Thursday. 5:30 a.m. While hundreds of Parker students slumber, savoring their last moments of sleep before sunrise, sophomore Leah Gordon rolls out of bed, still sore from last night’s soccer practice. She devours a small breakfast of Chex cereal and heads to Saddle & Cycle club in Edgewater where she dons skates and joins her Latin teammates.

The joint Parker-Latin-St. Ignatius figure skating team of which Gordon is a part, practices every Thursday morning from October through February as they prepare for competitions against suburban schools interspersed throughout those months.

A long-time figure skater, Gordon did not feel confined by the limited Parker-sponsored athletic options. “I started figure skating when I was four,” Gordon said. “I think my mom did it when she was younger, and she liked it and had me do it. I loved it.”

Because of the paucity of skating opportunities in the city, many students from independent schools located in the city started skating at Saddle & Cycle on the weekends. As one of them, and given that the team already practiced there, Gordon decided to join the team—a team that a few Latin students founded three years ago, including current senior Sophia Nappo, who attends international figure skating competitions representing the United States. “We wanted to do something from school,” Nappo said, referencing herself and Latin alumnae Morgan Mansur and Victoria Lansing—the three founders of the team. “We were just talking, and the coach we had been working with since we were little was completely on board.”

Nappo, Mansur, and Lansing then filled out the proper paperwork to register the budding team as an official Latin club.

In order to increase membership, Nappo, Mansur, and Lansing opened the team up to other high schools. They selected Saddle & Cycle to serve as the team’s practice venue because of its proximity to independent schools in the city.

The existence of the team has, in Gordon’s mind, obliterated the perceived wall of rivalry that divides Parker and Latin. “Before I started skating at Saddle & Cycle, I didn’t know many kids from Latin, and I just viewed them as our rivals,” Gordon said, “but—now getting to know them—that whole idea is just gone, and I think of them as just my friends. When you’re on the skating team, what school you go to is not really a big thing because we are a team, we all work together, and we all support each other.”

Unlike Gordon, Parker freshman and team member Micheline “Michi” Parsa—who joined because of one of Gordon’s recruitment emails—thought little about Latin before joining the team. “I did not really have many opinions about them,” Parsa said regarding Latin students. “I was not into the whole rivalry thing.”

Nappo’s experience was similar to Gordon’s. “You don’t really feel the rival high school part during practice at all,” Nappo said. “We all like to have a good time and skate, and I think that’s what brings us all together. The rivalry is almost non-existent at practice.”

Instead of embracing the banter typically associated with the Parker-Latin rivalry, members of the team ask questions of students at other constituent schools about their school’s functions. “We are curious about what other people’s schools are like,” Gordon said. “The other kids on the skating team are very curious as to what Parker’s schedule is like compared to theirs.”

Having a small team of nine produces a significant drawback: it is ineligible for several competitions. “I’m hoping in the future there will be more skaters to join,” Gordon said. “Because of the lack of skating rinks in the city, there aren’t many kids who skate.”

In the competitions at which the team is eligible to compete, individuals compete representing their entire team. The responsibility, as a result, falls on team members to attend every practice in order to individually represent the team successfully, even though the practices start early. “6:15 is a lot earlier than what I usually skate at,” Nappo said. “But it’s always fun. We’ll bring donuts, goof around for a little bit, and then we’ll actually focus.”

The camaraderie on the team, which its members build during practice shaped Nappo’s perception of Parker. “The team has given me a greater appreciation for the school and the people in it,” Nappo said, “just because I have the luxury of spending time with Parker students on a weekly basis.”