COPING : Skaters’ Careers Come First for Seriously Ill Coach

Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudi Galindo are two of the most talked-about skaters at the U.S. figure skating championships this week.

In the future, Yamaguchi may be one of the most talked-about skaters the United States has ever had.

And their coach, Jim Hulick?

Hulick was diagnosed in August as having colon cancer. But after surgery, the doctors told him that they had removed the diseased tissue. Since then, Hulick, who lives in the Bay Area, has been flying one day every other week to Southern California for chemotherapy treatments in West Covina, where he was raised and his parents still live.

He can feel another tumor near his right breast, but he hasn’t had it checked yet. He says that he’s not worried, that he’s going to be here for quite a while.

Hulick, 37, says it so matter-of-factly that you believe him. More important, you believe that he believes it, which, according to all the literature, is at least half the battle.

“This is treatable,” he said. “I’ve got all these cancer books and changed my diet and done all the things they tell you to do. Other people have lived seven to 10 years with this stuff, so I’m not that scared. At first, you are. You’re in shock. But I’ve gone through all the mental trauma of it, the depression of it.

“With Rudi and Kristi, it’s given me something to look forward to. We’ve worked all these years together, and this is kind of what we’ve always waited for. We’ve waited our turn and waded through the pecking order, and now we’re fighting to win.”

Right now, Hulick was more concerned about a more immediate but less important battle. He said his nerves were killing him. This was Thursday, more than 24 hours before Yamaguchi and Galindo would skate in the freestyle program of the pairs competition at the Baltimore Arena.

But already the tension was building. After the original program Wednesday night, they were in second place. If they remained among the top two after Thursday night’s performance, they would go to Paris next month for the World Championships, the culmination of a dream for them and their coach.

Hulick’s competitive career ended in 1973, two years after he and his pairs partner, Cynthia Van Valkenburg of Paramount, Calif., won the national junior championship. Although he was still hungry, he said it was his partner who ate.

“She got too fat,” he said. “She ate croissants all the way across Europe. I could still throw her, but, oh, God, was I suffering. I have arthritis to this day from it.”

So Hulick went to school at Cal Poly Pomona for a while, joined the Ice Follies for a while and then began coaching in Burbank. In 1975, he moved to the Bay Area for a job in the Dublin rink where Linda Leaver was working with a promising young skater named Brian Boitano. It took seven more years for Hulick to get his breakthrough skater, Rudi Galindo.

A year later, Galindo said that he wanted to skate pairs because his older sister, who also was coached by Hulick, skated pairs.

“I said, ‘You’re so little, nobody we’re going to find is tiny enough for you to do pairs with,’ ” said Hulick, perhaps remembering his own experience. “He said, ‘There’s this little girl over in Foster City, and she’s just perfect.’

“And she was perfect. And she never outgrew him.”

It sounded like the beginning of a happily-ever-after story, and it may indeed turn out that way. They were the 1988 world junior champions in pairs and finished fifth last year in their first national senior competition. Until late last year, when Galindo decided to concentrate solely on pairs, both also competed individually. Galindo won the world junior championship in 1987, Yamaguchi in 1988.

Yamaguchi is only 4 feet 11 and 82 pounds, but she is a jumping machine. She plans seven triple jumps for today’s individual long program. She finished second in the original program and is fourth overall. Galindo has grown considerably in the last year and, at 5-5, 145 pounds, also is a strong jumper.

“They’re the best skaters in the country as far as pairs go,” Hulick said. “People always used to tell us, ‘Oh, they’re just two singles skaters side by side,’ but now they have the pair elements, too. The Russians all start with the good skaters first, and then they pair them.”

The last person to compete in the Olympics both individually and in pairs was the United States’ Ken Shelley in 1972. No American woman has done it since Yvonne Sherman in 1948. Hulick believes that Yamaguchi will be the next.

“At one time, I thought they both could be in the Olympics and win singles medals and pairs medals,” he said. “I still think she might be able to do it. I don’t know whether he’ll ever do singles again, but she has more mental stamina.”

Even though she is younger, Yamaguchi, 17, is the leader, and Galindo, 19, the follower.

“I dread tonight,” Galindo said Friday afternoon. “Near the end of the program, when it gets kind of painful and I’m lagging, she’s going to say, ‘Push, push, push.’ ”

Hulick said that Yamaguchi is “superhuman.” Five days a week, she wakes up at 4 a.m., is on the ice an hour later, skates until 10 a.m., drives herself to school at Mission San Jose High School, where she is a senior, goes home at 2:30 p.m. to study and is in bed by 7:30 p.m.

“Kristi’s mother is one of the best people to work with,” Hulick said. “She has Kristi at the rink, in costume, ready to go, every practice. She then goes to work (as a secretary) in a doctor’s office, then comes home and feeds the rest of the family.”

Yamaguchi’s older sister, who attends UC Davis, is a world baton twirling champion, and her younger brother plays for his high school freshman basketball team. Her father, a dentist in Fremont, remained home this week to see him play.

“It’s a great family,” Hulick said. “The grandparents are into it; the aunts and uncles are into it.”

Galindo’s parents are, partly by necessity, less supportive. His father, a retired truck driver, doesn’t have the financial resources to pay for a $25,000-a-year skating career. Galindo’s sister, who coaches at a rink in the Bay Area, gives him money for lessons, as does a sponsor who doesn’t want to be identified.

Galindo said that he understands his parents’ financial constraints, but he wishes they would take a more active interest in his sport. He lives with them in their San Jose home now, but he spent two years with the Yamaguchis.

Hulick said that the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. has applied some pressure on Yamaguchi to choose either singles or pairs, preferably singles.

“Kristi is like the skater of the century,” Hulick said. “You can’t limit her abilities by saying that she can’t do both. That’s what I told her mother last week.”

But she may have to make a decision later this year, when her singles coach, Christy Kjarsgaard, moves to Canada.

“Kristi won’t go,” Galindo said. “I’m sure she won’t go. She won’t leave her family.”

If she does, what’s next for Galindo?

“A mental institution,” he said, laughing nervously.

But he admitted that with his partner facing a career-altering decision, and his coach ill, this is a very confusing time for him.

“We’ve had a routine for so long,” he said. “Now that we’re getting up there, everything’s changing. I don’t know what’s going on.”

In October, a month before they were supposed to compete in the prestigious NHK competition in Japan, Yamaguchi’s mother told her daughter and Galindo that their coach had cancer. Galindo had already given up singles because Hulick had spent so much time in the hospital. Hulick didn’t want them to know the nature of his illness, but he relented when rumors spread that he had AIDS.

Hulick dropped all of his other skaters, about 30 of them, but he has stayed with Yamaguchi and Galindo. He said he will postpone a biopsy that has been scheduled for this month until after the World Championships if Yamaguchi and Galindo qualify.

“I’ve put my treatment second and the kids above that,” he said. “I’ve had this 24-year goal of making something out of skating. My parents are behind it 100%. They’ve donated money to the cause to make Rudi and Kristi champions. Kristi’s parents donated, and Rudi’s sister donated. So I’ve put my health aside and tried to make this work because they’re the most talented kids in the whole world.

“Every coach in the United States would like to have a chance like I’m getting, and I’m not going to just let it go through my fingers. I’ve seen this talent for six years, and I knew this day would come. I just had to wait for the right time, and here we are.

“I’ll live through it. At least I have a desire in life. I’m not just sitting around thinking about dying.”

To music from “Romeo and Juliet,” Yamaguchi and Galindo skated better Friday night than maybe even Hulick had a right to expect. When they performed complicated side-by-side triple jumps, landed cleanly and then, a half-beat later, did it again, the crowd gasped. You didn’t have to know figure skating to realize that you were seeing something special.

At the end of the arena, in the area where the skaters go to kiss and cry, Hulick looked as if he was going to bolt over the wall and onto the ice. But he restrained himself until the music ended. Then he put his hands over his eyes as if he was about to cry. When Yamaguchi and Galindo reached Hulick, they hugged him. All skaters give their coaches hugs after leaving the ice, but this one seemed to linger.

One other pair had to skate after Yamaguchi and Galindo, but no one was going to beat them on this night. It wouldn’t be long before they would be named national champions.

Hulick thanked God.

“All my prayers have been answered,” he said.