Nicks Continues to Skate Through Life

The coach of two of the best, young, female figure skaters in the United States is 70 years old. “I’ll be 71 in April,” John Nicks says proudly.

Most of us want to chop a year or a decade off our ages. Nicks is happy to rush to the next birthday.

The coach of two of the best young, female figure skaters in the U.S. is the son of a British sporting goods store owner. His father introduced John and his sister, Jennifer, to the ice in Brighton when John was about 10 years old.

“A new skating rink opened,” Nicks says, “and he took my sister and I so we could learn to skate. And he could see what kind of equipment skaters used so he could stock it and sell it in the store. I was a guinea pig of sorts.”

The coach of two of the best, young, female figure skaters in the U.S. was a pairs skater himself. He and Jennifer loved that skating rink. It turned out Nicks’ father provided more equipment for his son and daughter than for anyone else in Brighton.

John and Jennifer would win five British pairs championships and compete in two Olympics. “We finished eighth and fourth,” Nicks says. “In St. Moritz in 1948 we skated outdoors and there were maybe 1,000 people watching and, at most, a dozen reporters and two or three cameras. Things are a little different now. Yes, indeed.”

Nicks will stand behind the boards, a short man with red cheeks and piercing blue eyes, and cajole, console, applaud and exhort 14-year-old Naomi Nari Nam and 15-year-old Sasha Cohen during the senior ladies portion of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Gund Arena in Cleveland during the short program Friday and the free skate Saturday.

Nam, of Irvine, is the defending silver medalist, a stunning second-place finisher to Michelle Kwan a year ago. Cohen, of Laguna Niguel, finished second last year at the junior level and will be competing in her first senior nationals.

Nam and Cohen, along with 14-year-old Sarah Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y., who finished fourth at the senior nationals last year; Sara Wheat, 15, of Swedesboro, N.J., and winner of the junior title last year; Deanna Stellato, 16, of Glenview, Ill., who won the Junior Grand Prix title this year; 15-year-old Jennifer Kirk of Newton, Mass., who finished second to Stellato at the Junior Grand Prix finals, and 17-year-old Stacey Pensgen of Fairport, N.Y., who is the strongest jumper of these youngsters, are part of the strongest group of young skaters the U.S. has ever seen.

According to Nicks, at least. And Nicks has seen a lot.

In 1954, Nicks became a professional skater. But not for long. He was in South Africa, getting ready for his second pro performance, when he broke a bone in his foot. Recovery was difficult and Nicks, being pragmatic, realized his skating career was over. So he became a coach.

“No big plan,” Nicks says from his little office tucked in a corner at the Ice Chalet in Costa Mesa. “I had planned on going into the family business when I retired from skating actually.”

Nicks never left skating. He started his own ice show in South Africa and toured the nation. “In one little town,” Nicks says, “we plugged in and knocked out all the electricity in the place. We weren’t too popular.”

Eventually Nicks moved to Vancouver, where Jennifer lived with her husband. Nicks was married and his first child was born in Canada, but he never could get a full-time coaching job there.

The entire U.S. skating team, competitors and coaches, was killed in a plane crash on its way to the 1961 World Championships in Czechoslovakia. Top-level skating programs all over the United States needed new coaches, and Nicks was one of nearly a dozen foreign coaches, some legendary men like Carlo Fassi, who came to help re-build a sport. Nicks ended up at the Paramount rink, where he worked with Frank Zamboni, the man who invented the Zamboni.

In 1982, Nicks moved from Paramount to the Ice Chalet, where he stayed.

Nicks has coached more than 50 U.S. medal winners. He coached Olympic pairs teams--Randy Gardner and Tai Babalonia and Jenni Meno and Todd Sand. He coached Tiffany Chin, a U.S. champion and two-time world bronze medal winner. What Nicks has never coached is an Olympic medal winner. It isn’t that Nicks in on a quest. He would not have been unhappy with his career had he retired with Meno and Sand after they competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics.

“But these two girls wouldn’t let me,” Nicks says.

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Four days before the start of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Cleveland, Nicks is at the Ice Chalet, choreographing a dress rehearsal. His junior and novice pairs and his senior lady skaters will be performing their signature long programs, the routines that will count for nearly two-thirds of their final scores. Nicks has brought in five credentialed judges who will critique the programs. Refreshments are on hand. The skaters arrive in full costume and all look to Nicks.

“OK,” Nicks says, “let’s get going.” And off they go.

The pace is frantic, the standards are perfection. His wife Yvonne, Nicks says, wishes he would slow down a little. Not head to the gym four or five times a week to lift weights, run on the treadmill. Nicks doesn’t say it with words but with a sly smile. He likes looking around the gym and seeing men and women much younger than he who can’t keep up with his pace.

At the ice skating rink off Harbor Boulevard, around the corner from a movie theater and not at all easy to find, Nicks is enthusiastically coaching two teeny, tiny teen-aged girls. Nam is 4-feet, 11 1/2-inches tall. Cohen is 4-feet, 10-inches tall. Nicks isn’t much bigger than either.

Nam falls on her triple salchow jump, one of the easier triple jumps and one that Nam will land easily 19 out of 20 times. Cohen has no one big mistake, but a handful of sloppy stumbles.

Afterward, each girl enters Nicks’ office and faces the stern judges and Nicks. First question from Nicks? “Yes, or no,” Nicks says. “Would you take this performance right now at nationals or would you guarantee you’d go out, one time, and do better?”

Nam immediately says, no, she would not take this performance. Nicks nods his approval. Cohen is silent for a moment. Then she asks Nicks what he means. Then she says, no, she would not take her dress rehearsal performance and Nicks looks at her. “So you could guarantee you’d do better with one more try?”

“I can’t guarantee,” Cohen says.

“Yes or no, better or worse,” Nicks says.

“I don’t know,” Cohen says. Nicks rolls his eyes and Cohen giggles.

In this era, when women’s figure skating brings huge television ratings, has the potential to bring skaters seven-figure salaries and make people like Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski famous around the world, it seems nearly impossible that one coach would have the time, energy and personality to handle two potential Olympians.

Yet, this 70-year-old man knows just when to put an arm around Nam’s shoulders or whisper just the right word to Cohen. He understands that Nam is more outgoing, feistier, noisier, happier. He sees that Cohen is more introspective, softer, more prone to hold feelings inside.

“Mr. Nicks brings just the right touch to Sasha,” says Galina Cohen, Sasha’s mom.

“Mr. Nicks knows how to talk to Naomi,” Connie Nam, Naomi’s mom, says.

Nicks has made it clear to both skaters that he will not allow them to have agents. If they do, then he will not coach them. Both Naomi and Sasha say that it is up to “Mister Nicks”--always “Mister”--to decide which skating shows they will do, in which exhibitions they will skate.

He has been criticized for pushing Nam too hard. He has been outspoken against the age rules which restricted Nam from competing in the senior world championships last year, even though her silver medal qualified her for the U.S. team. If Nam or Cohen medals Saturday, they would still be too young to attend the world championships.

There is a small loophole. An age-restricted athlete would compete in the junior world championships. Were she to medal, she would be allowed to compete at senior worlds two weeks later. This is Nicks’ intention, should Nam or Cohen do well in Cleveland.

“Do people think I push too hard?” he says. “I think they are wrong. If these girls are good enough, age shouldn’t matter.”

Age shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The 70-year-old coach heads back to the ice. His 14-year-old and 15-year-old proteges are waiting for his wisdom.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com