Her tush was cold and wet-and she wasn't very happy about it. It was 1987, and four-year old Eve Copeland (GRAD) was bemoaning the fact that one couldn't become an international skating superstar overnight. She was discovering that learning to fall down safely, humiliating as it was, came before learning to skate and that the fancy skating dresses weren't allowed until she got a bit older.

Eighteen years and several hundred falls later, the NEJS graduate student has competed in ice dancing, freestyle, figure and synchronized skating.

Synchronized (synchro) skating, Copeland's current concentration, is a team sport where 20 members skate in unison, combining elements from singles, pairs and ice dancing. The sport is rapidly gaining attention; the NCAA recently declared that synchronized skating is an "emerging sport" and synchro competitions are expected to be included in the Olympics in the near future.

When Copeland learned she would be attending Brandeis she tried out for and won a spot on the Esprit de Corps Adult synchronized skating team, which is part of the Hayden Synchro Teams based in nearby Lexington.

Despite skating more than seven hours a week, Copeland's first lessons in falling down still come in handy.

During the official practice before the Lake Placid International Open in January, Copeland tripped during their 5-10-5 lines, a formation where the team moves across the ice in three parallel lines with five skaters in the outside lines and ten in the middle. Copeland, who was second to last in the back line, stumbled, taking down another teammate in the process.

"It wasn't pretty, it was loud and it hurt," Copeland said. "But we got up and we got back in and finished our program."

Esprit de Corps skated their way to second place in the open, and Copeland was happy to get her fall out of the way before the actual competition.

"When you fall in synchro, it's worse than freestyle, because you trip over your toes and ram into walls instead of just falling on your butt."

But the lack of jumps in synchro makes falling down a rarity, a definite plus for Copeland, whose fear of getting hurt sometimes interferes with learning jumps for freestyle skating.

"I would fudge my jumps," Copeland said. "I would do an extra three-quarter turn at the end so I would be facing the right way."

"Freestyle is hard to advance in," Copeland pointed out, citing competitors like Michelle Kwan and Sarah Hughes who quit school to focus on skating. "So, come fifth grade, my mom decided I was going to do precision [synchronized] skating."

While at the United States Figure Skating Association summer camp at the University of Delaware, Copeland was able to watch Russian skaters, including Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul, practice.

"It was such a great environment, I was inspired to skate really well and work all the time," Copeland said.

Synchronized skating became an important factor of where Copeland decided to attend college. She settled on Miami University of Ohio, a school with an elite synchro program.

Copeland slipped a disc in her back halfway through her freshman year, and though she finished the season by helping Miami win first place at Mid-Westerns and Nationals, Copeland transferred to the University of Maryland and took a year off of synchro skating to recuperate.

Her time away made Copeland miss the sport. Even leisurely dabbling in club hockey couldn't satisfy her need to skate.

"I would stay late after practice," Copeland recalled, "not because I wanted to shoot the puck around, but because I wanted to take my equipment off and figure out how to free-skate in my hockey skates."

A year later she was back in her own kind of skates, winning fourth-place in Senior Solo Dance for the new Maryland Figure Skating Team.

Esprit de Corps took first place at Easterns in Buffalo this year and won fourth at Nationals in Lowell. Copeland plans to stay with Esprit de Corps while she finishes her master's degree at Brandeis.

"I love it and I can't picture life without synchronized skating." Copeland said.

In the meantime, Copeland is ushering in the next generation of skaters by teaching beginner group classes in basic skills at the Veterans Arena in Franklin, Mass. Her young students learn how to march, do crossovers and, of course, how to fall down.