Laura Lipetsky
2019 PSA COACH of the
YEAR By Terri Milner Tarquini
2019 PSA Coach of the Year Laura Lipetsky came this-close to missing her own induction ceremony. “In my mind, the biggest thing, always, is working with my students and being there for them, so I hadn’t planned on going,” Lipetsky said. “I miss family events; I rarely take vacation. Really, I work 24/7, but I know what a huge honor it is.” Lipetsky joins the ranks of some of figure skating’s most influential coaches, including Patrice Lauzon (2018), Tammy Gambill (2017), Rafael Arutyunyan (2016, 2015), Marina Zoueva (2014, 2011), Tom Zakrajsek (2009), Audrey Weisiger (1999), Carol Heiss Jenkins (1996) and three-time inductee Frank Carroll (2001, 2000, 1997). “So many amazing coaches have won this honor,”
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Lipetsky said. “Frank Carroll is someone I really look up to. He has coached so many champions; he’s a legend. I saw him at the conference after I won, and he congratulated me. He is such an amazing coach, but it’s his character that makes him such a great role model.” Lipetsky’s deep-in-the-trenches mentality has led to big things for dynamo Alysa Liu and, quite possibly, the future of U.S. ladies figure skating. “We still need to work just as hard, if not harder,” said Lipetsky, who has coached the 13-year-old Liu since she was five and in Lipetsky’s beginning skating class. “She won the national title, but we’re looking toward even bigger things in the future.” Liu’s two record-breaking programs—loaded with eight triples in the free skate alone—put her in the record books twice: as the youngest skater in the history of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships to land the triple
