ITNY Lifetime Achievement Award: Frank Carroll

By Terri Milner Tarquini

Frank Carroll had just accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ice Theatre of New York two nights before when he received news that shocked him: Over the course of his storied career, he has built a resume that qualifies him as the most successful figure skating coach in United States history.

“Is that true?” said Carroll, flabbergasted. “Really?” Long pause. “I had no idea.”

In a career spanning 60 years, Carroll has coached the following: one Olympic champion, six Olympic medalists, 11 Olympians from five countries at 10 Olympics, three world champions, four junior world champions and six U.S. national champions. Beginning with Linda Fratianne, who won the Olympic silver medal in 1976, Carroll coached skaters at 10 of the next 12 Winter Games, only missing 1984 and 1994. He has adeptly navigated the eras of compulsory figures, the 6.0 judging system, and the IJS judging system.

In 1991, Fratianne’s mother, a skating judge, suggested Carroll bring in 11-year-old Michelle Kwan for a try-out.

“When I looked at Michelle, I saw a diamond in the rough,” Carroll remembered. “I could see under the layers what could be there and the grooming it would take, the interpretation of music, the grace, the line, the strength, the spring and the eagerness and I knew right away— that’s a world champion.”

For 10 years, he coached Kwan, the most accomplished U.S. ladies figure skater in the last half-century, through most of her five world titles, nine national titles, and Olympic silver and bronze medals.

From Mr. Carroll's personal collection: Frank and Michelle Kwan practice in 1997

Photo by Kathy Goedeken

But it was with a six-foot-twoinch Illinois native who moved to California fresh out of high school to work with him that Carroll accomplished the biggest accolade of his coaching career: Olympic gold.

“Evan Lysacek was a disciplined young man with an impressive competitive record, but was not considered a threat to the Russian skaters,” said the video presentation played at the ITNY gala in October. “Under Frank’s coaching, Evan transformed from a solid skater into a risk-taker, charged by the confidence instilled by his coach.”

In the six years Lysacek trained with Carroll before becoming Olympic champion, he also won two U.S. Championships and a World Championship.

Among many others, Carroll coached Christopher Bowman to a national title and two world medals; Timothy Goebel to an Olympic bronze by being the first skater to land a quadruple salchow in competition, as well as the first to land three quads in one program; Denis Ten to an Olympic bronze and two world championships; and Gracie Gold to two national champions and an Olympic team medal.

But the path of life is rarely straight, and it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Carroll would be a coach at all.

At his local movie theater in Worcester, Massachusetts, Carroll had seen a news clip of Dick Button winning the Olympics and he was drawn to the jumps, spins, athleticism, and power of figure skating. After initially becoming a student of Cecilia Colledge, an Olympic silver medalist and world champion, he soon found his coach and life mentor in the legendary Maribel VinsonOwen, training on weekends while staying at her home.

“I was friends with Maribel’s daughters, but I had no idea who she was; I didn’t know the history,” Carroll said. “Her daughters told me everything she had done and then I realized.”

As a singles skater, Vinson-Owen was an Olympic bronze medalist, two-time world medalist and ninetime national champion, a distinction she shares with only one other skater: Michelle Kwan. As a pairs skater, she was a six-time national champion with two different partners. And she did it all while working as the first female sports reporter at the New York Times.

The award recipients—John and Amy Hughes and Frank Carrol—with Tenley Albright and ITNY Founder Moira North

Photo by H. Aono

Even to this day, the impact she had on Carroll’s life is extensive and unquestionable.

“How she taught me became how I taught,” Carroll said. “She explained skating to me—how the body moves, how it flows—in a way I could understand. Taking lessons from Maribel was an eye-opening and world-changing experience for me.

At the Skating Club of Boston, Carroll met a fellow skater, Tenley Albright, who was in the midst of winning Olympic gold and silver, two world titles, and five national titles. Over 65 years later, it was Albright who introduced Carroll at the ITNY gala for his Lifetime Achievement Award.

“We called her ‘The Divine Tenley,’” Carroll said. “She was divine on the ice and off. She could not have been nicer to everyone. I will never forget how kind and encouraging she was to all of us.”

Meanwhile, Carroll was making his own mark, winning the junior bronze medal at the 1959 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and the silver medal the following year, while earning a sociology degree from the College of the Holy Cross. Following graduation, Carroll chose to turn professional and join the Ice Follies; had he not, there is a real likelihood he would have been on the Sabena Flight 548 that crashed, carrying the entire 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team en route to Belgium for the World Championships. Eighteen skaters, plus 16 others in the group, died—among them, Vinson-Owen and her two daughters.

“It was just so hard to comprehend,” said Carroll a few years ago. “It still is.”

In 1964, Carroll left the Ice Follies and, although accepted at the law school at the University of San Francisco, Hollywood beckoned. He worked as an extra on three campy beach movies, but found there was too much downtime to hold his interest.

Which is when fate intervened and called him to the career that he was meant for: A photographer friend, knowing Carroll had done some coaching while still in college, put him in contact with a rink in Van Nuys, California, during the 1965-1966 skating season.

By 1968, he had a national medalist and the following year he had a novice men’s national champion. In 1972, he coached an Olympic team alternate and, in 1976, ten years after he started teaching in earnest, he coached Fratianne, his first Olympian. The rest, as they say, is history.

The skaters I coached who became champions had a lot of skills, but, more than that, they had great work ethic and motivation,” Carroll said in a previous interview. “I have always felt lucky to have been along for the ride, but they made themselves champions.

Carroll has racked up his share of his own accolades, including inductions into the U.S. Figure Skating Association’s Hall of Fame, the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, Ice Skating Institute’s Hall of Fame and the Professional Skaters Association’s Hall of Fame, as well as four-time Olympic Coach of the Year, the first figure skating coach to hold that honor.

“I have been fortunate to have been honored a lot in my life, but I am so flattered that they (Ice Theatre of New York) thought of me and my accomplishments for this (the Lifetime Achievement Award),” Carroll said. “It was very unexpected, but the tributes were lovely. I had tears in my eyes; all of it was deeply moving.”

Last year, shorty after his 80 th birthday, Carroll retired and is enjoying relaxing in Palm Springs, long a peaceful haven for him, but he’s not left the sport completely.

“I am at the stage of my life that is really fun for me,” Carroll said. “I can fiddle in skating as much or as little as I want to.”

Carroll has been going to Oakland to work with current national champion Alysa Liu, reinforcing the teachings of the young phenom’s coach, Laura Lipetsky, a former Carroll student herself.

“It’s fun being in a secondary position and to not have all of the responsibility,” Carroll said. “It’s a lot like what my sister said being a grandparent is like—you don’t have to be the disciplinarian; you can just give them encouragement. Any coaching I do now is just for the love I have for skating.”

That love extends to a desire to share the history of skating so that future generations know what came before them. His speech at the ITNY gala was a moving history of his memories of times when Vinson- Owen fought for what was right in skating and in life.

“She was loud and opinionated and outspoken,” Carroll said. “It’s one of the things I loved about her. She was so brave and so inspirational, and I so respected her.”

That strength of personality left an indelible mark on Carroll that has carried over to 60 years’ worth of his own students.

“Don’t look for where to place blame, take it for what it is and move on,” Carroll said. “You have responsibility for your life. Isn’t that wonderfully powerful?”