Miguel Jose

SPEEDSKATER, EDGEWOOD

At A Glance

20+ years speed skating cred
5 national championships
Founder, National SpeedSkating Circuit

Why I Love the Sport

“That’s hard to answer. I love the sport for so many reasons. I love the feeling of going fast on skates, I love how challenging of a sport it is. I love the community of people. It’s just a big part of who I am.”

An Entrepreneurial Spirit to Succeed and Help Others

Miguel Jose excels at a sport that matches his personality.

“After I saw speed skating for the first time, I was really drawn to it. The first time I put on skates, I thought the only purpose of skating was to go fast,” Miguel said. On skates and in his professional career, Miguel is driven by an entrepreneurial spirit to succeed and help others.

He followed his siblings into skating. At age 8, he won his first national championship in Lincoln, Nebraska. Over his career Miguel won five speedskating national championships.

Each Overall National Championship win came with adversity—Miguel lost the first of the three races that determined the overall champion.

“I do better under pressure,” Miguel laughed. “My approach toward athletics really set the tone for everything in my life.”
The pace and excitement of speedskating makes it a popular sport around the world. But because speedskating isn’t an Olympic sport, Miguel believes it doesn’t get the notoriety it deserves.

Raising the bar

Miguel and 28-time inline gold medalist and ice speedskating Olympian Joey Mantia answered that need and formed the National SpeedSkating Circuit. The NSC has a global fan base and hosts three major events annually. Tacoma is home to one race a year, held at the Tacoma Armory downtown.

“The Armory is ideal—it’s a big, gritty building that works well with our lights, loud music and the energetic crowd,” Miguel said. Speedskating provides more value and more entertainment than any other type of racing, Miguel said. The skaters go 30 mph, and in the intimate setting the spectators can get a feel for speedskating as the skaters fly by. You can’t get that at a NASCAR track.

Today Miguel coaches local speed skaters and is National SpeedSkating Circuit president. “My career as a mortgage loan officer provides me the finances to do my passion,” he said. NSC is self-funded and staffed by volunteers. Miguel said the group’s mission is to bring speedskating to a mainstream audience.

“We created a professional platform that didn’t exist before. The platform has impacted our community in such a positive way that we now have young kids whose goal is to one day skate in the NSC. It definitely feels better helping people reach their goals rather than your own.”

Why here?

The Pacific Northwest is a hotbed for speed skating, both inline and ice. It’s the home of Olympic speedskaters Apolo Ohno, J.R. Celski, Aaron Tran, K.C. Boutiette and many of the NSC greats like Jeremy Anderson and Brandon Hall. “I’ve skated in a lot of places around the world, and there’s no better place to live than the Pacific Northwest,” Miguel said. “There’s not very many places in the world where you can be on a lake and it be 90 degrees out while you are staring at a beautiful mountain with snow on it. The Pacific Northwest provides so many options that contribute to a higher quality of life.”