Born Into Figure Skating, Stayed There Forever By Kent McDill
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f it is possible to have figure skating in your blood, Norvetta Pinch’s blood type is FS-positive.
“I was born into it,” said Pinch, who goes by the name “Noy” to her friends. “I was probably skating around with my mother before I was born.” Pinch has been a PSA member for more than 50 years, and has emeritus ratings in Masters Figures and Free Skate, Senior Dance, and Senior Group. She has been retired from coaching for two years. Pinch was walking at 10 months old when her mother, a skater herself from ice shows and a coach at the Chevy Chase Ice Palace, put tiny blades over her tiny 10-month old feet and shoes. Pinch explains, “I am hanging with my arms up in the air, and she is holding on to me, at 10
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months old. That was my introduction to skating.” Pinch’s family moved to Massachusetts where she competed in juvenile to senior in the New England and Eastern competitions. She got married after high school and decided to apply to coach at the rink in Lynn, Mass., where her mother was still coaching, to see if she could make a few dollars coaching herself. “Eventually, my husband asked me ‘Do you want to teach, maybe?’ and I said ‘Yeah’,” Pinch said. “At first I was just going to keep going, and then I just kept going and going, ever since 1960.” The North Shore Sports Center in Lynn, which was then home to the North Shore Skating Club of which Pinch and her mother were members, was a popular
