A Dream On Ice

(CBS)  The City of Brotherly Love has produced an aspiring figure skater from an unlikely setting. In the quest to fulfill his American Dream, one boy's desire overcame a lack of resources.

---

Joey Jones was hooked on ice skating from the moment he saw it on television. "I thought it was really neat that they were jumping and spinning on a real thin blade and I wanted to try it one day," he says.

He had no skates, but with a pair of socks on a slippery floor, he began to spin and twirl. At the church shelter he and his mom Karen once called home, 11-year-old Joey turned their bare room into a rink of dreams.

"After I got into the shelter and he was spinning around in the room and the rest of the moms said that he was, you know, really ice skating, they'd go ahead and clap for him for the different poses he was doing," recalls Joey's mother.

But the cost of skating lessons for Joey was beyond the reach of his struggling mother.

Then coach Jimi Lewis came into their lives. "I first met Joey at a public session at an inner-city rink," says Lewis. "Even in falling he would laugh. That's a big plus."

Lewis says he saw in Joey the raw talents and determination of a champion: "He had no idea what to do but he was going to try anyway and that is the adventurer. And the adventurer is usually the one who is the most successful at anything."

Lewis agreed to coach Joey for free and so their adventure together began. After three years, they are more than coach and student.

Says Joey, "Jimi to me is not only a coach, but now is kind of more to me like a father figure that I never had."

Joey has sponsors now to pay for the costs of competing, and a fistful of medals for his proud mom.

His dreams now take him far from the streets of Philadelphia. And he has his eyes set on the most celebrated titles in the sport. "Looking towards that gold medal maybe at the Olympics and worlds and nationals…that's what drives me," says Joey.

Karen Jones says her son's skating has already paid dividends for his future: "He's not hanging out there on the corner … He's doing something that a lot of kids can't do, especially living in the inner city."

And Joey's coach sees a bright future for his prized pupil. Says Lewis, "Joey can be a national champion, he can be a world champion, he can be an Olympic champion."

After beating long odds, he may already be a champion.