News Coach Alex McGowan dies

[Diana Delafield]

Just read a couple of announcements that Alex McGowan, most famously the coach of Debi Thomas in the 1980s, has died. Also famous for his outspoken criticism of judging, favouritism, etc etc. Long story, but my partner and I landed in his sights once, briefly, during a practice session, and he taught us more in the few minutes that he called us over to the boards to tell us something we were doing wrong than we'd learned in whole lessons before! He said he just couldn't stand to see us making the same mistake over and over, and had to butt in .

 

[labgoat]

Also famous for his outspoken criticism of judging, favouritism, etc etc.

You made me remember him holding his nose dramatically in the kiss and cry because he did not like the marks given to Debi Thomas. I never actually met him but saw him with his students when he came to one of my rinks. He expected discipline, delivered critiques with humor and was mostly a gentleman. But salty when displeased. His students took advantage of these qualities and did go on to excel to get his praise. RIP Mr McGowan.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

RIP

 

[UmeYoSake]

RIP

I enjoyed this podcast episode of Debi Thomas, especially where she talks about how she decided to have Alex McGowan as her coach.

Episode #30: Debi Thomas - figure skating interviews : The Manleywoman SkateCast

An interview with Debi Thomas, World Champion, National Champion and 1988 Olympic Bronze Medalist.

www.manleywoman.com

It starts at 24 mins in,

from the transcript:​

On how she ended up working with coach Alex McGowan: First of all, you have to understand my mom. My mom went to see a skating competition when I was out of town visiting relatives, before I started competing, and when I came back she knew how skating was scored and all of this stuff. So she said, I went to see a skating competition, want to go see one? So I said sure. And I saw all these little kids on the ice, doing their thing and running around with medals, and I said, I could have done that, sign me up, I want to do that. My first coach was a lady by the name of Beth Callan, she coached me in preliminary. So the next year — this is classic Debi Thomas, I make decisions based on the weirdest stuff. So there was this figure called threes to center, in the first figure test, and it was a nightmare for me, I hated it. So I decided I’m not going to compete in pre-juvenile because I don’t like threes to center. I’m going to move up to juvenile because I like the figures better. Even though I pretty much stunk at figures at that time in my life [laughs]. So I skated juvenile in the same competition that I won in preliminary, and I think I finished something like 11th in figures, and I was crying because I thought I was a star. So my mom figured out that the two coaches in the area that had the most skaters performing well were Christy Kjarsgaard and Alex McGowan, so we talked to both of them. And Christy was like, I’m going to put her back in pre-juvenile. And I was like, I want him [laughs]. I don’t think he even knows that story.​