Charlie & The Medal Factory

Most people probably think being an ice skater isn't the manliest of sports to choose to participate in. These people obviously don't know Charlie White, Oakland County's very own Chaz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell in "Blades of Glory"), and a recent Silver Medalist at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

White isn't your typical ice skater (or Ice Dancer in his case). This blonde-haired bottle of energy is actual a rough and rugged hockey player trapped inside the body of a pretty darn great boogie down specialist on the ice. He even won a state championship as a hockey prepster for Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook five years ago and had a reputation as a scrappy puck handler who loved to check opponents into the boards. Not exactly the type of demeanor one might expect to see from an ice dancer.

Hitting the ice as early as four years old, White, first started playing hockey and then added Ice skating to his resume. The Bloomfield Hills native participated in both individual singles skating and doubles skating early in his athletic career, but eventually settled on pair competition as what he wanted to concentrate on.

Along with his ice dance partner Meryl Davis, who he's been skating with since they were both eight years old, the pair won National Ice Dancing Championships in both 2009 and 2010 and are currently the number two-ranked duo in the entire world. Davis and White not only a great combination on the ice, they make one off the ice as well, having dated socially for a number of years. A graduate of Birmingham Roeper in 2005 – he couldn't play hockey for the Roughriders because they didn't have a team, so he was brought on board down the road in Cranbrook Country in 2002, eventually becoming a major cog in the Crane's winning ways –, White is a student at the University of Michigan. When his time on the ice concludes, the newly-crowned Olympic medalist, wants to embark on a legal career. Davis attended Birmingham Groves for high school.

In an interesting end note to this story, Roeper, a small private school with less than 200 kids in its high school, now has two Olympic athletes to claim as alums. Ann Marsh, a 1989 graduate and former Roughriders girls bball player, competed in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games.

 Congrats, Charlie, you and Meryl do the OC proud!