Burton Powley’s career as a competitive roller skater grew more out of his visits to the Carousel Skating Center as a teenager to chase after girls than out of his fascination with the sport.

But years after achieving world championship status on wheels, the Des Moines native made the transition to ice skating, which also put him in competition with some of the top adult skaters in the world and in a position to coach hundreds of young skaters in Central Iowa.

“I didn’t think I was going to have this longevity in the sport, and [coaching] was a way for me to stay involved,” said Powley, 47, who has used his Web site and graphic design business to promote the ice skating industry.

After a four-year hiatus, Powley is returning to adult ice skating competition. This weekend, he will appear in an exhibition at the Iowa Winter Games in Dubuque to show young athletes the benefits of ice skating as lifelong sport. He has extended his weekly practice time in preparation for the U.S. Sectional Championships in Colorado Springs March 4-5, where he hopes to qualify for the 2005 U.S. Adult National Figure Skating Championships in April.

“I just have to put together a good program and let the chips fall where they may,” Powley said. “And I tell my skaters that every day.”

Powley made weekly visits to the nearby Carousel Skating Center in Des Moines as a teenager, primarily for Wednesday’s ladies night. The more experienced skaters who saw him jump over walls and skate too fast around the rink decided to channel his energy and encouraged him to join the center’s skating club.

“I had a lot of natural abilities, but I didn’t have a lot of grooming,” he said. “Within a year, I was skating at the top of my game. I had the desire and the ability to do it, so I learned very quickly.”

He started skating at 13, and even lied about his age when applying for a work permit in order to get a job to pay for his lessons. “Every penny was coming out of my pocket,” he said. In addition to work and school, he practiced 20 hours every week on his way to becoming the World Cup Artistic Roller Skating Champion in 1983 in Auckland, New Zealand.

Powley eventually moved to Australia, where he spent nine years choreographing, judging, performing and competing. But when he moved back to Iowa in 1991, he found few opportunities to continue roller skating. At a friend’s urging, he gave ice skating a shot.

“Within five minutes I could do everything I could do on roller skates, and then some,” he said. His interests turned to coaching, but he began skating competitively to give himself some credibility. He shot to the top, placing first in the U.S. Adult National Championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and then placing second in the 1999 World Mountain Cup in France.

In 1999, Powley focused his energies on coaching and used his prize winnings to buy the Capitol Gateway East Ice Pavilion, which was home to the Capitol Ice Academy before it closed in May 2002. “It was a dream I had that kind of went south,” he said.

Capitol Ice Academy students, who placed 14th at the World Ice Skating Institute Teach Championships in 2004 and brought home 57 individual medals, now practice out of the Coral Ridge Ice Arena in Coralville, the Ames/ISU Ice Arena and the Metro Ice Sports Facility in Urbandale, which keeps him on the road three days a week.

Powley is on the ice daily, devoting 10 hours each week to personal practice time each week and 20 hours to coaching. The rest of the time, he says, he’s in front of the computer. A lifelong art enthusiast, he earned a degree in art and design from Grand View College after moving back to Des Moines, which has manifested itself in his Web site and graphic design business. His design work is split between small businesses and organizations and businesses within the skating industry.

Though he has been able to use his art talents to promote the sport to which he is so committed, Powley considers ice skating to be an art form in itself.

“I think of the skating rink as a giant canvas, and the music as the color, and the skater as a brush,” he said. “Each time I do a new routine, I’m creating a new picture, and that’s how I stay in touch with my art. I’m still an artist; it’s just a different medium.”