Coro: Ex-ballerina spun life to GCU

For three years, Klaire Mitchell put off an inevitable five-week stay in New York City to attend a School of American Ballet intensive.

Mitchell's talent demanded the opportunity after her eighth-grade year. Her grace, grit and years of dedication put the Idaho girl on a national level, but she leaped into rare air with her camp performance.

The school offered Mitchell a scholarship, projecting that she could become a New York City Ballet dancer with endorsements feeding a seven-figure annual income.

That is when Mitchell executed her final pirouette, spinning away from ballet and to the family and high school life that led her to Grand Canyon. Volleyball was there before, during and after ballet, a discipline that enhanced her sporting skill to send the Lopes a freshman setter who could bump the volleyball program inside GCU Arena.

"I knew ballet wasn't going to be my life, so I might as well have four years of normal," Mitchell said, laughing peacefully at passing on plausible fame and fortune.

Born for both

As a girl, Mitchell launched like she was on springs and landed like a feather. Her mind and body moved quickly, keeping keenly aware of surroundings. Her limbs, hands and feet were as long as her focus.

GCU volleyball head coach Tim Nollan admired those qualities when he first watched Mitchell three years ago.

Ballet Couer d'Alene owner Ceci Klein admired those qualities when she first watched Mitchell 10 years ago.

Volleyball came first because her mother, Karla, began coaching it at North Idaho College with Klaire in tow at age 1. As a toddler, she kept the pacifier while playing pepper with collegians.

She began dance classes at age 7 with a mix of hip-hop, tap and jazz as a fun break from sports. Klein attended the class' recital to watch her students but focused on Klaire.

"She was remarkable," said Klein, now retired after 50 years in ballet. "She had it all."

Just dance

An invitation turned into a sensation.

21921 Klaire took to ballet like a swan to water and turned more expressive than usual.

"I fell for it," Klaire said of ballet. "I liked how perfectionate it was. Every detail mattered."

Within a year, Klein deemed that Klaire's talent merited an audition for School of American Ballet intensives.

The Mitchells waited a year and then stayed in the West for shorter camps. Later, the Mitchells learned that Klaire nearly received the school's first-ever scholarship offer from a California intensive.

Klaire was home-schooled for seventh and eighth grades so she could train more at ballet. It could be as tedious as repeating a jump 200 times. With Karla coaching her volleyball club, Klaire kept playing because they set the schedule, even if it meant playing in a leotard.

"Ballet complemented volleyball because of the muscle development and balance," Klaire said. "In staring at a mirror all day, I learned how to make corrections and feel my body more than most people. I'm obsessed with film so that's probably where it came from."

Her athleticism fit a ballet evolution, but the ballet culture's dieting and isolation gave her pause.

Big Apple's eye

That became apparent while staying in The Juilliard School dorms for the School of American Ballet intensive in 2015.

21920 Ballet already had lost some joy when Klein retired in 2013, and Klein's successor drained Klaire's body and mind. Volleyball became a therapeutic release, but she still shined in New York to be one of three dancers invited to join the school.

"To watch her dance and go through that felt surreal," Karla said. "When I watch her play volleyball, I love it but I understand what great players look like. When she was 14, she danced like she was 25."

Unlike the other two dancers' mothers, Karla did not instantly agree. She relayed the offer to Klaire, who returned to Couer d'Alene and decided to decline while sitting on the deck of her family's lake house.

"I had been homesick three weeks in," Klaire said. "I love New York, but that's not where I'd want to live. I was burned out. I felt like I had done too much and needed to move on. I got bored and didn't want to be there, even when it went well.

"I felt like I'd never get my high school experience back."

The ballet school administrators were stunned and gave her two more weeks. She never wavered and put the pointe shoes away.

"It stabbed my heart," Klein said. "I understand that not everybody wants to do it. She could see things she didn't want to be involved with. The ballet world isn't that wonderful. It's very competitive. You have to work so hard to gain so little. I know she would've been a principal ballerina, but her happiness mattered more to me."

Re-enter volleyball; enter GCU

Normal high school life included volleyball, basketball, track, student government with dancing reserved for homecoming and prom.

Klaire's 2016 summer intensive was a volleyball tournament in Denver, where Nollan sought her on the recommendation of her coach.

Nollan went there intending to scout several players. After one set, he reprioritized to watch every point Klaire played.

"I was blown away," Nollan said. "She's so incredibly gifted athletically. She makes plays only a truly elite athlete can.

"The ballet made sense. It was like an 'aha' moment. She's not all raw power. There's grace to her."

It resonated with Nollan, a former setter who, according to his mother, turned matches into choreographed ballet.

Klaire visited GCU with Karla and her father, Keith, the next spring and felt connected to the campus, student spirit and Nollan.

Those who look closely at the Lopes' Sept. 13 home opener will see the ballerina in Klaire. She contorts but in control. She jumps with pointed feet. She spins to track volleys. She looks back for balls but never for ballet.

"I'm doing what I want to do," she said.

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.

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