Shulman Award for Lifetime Achievement- Barb Yackel

By Kent McDill

Barb Yackel was anticipating the call. She knew she was going to be interviewed about her selection as the 2020 winner of the Shulman Award for Lifetime Achievement.

She was ready….to talk about the most recent and first-ever Professional Skaters Association virtual coach’s rating exam. “It was awesome!” Yackel exclaimed within moments of beginning her phone interview. “It was the first ever PSA virtual rating exam site and it went famously. We had 40 exams over three days, with three Zoom rooms going.”

It is that enthusiasm for the PSA and her role as Events Director that catapulted her to the unexpected honor of being the 2020 Lifetime Achievement honoree.

Once she covered recent events (which makes sense for an Events Director) in her phone call, she was ready to gush over her award and newfound status among skating’s elite coaches.

“I was totally blown away,” Yackel said. “I am a person who is seldom at a loss for words, but I was speechless. Of course, with the award being given virtually, I was sitting in front of my computer, but I got so nervous I forgot how to get into the meeting. But the next night they did a virtual reception and they had me say something.”

“I look at the list of people I am now included with and I told my mom ‘I don’t belong on this list.’ It is a Who’s Who of skating. It is over the top unbelievable that I got this award.”

Yackel claims she has basically been in skates since birth with a father who was a member of the 1952 U.S. Olympic hockey team and a mother who was a speed skating champion. Her brothers skated for the University of Minnesota hockey team. Yackel herself was a competitive skater until the age of 18, when she turned to coaching, which included work as a choreographer and skating rink director in St. Paul, Minn.

While coaching, Yackel also became involved in the administrative side of skating, working for U.S. Figure Skating, ISI, and eventually the PSA, becoming the Events Director in 2007. A Minnesota woman through and through, she moved to Dallas for a few years when working for the ISI. She then returned home to join the PSA, although initially that required her to drive more than an hour each way from home in St. Paul to Rochester before eventually moving south.

Despite her busy schedule as PSA Events Director, Yackel still finds time to coach.

“I coach every week; I have never stopped coaching,” Yackel said. “I run the Point of Perfection skating camp every summer, and I collaborate with my son to run the Girl Power hockey camp. I still coach Learn to Skate. I do a little private coaching, but not a lot. With a full-time job, it’s not fair to the kids.”

While much of the world, including skating rinks, was put on hold due to the coronavirus through the spring,

Yackel said her job has never been busier. Designing the framework for PSA to conduct business virtually fell into her lap.

“Implementing the virtual rating exam from my home office was quite the project. We had the virtual ratings, and the virtual summit, and we have another virtual ratings coming up in September,” she said. “As far as my position goes, I have not noticed a slowdown or stoppage. It just keeps rolling.”

Along with the camaraderie of the office, sparked by the leadership of Executive Director Jimmie Santee, Yackel said the best part of her job is that she gets to be involved with so many people in so many different aspects of skating in America.

“It’s the interaction with the coaches and the lifetime friendships that you make working with them on events, seminars, and organizing conferences,” she said. And the difficult part? It doesn’t exist. “I have never thought of that,” she said. “For me, there is always a solution. If there is a problem that arises, there is always a solution that can be found. I work very well under pressure. There is no difficult part of my position.”

So the PSA has a new Shulman Award for Lifetime Achievement winner, and the selection comes with the knowledge that the winner has not yet completed her lifetime of achievement within the organization. They may have to drag her out of her office someday.

“I do what I do because I have a passion for the sport,” Yackel said.