Above: Brian Padgett (right) with fellow adult skater Jodi Beggs at the 2023 National Showcase in Norwood, Massachusetts.
By Elizabeth Klemm
As adult skater Brian Padgett road-tripped home from the 2023 US Adult Figure Skating Championships held in Salt Lake City, Utah he had an extra guest in his car: a bedazzled unicorn. This unicorn, a staple at adult championships since 2018, was gifted to Padgett following his performance in the championship adult silver men’s event.
The Terryl Tossie, named after retired adult skater and current adult skating committee member Terryl Allen, is passed down annually to an adult skater who has inspired or moved the past year’s recipient by their dedication and passion for skating. A paper strung around the unicorn’s neck like a necklace includes a list of all the past recipients, as well as an inscription describing the meaning behind the Tossie. While Padgett does not know the official reason why the 2022 recipient Alicia Marcucci decided to give him the unicorn, he has a hunch.
“My suspicion is she had planned ahead to give it to me because she's always been really encouraging of me and my skating,” Padgett said. “She likes that I'm 6’4” and I'm enormous. I look like a linebacker. When people see me walk in a rink, I don't think they think I'm going to be a decent skater. I'm proud to say I'm a pretty good skater and I love it, and I think she’s inspired by that.”
Whatever the reason may be, Padgett has made the most of his time with the unicorn, who remains unnamed at this time, since he received it in April. The unicorn has been to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Disney World and the 2023 National Showcase event in Boston, Massachusetts, to name a few. At each location, Padgett snaps a selfie with the unicorn.
He thought, “Oh my gosh, it’ll be my Flat Stanley and I'll take it fun places and take pictures with it and show it to people so they hear the story so that the next year, it has even more gravitas when I get to toss it to the next person. Then I figure when I give it to whoever next year in Cleveland, [I’ll] also give them an album of the photos.”
Padgett does not know who he’ll be passing the unicorn on to, and thinks he is going to have it be a spur-of-the-moment decision. There are too many moving and inspirational stories and performances in the discipline to be able to decide ahead of time.
These types of stories are what inspired Terryl Allen to create the predecessor to the Terryl Tossie - the Terryl Medals - in 2007. By 2008, Allen was creating custom medals and handing them out at both the ISU International Adult Figure Skating Competition in Oberstdorf, Germany and at the U.S. Adult Championships.
“The medals all have certain rules to follow. One of them is on every medal it is inscribed ‘For your passion to skate and your courage to compete,’” Allen said. “And then it’s basically given to the skaters in both the international and the U.S. community that inspired the theme of the medal every year.”
Allen began the tradition anonymously, but eventually, one recipient figured it out. Allen had tossed one of her medals to a first-year competitor who had a rough skate. Had she not received a Terryl medal, she was thinking of hanging up her skates.
“The skater found me in the stands, and we had quite a long discussion. It’s things like that she said, that medal. She was going to quit skating and that medal gave her the encouragement to continue,” Allen said.
Allen also vividly remembers another skater who received the medal at the International Adult Competition in Germany who said the medal, named the “River of Life” due to its design that year, gave her closure for her parents’ deaths. Stories like this have shown Allen just how much these medals mean to people.
“I still sort of am at a loss of how I found the ideas to create the medals and how they seem to resonate with so many different people,” Allen said.
While the Terryl Medals are no longer passed out at competition since Allen was forced to retire due to an ankle injury, their legacy lives on through the Terryl Tossie. Elizabeth Palomeque, a professional dancer who picked up skating as an adult, created the tossie in 2018. It has been tossed to a new recipient every year since, excluding years canceled due to the pandemic.
Both Allen and Padgett believe the Terryl Tossie is a perfect representation of the adult skating community.
“If you're skating as an adult, you really do have a passion to skate and the support for what it takes to skate as an adult is just pervasive. I think it's the one really unique element of adult skating, aside from ability, or levels or age, is that everyone understands and pretty much knows the sacrifices,” Allen said. “‘Yes, they have their own goals. But even more than that, there's a sense of friendship, support and camaraderie.
Allen considers the people who have received the Terryl Tossie the epitome of this mentality.
Padgett, who returned to skating in 2018 after skating as a child, couldn’t agree more.
“It's like this giant island of misfit toys, and we all get together once a year to be sparkling and emotive. Obviously, we have Stephanie [Roth] who is so good, and then we have people who are just super pumped to land a loop jump. I just love it because there’s room for everybody.”
As for the Tossie being a bedazzled unicorn, this also is perfect according to Padgett.
“It's such a great metaphor for adult skating because it is such this magical place where anything is possible,” Padgett said.
