The Worth of a Coach

    As in every relationship, it depends on both parties involved. Part of it depends on the skills of the coach but another part of it depends on the talent of the skater. If a skater doesn’t have the talent, then he or she can’t make it even under the best coaches. In addition, there are outside factors involved that might affect the relationship such as distance, communication and lifestyle issues. So we often see relationships between talented skaters and great coaches not working so well. Therefore, the perfect situation is when these conditions can be controlled and thus the relationship is allowed to blossom.

Another thing that bothers me about Orser in his recent interviews is that he tends to take all the credits as a coach for Yuna’s improvement. I think, and Yuna has repeatedly acknowledged before the split, that David Wilson is the one who influenced Yuna the most, tapping into her artistic side, and making skating a fun experience to her.

Before we get to coaching as such, I think it really needs to be pointed out just how way off base some of Brian Orser’s detractors are these days. One can disagree with how he has handled being fired but some now go so far as to claim that he wasn’t even a good coach. Of course, absolutely none of these people were saying that these last four years as Yu-na was climbing to dominance, so their remarks on that subject now can be dismissed without further ado. It’s funny because these detractors are reacting with so much anger that you’d think Orser had done something to them and not said some fairly innocuous comments about Yu-na and her mother, but they’ve come to identify with the skater to such an extent that they take personally anything said about her, which is pretty sad.

Coaching is a hard thing to sum up very easily. It’s very different for team and individual sports and it’s always difficult to precisely assess who is responsible for what measure of success and failure. (It’s interesting that you mentioned Torre and the Yankees. It’s pretty much agreed that out of all the team sports, baseball managers have the least amount of impact on wins and losses. Before joining the Yanks, Torre had managed at several stops around the major leagues with mostly mediocre results. After one greatly successful Yankee season, Torre was once asked what his role was and he rather famously replied that he mostly just stayed out of the way.) But in other sports it is different. Winning seems to just follow some coaches around, like with Nick Saban at Alabama. Then the question becomes is whether he’s a great coach or a great recruiter. Figure skating is like tennis and boxing, sports where you’re coaching not a team but an individual. It seems to me that that becomes more of a matter of psychology and personality to a greater extent than team sports. Muhammad Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, was famous not only for understanding technique but for keeping his boxers happy and focused. The element of time comes into it as well. A coach and athlete or team that work together for awhile sometimes lose that magic over a longer haul. There are few hard and set rules for successin athletic coaching.

As for Yu-na and Orser, I don’t know who is responsible for what part of her success but all I know is that it worked spectacularly for four years and during that time no one complained. My feeling is that it was a case of a brilliant athlete coming into her own under just the right guidance. As I said earlier, their break-up may have been a mess, but their work together was second to none.

 “she was already on the skating radar when she went to work with Orser”"

I wouldn’t call a gold medalist of the Junior Worlds “on the radar”… She was technical superb. She would do a triple-triple jump on her Junior Gala for christ’s sake !! Even Seniors don’t do that at Galas (Yuna doesn’t do that anymore either).

I think most of the people give credit to Yuna (watch the YouTube from British Euro, German, and Russian NTV). Though a brilliant skater, Orser was pretty much a “nobody” in 2006 in the coaching world. I think this says a lot about the foresight of Yuna’s mom more than Orser’s capability. As a coach, Orser was “adequate”, and he was a great choice because the Olympics were done in Canada. I think only Canadians give Orser more credit than he deserves.

To me, the debating point would be how much credit does Orser get among ALL THE TEACHERS Yuna had. I say 25%, certainly debatable here… Her first teacher, Jong-hyeon Ryu, discovered her when she was 7 yrs old. Wihtout his insistence, Yuna’s mom would probably not start this whole thing. Mr. Kim Se-yol guided Yuna to Junior World GOLD. But Kim was humble enough to know it was all Yuna, not his brilliance…Then, last but not least, Yuna’s mom can claim a big share of credit.

I’m a bit late to comment on this situation because I’ve been away from the internet. Yes, that’s possible. To sum up my feelings about the Kim/Orser split. I think that Yuna needs more than a new coach, she needs a new personal manager. She has relied on her mother and she has succeeded because of her mother’s diligence, but I suspect that the time has come when her mother may not always be capable of making the right decisions on her daughter’s behalf. I think that Yuna has benefited a great deal from the Orser/Wilson method because these two gay men have had no desire to mold her into their own idea of a woman. They have trained her well and allowed her to express herself and she has blossomed as a result. Her mother, on the other hand, has always had definite ideas of who and what she wants her daughter to be, like any mother does, it’s natural. Her mother deserves nothing but praise for her efforts on Yuna’s behalf. A time comes though when the daughter needs to take control of her own life although It may be a bit much to ask while she still competes and because the apron strings are supposed to be cut by the parent not the other way around. I believe Yuna will truly become the Queen when she removes her Mom, gently, from the throne seat. I hope that’s not too late to stir a comment or two.