figure skating podcast interview
figure skating podcast interview
JULY 2010
Part two of the 70th Reunion of Ice Capades in Las Vegas, NV. This was a reunion of about 600 former skaters, costumers, organizers, engineers, and technicians who were involved in the show. Interviews range from those involved from the 1940s to the 1990s. 51 minutes, 10 seconds.
Check out the post from July to see photos I took at the event.
Interviews with: Alex McGowan, Marshall Sanchez, Marjorie McChesney Kunik, Mary Sleichter Hummel, Sarah Kawahara, Will Grendahl, Bob Young, Fred Huffman, and Randy Gardner.
Thanks to Fiona Mcquarrie for transcribing these interview highlights:
Alex McGowan: I was in Holiday on Ice, but I worked at Ice Capades Chalets, so I know lots of people here and they all know me. John Nicks was involved with the Chalets, he was one of my idols growing up in England because he was world champion when I was a big kid. Michael Booker, who’s not here, got me into it. I used to own my own ice rink in the Bay Area, I opened it in 1976, and Debi Thomas [who he coached] came in 1977. And then after I closed it, I thought I was going to quit skating for a bit, but they asked me to come to the Chalets. And then I got Steven Cousins and coached him for two years. And now I’m more of a consultant, I coach about six to eight hours a week for people that have other coaches.
Debi wasn’t a great talent when she came to me. She was only about nine and she kept falling over and crying. But she worked hard. I worked with Surya Bonaly when she was twelve, and she was talented, but the most talented skater I ever worked with was Nicole Bobek, for a whole summer in Sun Valley. To this date I have no doubt she could have been a world champion, because I could have disciplined her, I could have handled her. But she ran into discipline problems. But she was just brilliant. The next most talented was Oksana Baiul. I did a seminar with her in Chicago. She worked with these lower-level kids and she was just great. And before I came to America, I taught this young guy his first basic steps, and he went on to greatness too. His name’s up on the boards at Lake Placid. It was Robin Cousins.
Some of the talented ones, they get to the danger age of 18 when they’re finishing high school, and college, and the boyfriends, and the phone starts ringing. And that’s kind of what killed Debi in the last year, the boyfriends. If you can keep the boyfriends away, you’re lucky. Katarina [Witt] had a boyfriend but didn’t come to the Olympics with him. Liz Manley had a boyfriend but he didn’t go. Debi went to the Olympics and took the boyfriend, and got distracted unfortunately.
After Debi placed third in the Olympics, she went off with her boyfriend — she married him a few weeks later — for five days to Aspen. So I called Jay Ogden, who was the agent, and said, I’m bored, what can I do? And he said, do you want to go to this pro-am ski event, there’s a big banquet and all these movie stars and corporate people, and they pay 100 or 200 thousand dollars each to put a skier up against a celebrity. And I said, yeah, I’ll go, so they got me a room and I watched the ski races. And that night, there was a cocktail party. And you remember at the Olympics, Debi focused on the first jumps, because she knew that Katarina had done well. And I knew that the Russian judge liked her so she could do well. Well, she made her mistake on her first jump and then got disheartened. So I go to this party that night and dress up in a suit and tie, and I got presented to President Gerald Ford and his wife. And I was the only one at this party with no money, I’m telling you [laughs]. So I get up to President Ford, and he gets all excited and says, Betty, it’s Alex McGowan, Debi’s coach. And in this loud voice, he says, did you get my letter? And all these CEOs are looking around, going, what letter, I didn’t get a letter [laughs]. And when we got back to the arena in Boulder, there was th[...]
