THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : Soul On Ice : Bowman Has a Passion for Skating, but He Also Loves to Party, Joke Around

Some guys can’t win for winning.

A football coach who has built a three-touchdown lead with his passing game is expected to call only running plays in the fourth quarter. But what happens when Christopher Bowman decides to omit a triple axel from his title-winning program in the U.S. figure skating championships last month?

Television commentator Dick Button calls him “boring.”

Christopher Bowman? Boring?

“I do find that to be a bit odd,” Bowman said with a bemused style. “I skated with every drop of my blood. I don’t think because I decided not to do one jump, I mean there were all those other triple jumps, and I had a standing ovation. All those people were screaming and they just didn’t look that bored. Anyway, I know I was pretty excited.”

Bowman’s main rival, Todd Eldredge, had withdrawn from the competition because of a back injury and sure, Bowman was playing it safe, for once in his career heeding the advice of his coach. He has been training with John Nicks since November.

“Actually, it was an oblique personal attack on me,” Nicks said. “I knew the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition so, like in any sport, you take that into account when you make up your game plan.

“I’ve got some negative adjectives for Chris that I could suggest to Dick Button, but boring is not one of them. If there is one thing Christopher Bowman is not, it’s boring.”

Indeed, as all those CBS Winter Olympic promos keep reminding us, Bowman is the “bad boy” of figure skating.

Nicks leans against the boards at the Ice Capades Chalet, watching his newest pupil spin, twirl and showboat his way through a workout.

“You know, when he’s trying, he’s pretty good,” Nicks says.

Never quite good enough, though.

Bowman, 25, is a couple of weeks from the end of his amateur career. He won his first national title in 1989, after finishing seventh in the Calgary Olympics. He’s won silver and bronze medals in the world championships.

He won a bronze in 1990 after improvising the final minutes of his free skate, a decision which was the turning point in the breakup with Frank Carroll, who had been his coach since he was 5.

Bowman has yet to win an international title, and it isn’t for want of talent. At his best, he brings a joyful, make-believe presence to the ice that’s difficult not to like.

But this self-described “Hans Brinker from Hell” has a dark side, too.

Other coaches and skaters have long questioned his sense of purpose and wondered how far he might have gone had he been able to focus on developing his tremendous potential.

He’s always loved to skate and his passion for the sport shows. But he also loves to party, is prone to fits of silliness and admits concentration is not his forte.

“I’ve had my mental struggles,” he said, standing in the sun outside the rink. “Like right now, I’d like to be at the beach with some bikini girls. This is a sacrifice. I miss the bikini girls.”

At the moment, the “bad boy” is trying desperately not to be naughty. He came to Nicks with enough excess baggage to fill a moving van: innuendo about his involvement with drugs; rumors surrounding the night he was mugged and beaten in Toronto but never notified police; stories that he’s hosted more all-night parties than a fraternity house, and the nasty breakup with his second coach, Canadian Toller Cranston.

Cranston recently called Bowman “the most undisciplined skater in the history of the world.”

With the Olympics on the horizon, the folks at the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. did their best to inject some stability into the situation. They assured the media that Bowman had passed every drug test. Then they went into matchmaker mode, figuring the stoic and no-nonsense Nicks might be the perfect match for Bowman.

At least for a couple of months of intense training.

“It was a special circumstance,” said Nicks, who has known Bowman and his parents more than 15 years. “I felt this was a young man who had some training problems, but had great potential. I just figured it was something I should do.”

Nicks already had four skaters--the pairs teams of Natasha Kuchiki and Todd Sand and Jenni Meno and Scott Wendland--priming for their shot at medals in France. They admit to wondering if there was room for Bowman’s ego on the rink.

“A lot of us had mixed emotions when Christopher came here,” Wendland said. “We weren’t sure how to take it. A lot of people were saying, ‘Oh God, you’ve got Christopher Bowman coming to your rink. Good Luck.’

“The thing is, Todd and I have known Christopher since he was this high,” he said, holding his hand below his belt. “I think Christopher’s seen a different side of training here. Believe it or not, he was a little intimidated when he first came in. But he’s fit in with this family of skaters great. We’re all pushing each other.”

Bowman, who remains serious for seconds at a time, has proven to be a perfect counterpoint to the intensity of preparing for the Olympics, according to Meno.

“Even if he’s skating bad, he doesn’t get upset. He just jokes,” she said, still wide-eyed at Bowman’s ability to shrug it off. “He’s fun, he breaks the tension. I really like skating with him. He always seems to be in a good mood.”

Nicks was sure there would be no problems, but just to be sure, he called in Bowman and his parents for a short meeting to lay down some ground rules.

“I told them he would be treated exactly the same as everyone else down here in the competitive program,” Nicks said. “And he’s been pretty good. He’s missed just one or two (practices) out of seven weeks.”

Bowman may have been at the rink at 8:30 sharp almost every morning, but that doesn’t mean the early-to-bed-early-to-rise routine suits him. And, he says, he’s finding it increasingly more difficult to maintain his focus.

“It’s been a hard long road for me,” Bowman said. “I had such a long burnout period, when it all became like a jail sentence to me. I was counting the months, counting the weeks, counting the days down to the nationals.

“You’d think that someone who was facing just three weeks to go before being released from his cell would say, ‘OK, I can toe the mark until then, because then I’ll be free as a bird and can do what I want and life will be great.’

“But for me, I get very antsy. The closer it gets, the sillier I become. I start to lose concentration. All I can think about is the inevitable retirement, the flowers and the ticker-tape parade.”

Next week in Albertville, France, Bowman will have one last chance to win the really big one. So far, that’s been enough to keep his attention.

“Now, I concentrate on one day at a time,” he said. “I concentrate on an Olympic medal and try not to look down the line at being free from amateur skating. I’ve already given some very good performances this season. The two competitions I went to this season, I won and skated without a flaw.

“But there’s also the other end of the spectrum and I can’t help but think that my time at the Olympics might be my time to mess it up.”

Joyce Bowman is glad to have her son home in the Southland. He trained near their home in the San Fernando Valley before moving to Canada to work with Cranston in 1990 and she thinks he missed the kind of support from family and friends he’s getting now.

“Just like anyone, he has his insecurities,” she said. “He needed to be home.”

Nicks has also been a calming influence, she said.

“John has released Christopher from a lot of pressure,” she said. “He’s done everything possible to relieve it and let Christopher just skate. He’s helped him to feel good about himself and his skating.”

A whirlwind of controversy surrounded Bowman at the nationals last month. The USFSA even issued a statement that said it had no evidence that Bowman was ever involved with drugs.

His mother was afraid that, even for her resilient son, “it would get to be too much when everyone is after you like that.” Bowman apparently was not distracted.

“Those things were so outrageous, so absurd, so silly that I couldn’t even take them seriously,” he said. “It wasn’t something I even gave any air time to. I just put it out of my mind.”

Nicks watched the mercurial skater closely through the ordeal. He saw his practices get better and better. He saw him peak and skate flawlessly in competition.

“He seemed to almost enjoy the confrontation,” Nicks said. “It was as if he drew strength from it. Christopher uses emotion to be successful and sometimes that’s a little dangerous.

“But then all the coaches will tell you that the secret to success is getting them emotionally prepared.”

Bowman won’t argue that point. But he also will tell you that he’s not skating to prove anything to anyone . . . except Christopher Bowman.

“It was all a lot of hype, some of it hurt me, some of it didn’t,” he said. “But that certainly was not the motivation for my skating well.

“Going out there with a chip on your shoulder is going out there for all the wrong reasons. You have to go out there with a clean head, mind and soul, and then really put it all on the line for no other reason then your love for your sport.”