As a boy growing up in Worcester, Massachusetts, Frank Carroll learned to skate on outdoor ponds, but after seeing newsreels of famous skaters at the movie theater, he fell in love with figure skating.
“To me, figure skating is a sacred sport,” he told me years later, one of the most beloved and decorated coaches in skating history. “It’s a sport made by the gods. There’s no friction, costume designers put on beautiful, flowing costumes, there’s musical interpretation, there’s emotion, there’s athleticism and incredible strength. Figure skating moves people, it makes people cheer, it brings out people’s emotions.”
Known for her quick wit, sense of humor and excellent teacher and tactician, Carroll was often seen surrounded by journalists during skating’s golden age in the 1980s and 1990s, and as Kwan rose to the top of the skating world, her appearances at press conferences with Carroll sitting next to her, listening intently, interjecting here and there and occasionally raising a sarcastic eyebrow, became legendary.
Carroll, who coached Olympic, world and national champions and medalists such as Michelle Kwan, Evan Lysacek, Timothy Goebel and Linda Fratian, died Sunday in Palm Springs, California, after a battle with cancer. He was 85 years old.
During that crucial season at the 1998 Winter Olympics, Carroll said he was thinking about how to be a better coach for Kwan.
“What was your idea?” the reporter asked.
“A lobotomy,” Carol laughed.
“For her or for you?”
“Both of you,” he said, “we’re going for the group rate.”
Once, when he sent Kwan out onto the ice at a competition, he stood by the boards, lifting it up and shaking it to make sure she was looking at the book she’d been reading that week.
It was “indomitable courage.”
“Frank was by my side for over a decade, coaching and mentoring me to be the best skater and person I could be,” Kwan, who now serves as the U.S. ambassador to Belize, said in a text message Sunday afternoon. “He imparted to me a wealth of knowledge and history of the sport he loved so dearly. Off the ice, he was much more than just a coach over the years. I know he changed the lives of thousands of skaters for the better, and I am grateful to be one of them, and I would not be here without his guidance. I love Frank very much and will miss him greatly.”
Kwan is coming off an illustrious career that saw her win nine national titles, five world championships and two Olympic medals, and she was a graceful and dominant force during what was then the most competitive era in the sport’s history.
In the 1950s, Carol was coached by respected coach Maribel Vinson Owen at various rinks around Boston. After earning a degree in education from the College of the Holy Cross, she joined the touring show Ice Follies in 1960 for $250 a week. Owen soon told Carol to quit skating; she wanted her to go to law school.
But in 1961, the entire U.S. figure skating team, including Owen and her two daughters, was killed in a plane crash en route to the World Championships. The crash near Brussels killed 34 people, including skaters, coaches, judges, officials and family members.
Carroll didn’t go to law school, and after four and a half years of ice show acting, he became an actor in Los Angeles, starring in “terrible B-movies” and teaching skating in the afternoons.
What was once a part-time hobby quickly became his life’s work, and for decades he traveled the world to stand beside skaters and sit with them as they waited for the “kiss and cry” scores to be scored. Carroll retired in 2018.
Carroll has coached Kwan, Lysacek, Goebel and Fratianne, as well as Tiffany Chin, Christopher Bowman, Nicole Bobek and Gracie Gold. He is inducted into the U.S. and World Figure Skating Halls of Fame.
For much of the time Kwan worked with Carroll, her choreographer was Carroll’s collaborative partner, Lori Nicol.
“Frank was a rare and incredible combination of intellect, discipline, courage and kindness,” Nicole texted. “He was a gentleman, funny and sophisticated and I hear his voice in my head every day, on and off the ice.”
