Frank Carroll interview | Golden Skate

Frank Carroll interview

aftertherain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
Yeees! No matter how much some of you may hate the blogger Aunt Joyce, Dave's (with co-host Jenny Kirk) interviews are definitely worth listening to. I'm uber excited about this one!
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Yeees! No matter how much some of you may hate the blogger Aunt Joyce, Dave's (with co-host Jenny Kirk) interviews are definitely worth listening to. I'm uber excited about this one!

Really? I didn't know he was "Aunt Joyce" - of course I only first listened to The Skating Lesson for their Worlds' commentary - but I'm surprised to hear that. I've stopped reading Aunt Joyce a long time ago. Here he comes off as much nicer - and I don't mean just less snarky - but kinder and warmer... Well, you never know.:)
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
PS. And don't forget to click on "Fields of Gold" in the upper right after you listen to the interview. :)
 

TontoK

Hot Tonto
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Country
United-States
This was fascinating. I'm looking forward to the continuation of this interview.
 

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
That was a wonderful interview. Frank was not holding back. Can't wait for part 2.

I have not watched Michelle's 2002 FOG in a long time, and after all these years for me it still ranks
as one of the best performances ever.
 

aftertherain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
I like his sense of diplomacy as he's discussing Denis Ten vs. Patrick Chan; it's pretty obvious that he'd been thinking with a clear head about how Patrick was marked in PCS as well as Denis.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Yeees! No matter how much some of you may hate the blogger Aunt Joyce, Dave's (with co-host Jenny Kirk) interviews are definitely worth listening to. I'm uber excited about this one!

I think it's cool that Dave can wear more than one hat. It is a blogger's job to be controversial and occasionally outrageous :), but TSL is serious Internet journalism. I like the opening visual when the girl's and boy's skates kick up little ice chip that swirl around. :yes: I thought the interviewers were very well prepared (plus, it doesn't hurt that Jennifer is still the prettiest girl in skating. :) )

Mr. Carroll was diplomatic but "frank" about the recent worlds.

The program components are supposed to reflect how you skate through the program. Did Patrick skate through his program better than Denis skated through his program, [and by a full point]?... [Unlike Denis' errors of omission,] Patrick's mistakes really were interruptions and interfere with how you are running through the program.
 
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prettykeys

Medalist
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
I hope no one hates Aunt Joyce (Dave). It's clear that he is passionate about figure skating and he makes a lot of good comments about it.

I wasn't crazy about Jenny Kirk's previous text-only blog, but this YouTube account/series with Dave is a great combination.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I wasn't crazy about Jenny Kirk's previous text-only blog, but this YouTube account/series with Dave is a great combination.

Kirk's blog had some intensely personal moments. I almost felt like I was invading her privacy by looking over her shoulder while she was pouring out her soul and exorcizing her demons. Some of her columns about eating disorders and the perfect princess syndrome were fascinating reading.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I just loved how forthcoming and how detailed he was. He managed to be honest without being snide or vengeful, and I love the way he characterized the skaters he discussed in detail, notably Bowman, Fratianne, Chin, and Kwan. Of course being a Kwan uber, I love what he said about her being one of a kind. It's great hearing it from Frank, who in addition to being her most influential coach is one of the finest coaches in the world. It was wonderfully satisfying to hear him mention the details of what made her such a great skater (I loved his contempt for "bean counters"). I also appreciated his heartfelt evaluation of Christopher Bowman as a skater and as a person. It must have been agonizing for him to know so much about Chris's demons at that time, when he had to keep quiet about it all. His mention of Mrs. Bowman coming to him saying that she couldn't find Chris was heartrending.

Linda isn't a skater people talk about so much these days; she didn't have Dorothy's charm or Janet Lynn's magic. So it's lovely to hear Frank praise her determination and talent. That story about the infection and the fever gave me the chills. What drive!

Interesting also to hear his comparison of American and Russian teaching philosophies. And of course the evaluation of Dennis Ten and Patrick Chan was very enlightening. Hearing Carroll's analysis really brings home how much strategic and tactical know-how a coach has to have, and how intellectually demanding it is to be a top level coach, especially these days. Imagine how adaptable both coaches and choreographers have had to be in order to shift gears from 6.0 skating to CoP skating. Carroll has obviously mastered it, as has Nicks, and they're no spring chickens. Hats off to them both.

The two interviewers did a great job asking questions and keeping the interview (quite a long one--not easy to achieve) on track, though I still find Jennifer's voice not quite what it needs to be. I'm happy she's doing what she's doing, because she's good at it, but I hope she will eventually place her voice a bit more in her throat. Obviously some of the problem is that the technology for this web presentation is still rather crude, and that's a problem that's out of her hands. But there's more she can do on her end, I think.
 

Figga

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 24, 2010
Very interesting interview. The hour passed by quicker than expected and i look foward to part 2. Got some insight on aspects of skating and some skaters of the past that I as a casual view of FS did not know about. Also found it interesting to hear Frank intimating about the politciking that used to go on ;)
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
The two interviewers did a great job asking questions and keeping the interview (quite a long one--not easy to achieve) on track, though I still find Jennifer's voice not quite what it needs to be.

She has come a long way from back when she was skating, though. I am sure she has taken voice training and it has paid off.

Frank's take on Linda Fratianne and Annet Poetsch was very enlightening. I know that Sonia Bianchetti has staunchly defended the judging of that event. So what I got out of Carroll's remarks was that it wasn't deal making and collusion so much as a "good old boy's" fraternity among German/European judges, officials and coaches that made it difficult for Linda to get a fair shake.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I remember reading something similar once, during Katarina Witt's reign. Not to take away from Witt's achievements, but one editor pointed out that even with the Cold War, people from German-speaking countries tended to feel an affinity for one another, so that a West German judge might prefer an East German skater over, say, an American one. It wasn't collusion so much as a preference for the style of that skater, as today European judges tend to prefer the way Kostner executes a movement. Human beings aren't machines; their perceptions are colored by their upbringing, what they grew up enjoying, and their cultural mindset.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I just watched it again. :) Let’s see here…just to pick some of Mr. Carroll’s comments at random… Here is his response to the question of whether he was a better teacher of toe jumps than of edge jumps, with particular reference to Michelle Kwan’s loop jump.

If you go back to some of her You Tube things now, to me it’s amazing to watch Michelle. It’s amazing. I can’t tell you what pleasure I’ve gotten just in the last couple of weeks looking back at her videos, and when you see Salome and she starts out with a triple loop it’s just the most beautiful triple jump -- she starts backward totally and jumps in the air and lands backward like a million dollars, so I don’t see much difference between my toe jump technique and my edge jump technique.

But I’ve got to tell you something about Michelle. If you go back and look at 1996 or if you look at the year 2001 and you see her triple-triple, and you look at the year 2000, then you see some of her show programs like to Les Miserables, the On My Own, and even Pocahontas, which I didn’t want her to do because I though t it was such a hokey thing, and you look at her interpretation of the music, and her head, and her use of arms without looking at her feet, the emotion, the beauty of the flow across the ice, the dynamic landings, there’s no one in the world who skates like that.

I’m sorry, I don’t care whether you’re adding up beans in a pot for difficulty…I mean, no one exists like Michelle, with that beauty of movement, that power, that imterpretation, you know, the technical accuracy. You know, she was one of a kind and I don’t see anyone coming up that looks like that. I’m sorry, I just don’t. I don’t.
 

formersk8ter

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 3, 2009
I loved the whole interview and can't wait for Part 2.

While it was great to hear Frank's stories about so many of our past favorite skaters, what fascinated me the most was what he had to say about the scoring of Ten-Chan at Worlds. Frank knows IJS as well or better than anyone. And it's gratifying to know that he dislikes it as much as I do. :clap:
 
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