Figure skating coach Frank Carroll, who coached Michelle Kwan and other Olympians, dies at age 85

When he was a boy growing up in Worcester, Mass., Frank Carroll learned to skate outdoors on a pond but truly fell in love with figure skating when he watched newsreels of well-known skaters at the movies. 

“To me, figure skating is a divine sport,” he told me years later after becoming one of the most beloved and decorated coaches in skating history. “It’s a sport made by the gods. It’s frictionless, there are beautiful, flowing costumes done by a costume designer, there is musical interpretation, there is emotion, there is athleticism and tremendous physical strength involved. It inspires people to cry, it inspires people to cheer, it pulls the emotions out of people.” 

Known as a brilliant teacher and tactician with a quick wit and delightful sense of humor, Carroll could often be found surrounded by journalists during the glory days of skating in the 1980s and 1990s. As Kwan rose to the top of the sport, her appearances at press conferences with Carroll sitting by her side, listening intently, interjecting here and there, occasionally raising a sarcastic eyebrow, were legendary. 

Carroll, who coached Michelle Kwan, Evan Lysacek, Timothy Goebel and Linda Fratianne, among other Olympic, world and national champions and medalists, died Sunday in Palm Springs, Calif., after a battle with cancer. He was 85. 

During the crucial 1998 Winter Olympic season, Carroll said he was trying to think of ways to become a better coach for Kwan. 

“What did you come up with?” a reporter asked.

“A lobotomy,” Carroll chuckled.

“For her or you?”

“Both of us,” he said. “We’re going in for a group rate.”

Once, standing by the boards as he sent Kwan onto the ice at a competition, he held up and shook the book he was reading that week to make sure she saw it.

It was "Undaunted Courage".

“For over 10 years Frank was by my side − coaching and mentoring me to be the best skater and person that I can be,” Kwan, now the U.S. ambassador to Belize, said in a text message Sunday afternoon. “He bestowed upon me a wealth of knowledge and history of the sport he loved so much. Off the ice and over the years, he became much more than just a coach. I know he’s changed the lives of thousands of skaters for the better, and I’m grateful that I’m one of them and I wouldn’t be here without his guidance. I love and miss Frank very much.”

Kwan finished her illustrious career with nine national titles, five world championships and two Olympic medals, a graceful and dominant force at what was then the most competitive time in the history of the sport. 

In the 1950s, Carroll trained at various rinks around Boston with revered coach Maribel Vinson Owen. After graduating from Holy Cross with a degree in education, he joined the touring show Ice Follies for $250 a week in 1960. Owen soon told him to quit skating. She wanted him to go to law school. 

But in 1961, Owen and the entire U.S. figure skating team, including her two daughters, were killed in a plane crash on their way to the world championships. In all, 34 skaters, coaches, judges, officials and family members died in the crash near Brussels. 

Carroll never went to law school. After four and a half years in the ice show, he became an actor in Los Angeles doing “terrible B movies,” he said, and teaching skating in the afternoon. 

His part-time distraction soon became his life’s work, for decades taking him around the world to stand by his skaters beside the ice and sit with them while they awaited their scores in “Kiss and Cry.” Carroll retired in 2018. 

In addition to Kwan, Lysacek, Goebel and Fratianne, Carroll also coached, among others, Tiffany Chin, Christopher Bowman, Nicole Bobek and Gracie Gold. He was inducted into both the U.S. and World Figure Skating Halls of Fame.

For much of the time Kwan worked with Carroll, her choreographer was Lori Nichol, Carroll’s collaborative partner. 

"Frank was a rare and glorious combination of high intelligence, discipline, courage and kindness,” Nichol texted. “A gentleman, simultaneously hilarious and refined, whose voice I hear in my head every day both on and off the ice.”