any [reason] they can. "It's the first day of spring, can we have a 'spring' free day?"

KATEY NYQUIST:
We even had a crayon-themed free day one year. That was a fun one!

Miami Skating free day practice

JULIE PAGE:
Our final practice before J-term might be a winter theme. So everyone's walking around to each other's lockers like, "Do you have a blue sparkle wrap skirt or do you have a dress that happens to have snowflakes on it?"...

And before every competition, we always do what's called 'All In.' So everyone's wearing Miami red, Miami gear, or anything bright, fun and red-themed. Some people on my team tape a word onto their chest, then when they all stand in a line it says 'GO REDHAWKS' or something like that.

When the senior team goes to internationals, there's a bald eagle hat that someone wears sometimes.

KATEY NYQUIST
For the all-in practice, Sammie and I have a couple of passed-down coaching track suits we typically wear, complete with full track pants.

I always find the autumn-themed free day is the one that gets me laughing the hardest. I'm thinking, 'Okay, what would you come up with for a fall theme?" Then they show up and have the corn skirt on.

SAMMIE LEVINE
Thanksgiving, too! They're dressed up as a green bean or…

KATEY NYQUIST:
...a turkey.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
Every Wednesday we wore pink. If you've seen the movie Mean Girls and they talk about that, I don't know if that's how it got started.

ASHLEY KORN:
So we all acquired a lot of pink items, a lot of pink wrap skirts, sweatshirts, T-shirts and things like that. We did it more as a breast cancer awareness day...but it just became 'on Wednesdays we wear pink' because they did that in the movie.

And if you didn't wear pink, you had to donate money to breast cancer. It was just part of us, like a community engagement piece.

KATEY NYQUIST
Some days they come out and as a coach, you're thinking, "Oh my gosh." It's pretty funny to see what they show up in and how they're not afraid to wear anything...although they do always have to be athletic and be able to skate in what they are wearing!

SAMMIE LEVINE:
It brings a lot of joy and positivity to practice that day.

LEE ANN SHOKER:
The other funny thing with wrap skirts too, which is hilarious: If people don't know how to tie them, they fall off. So, it wouldn't be unusual in the heyday of when they wore wrap skirts every day, we might be doing a full program and someone's skirt starts to come off (or would come off!) and someone would pick it up and shove it in their leotard.

I mean, it's just what you had to do because you can't stop the program to fix your skirt. Or a swing skater would rush out to get it off the ice so no one crashed!

ASHLEY KORN:
My favorite item was this black and red and white polka-dotted skirt that Molly's mom made me. I think that one still is in rotation somewhere. It was my go-to skirt, so I passed that one down...I still see it in photos, and it's cool that those things are still alive.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
So what ended up happening is that every senior class, when it got to the end of the season, would pass down their stuff that they would no longer need…

Some people would be very specific, like, okay, I'm going to give this stuff to this person because they always wanted to borrow it. It was my 'coveted thing.'

Then other people would try to call dibs throughout the year: "You're a senior, so pass that down to me when you're done." That was always kind of fun too.

Miami skating wrap skirts

KATEY NYQUIST:
The pass-down culture [here involves] passing down items that hold memories each year. There's a lot of apparel that has been accumulated over the years. And the wrap skirts are something that the athletes just get so excited to have.

I know they really love the tradition; it's the coolest thing ever, you know?

JULIE PAGE:
Yeah, the clothes-sharing process starts almost immediately when you get there. I had a coach who went to Miami and graduated the year I was coming in —Melissa Marchetti—so she gave me quite a few of her clothes before I got to Miami. And then right when I got there, there was a ton of old stuff lying around in the locker room (mostly Miami shirts), and they said, "You can take whatever you want."

Then, by the end of the season, we have this big pass-down party. I think I got three full trash bags from my seniors of items that they are passing down to me.

PAIGE SOUTHWORTH – senior team skater (2022-26):
You get through an entire season of skating, and then we have this party. I didn't even know what to expect [when I was a freshman].

Everyone told me to bring a garbage bag. And I was like, "Why? Am I throwing this away? What's going on?"

But it's because you get so much stuff. I actually filled up two whole garbage bags after the first party...it took up literally all the storage under my bed for the past four years!

CARLA DeGIROLAMO:
It was definitely much more contained earlier on because it was new. Then, I think things just kept getting passed around and new things were getting passed around, so therefore the garbage bags full of stuff came into play...

Because not much goes OUT of the rotation, at least from what I remember!

LEE ANN SHOKER:
We stopped letting them do it in the locker room because they would leave bags and bags of clothes. The clothing abandonment would make me insane.

It's the same thing as tenants moving out of an apartment. They'd be like, "Oh yeah, the new kids will want it," and then they would leave everything in garbage bags.

EDITOR:
So who ended up cleaning up all those bags of clothes after the fact?

LEE ANN SHOKER:
You're speaking to her.

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
We'd have these bins that sit above our locker and they would just be overflowing with stuff. I mean, it was just seasons of hoarding…

So, some of it was sentimental. And some of it was the reality of, "I am never going to wear this kind of a wrap skirt ever again."

SAMMIE LEVINE:
Sometimes, your teammates curate the clothes based on your personality. My freshman year, I received an entire bag of rainbow and neon dresses and skirts. I was always a social butterfly on teams and definitely a big performer on the ice. They gave me some crazy dresses and things like that; that was fun. Then sometimes they'd pass down dresses where they were like, "I skated to this type of music, which really complements you. I thought this would look beautiful on you." So there are compliments in there as well.

I remember I had one dress that I wore for Valentine's Day every single year. It just made me feel so happy to be wearing that. I passed it down to a really close teammate of mine, Melissa Marchetti, who I then ended up coaching the next season. When she would wear it, it felt really special to me. I loved that it was also bringing her joy.

KATEY NYQUIST:
Now that dress still pops up.

SAMMIE LEVINE:
I see it all the time...[it's crazy] as a coach to see my pass-downs show up on my athletes' bodies.

Or sometimes a wrap skirt will belong to a coach of another program where our skaters trained at that's a Miami alum, and they pass it down through them. Then it's really special: You're wearing your coach's skirt from when they were training and in your shoes exactly.

JULIE PAGE:
We're all just sitting in this huge circle, and each of our seniors had a bag for every single person. I think most of the freshmen got the biggest bags, but everyone got at least a bag from every single senior. And then everyone is checking to see what they got.

So it's a fun celebration for the end of the year...it's basically like Christmas. You open something and think, "Oh my gosh, that was so-and-so's from three years before you even came here and it got passed down."

I have a sweatshirt that I got and it says 'Brittney Rivelli' in it. She graduated two or three years before I even got to Miami, but it was passed down to someone else and now it's passed down to me. So that's really fun.

PAIGE SOUTHWORTH:
It took a good amount of time [to sort and divide up everything I wanted to pass down]. I do remember being like, "Wow, this is the last thing that I want to do. I need to pack up my entire room. I need to move out of the house that I've been in for the past two years. I need to study for finals. I need to graduate." But it is such a fun time and such a fun thing to do with the team every year.

Throughout senior year, I had a notes doc that said, "This black polka dot skirt goes to Bella; this vest goes to Hannah." And so that part definitely made the good things easy that people had claimed or called 'dibs' on already.

Then I just had a bunch of [plastic] bags labeled with everyone's names and I'd be throwing stuff all over. During the party, each senior essentially gets their own moment to pass them out. I'm not going to lie; we literally just chucked the bags at them. You have it all piled up in front of you and everyone's in this massive circle.

There's this one hoodie from a couple years ago that...wasn't very cute. So we all [decided], "Let's give every single snack pouch hoodie to this same person." And they'd be like, "Are you serious?!?"

ASHLEY KORN:
The pass-down thing has probably existed for the entirety of almost 30 years now. It just evolved [as far as] what got passed down. But it's always been a thing.

A lot of times it was old skating dresses, or silly costumes that people had that got moved down through the years. But once we got more gear, then those things became part of our identity as a program, where the skirts and the sweatshirts were starting to be part of the full pass-down experience.

And it goes beyond that to things in our apartments that got moved out: Things that we had that just started to sort of move through the program as time went on. They created a mind of their own and kept going.

Miami Skating traditions

KATIE (BOWLING) SOUTHWOOD:
It used to be just attire: Leotards, skirts, dresses. Then one season, we passed down —I don't even know how we got this— but somebody had in their apartment a massive display from Abercrombie. It was a banner like you would see in a storefront; it must have been 16 feet tall by 60 feet wide. They had it up in their apartment and somebody brought that and passed that down.

One year Goggin had redone the carpet in the locker room. We used to have the RedHawk head logo, and once they got rid of that and did the block M, the old carpet remnant was then passed down to people.

Another year, the Goggin ice show was Oscars-themed. So there was a gold cutout of an Oscar statue shape but it had Steve Cady's face on it. Just solid glitter with Steve Cady's face. And then the Steve Cady Oscar got passed down to different people. I don't know if that still exists or where that exists, but I'm sure that's kind of somewhere in the mix.

It was a crazy thing, but it was all part of the lore, you know?

PAIGE SOUTHWORTH:
I had this big gold cardboard cutout.

EDITOR:
The Steve Cady one?

PAIGE SOUTHWORTH:
Yes! I had that. I don't know how I got that. And I gave that to someone else too.

But there's all these clothes and cute things that you want to wear to theme days...and then there's also a big cardboard cutout of Steve Cady, you know?

Our team used to singlehandedly fund Spring Street Treats; that was a huge thing, and everyone just loved SST....well, there's an SST clock [in pass-downs]. It explains on the back how we got it in March 2019 and how you need to cherish this. Then you sign it. That's still going too.
Miami Skating traditions

JULIE PAGE:
I think the pass-downs are reflective on Miami Skating as a whole; it's so interconnected. I mean, I've been here since 2013. [Page is an Oxford, Ohio native.] I think I had at least five coaches who were from here growing up, people who coached me throughout their four years here.

I mentioned Brittney Rivelli; she coached me, and even though she didn't give me that shirt, I ended up with it just by coincidence...

Everywhere you go, there's always someone who's part of Miami, and I think that's just so cool. This tradition of passing things down like the wrap skirts is really a part of this wider culture of Miami Skating that is so unique to Miami University.

CARLA DeGIROLAMO:
I think that within our structure, that four-year cycle of people coming in and out, it's kind of a natural progression (as opposed to club teams where people can stay for many years if they want to).

I think the pass-downs have just become a part of the cycle.

Everybody wants to leave a piece of themselves in the program, whatever that looks like, and I think this was an easy way to have a piece of you stay connected when it was your time to leave. Then to come back to practice and see your outfit still out on the ice: I think it's a really fun thing for people to come back to over the years or just asking around if the gold leotard is still in the rotation.

If it is, you know, that's really exciting.

PAIGE SOUTHWORTH:
It honestly just brings everyone together. I'll get things from years ago; it's just a big train of people. And it's really cool to be like, "Wow, this person coached me!" Or, "This person is now skating on Disney on Ice." It just keeps that connection alive.

My Champions for Life mentor, Sally-Anne (Kaminski) Schmick, posted a throwback picture of her and her friends from an ice show. And it was dresses we just [saw in pass-downs]. She sent me a message and thought it was hilarious: "Those were new dresses in my year!" And we have that little connection since those are still in circulation...

Miami is truly the biggest family that I've ever been a part of or probably will ever be a part of. Miami in general, but especially our skating team: We're all very close.

And you know that if someone's from Miami Skating, they've got your back.

ASHLEY KORN:
We have such a unique experience when you're a student-athlete at Miami in the sport, because it really is the only Division I varsity experience that you're going to have...and it's really only made for a select few, right? You have to come, you have to try out...it was 52 athletes (at the time) that really had a common shared experience that transcended all those years. So my experience was going to have threads of similarity to Karin Sherr and Heather Paige and Lee Ann and Carla, where we didn't step on the ice together, but our experience transcended.

I think what my mom was hoping for (and what the athletes were hoping for, because my mom didn't generate the idea) was that long-term connectivity. The reason it persisted is it showed us that we all have a common foundation in some way to the experience that we were having.

For us to have little items or things that shared in that experience, even as we moved through different spaces, venues, coaches and teams...when we go back to alumni events and we see those different things, it's a point of conversation and a point of connectivity with the current athletes. Then we can share our experience with them.

These things create a common thread for us, regardless of what got us there or where we go after. And they still hold us together in a way.

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Find more Front Row Features at: MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures

Miami Skating will celebrate 30 years as a varsity sport at Miami's upcoming Alumni Weekend, including an open house in the Goggin Ice Center club lounge for former skaters on Saturday, June 13. For more information on how to support the RedHawks' program, click here.

'Common Thread': An Oral History of Miami's Wrap Skirt Tradition

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