As the lights came on, Nicole Garbin emerged.
She sat on her dance partner’s lap and tossed the hat off, stood up and was off. Moving back and forth across the stage, the former face of Oregon soccer made swing dancing seem natural.
Garbin, who coolly scored goals under pressure at Oregon, found a new competitive outlet Saturday night. She teamed up with a professional dancer, Doctor Hoolala, and performed in Dance with the Stars, a good-natured version of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” benefiting youth performing arts and Upstart Crow Studios in Springfield.
She and Hoolala were one of five pairs along with Jamie Floyd with Elise Newell, John Fischer with Allie Thompson, Dennis Ewing with Becca Morris and Korenza Burris with Shaun Thompson. Each team did one of five different dances at the Springfield studio including salsa, waltz, Paso Doble, swing and tango.
Judges Julie Reid and Robert Alexander were easier on this mix than the television show, and they selected Burris and Shaun Thompson as the winning group. Burris, who is on KEZI news with Fischer, did the tango in a sheer black dress.
Alexander complimented the pair on the crispness and solidity of the dance and the group’s ability to intertwine American and Argentine tango.
Floyd owns Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene. Fischer does the weather for KEZI. Ewing is a lieutenant with the Lane County Sheriff’s office. Burris is an anchor for KEZI.
Garbin, the youngest of the competitors, dressed in a black and white dress with a red ribbon around her waist and caught people’s eyes with her dance moves. When her dance was done, Garbin and Hoolala stepped before the judges, who praised her performance.
“That was right on, which sends judges’ hearts a-flutter,” Reid told Garbin. “You looked like you belonged out there.”
At the end of the competition, the pairs gathered on-stage and the judges announced the winners. Burris received flowers and a gift certificate for caterer Matthew Ageter to visit her home and provide dinner for a party of six.
When organizers began setting up the event, they contacted Karen Nelson in the Oregon Athletic Department looking for an Oregon athlete, and Garbin was interested. Garbin, though, was out of town when practices started and Storm Kennedy, a radio/television personality, stepped in, but Garbin rejoined the event when Kennedy had to have back surgery.
She had fewer chances to practice than her competitors and did six one-hour practices. Garbin admitted she felt a little nervous before her on-stage debut.
“I was back there thinking ‘It’s just like a game. Just go out there and perform.’ But it’s different of course,” Garbin said.
Oregon soccer teammates and fans had been accustomed to seeing Garbin do instantaneous dances on the field. This was new, more formal and more challenging.
“I go the club and I do that kind of dancing,” she said. “I go to house parties and dance over there and that’s about it.”
After competing, she reappeared from backstage, relaxed and wearing a sweatshirt.
“I thought I did pretty good,” Garbin said. “Everybody was saying that I did pretty good,” pausing as a girl walked by and congratulated the Oregon grad student, “See?”
Hoolala says Garbin’s lean, muscular frame helped ease her transition to dancing.
“A lot of dancers leave their arms really loose and limp and it’s really hard to lead them into things because their arms go but the rest of them doesn’t, whereas if you have really good frame and everything is firm, then if you move their arms somewhere the body has to follow it,” he said.
[email protected]