Several coaches said they were amazed that Kwan had endured such tumultuous change with such steadiness. Laws speculated that she was so self-motivated that she didn't need a coach. Said Laws, with a laugh: "She has one just to make herself feel better."
Her decisions -- and ability to weather the changes -- created an atmosphere ripe for the rash of moves, several coaches said, yet those moves should have come with a warning for other, less experienced skaters: Don't try this at home.
Many believe Michelle Kwan began the trend of frequent coaching changes when she left Frank Carroll, right.
(Amy Sancetta -- AP)
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_____U.S. Figure Skating Championships_____
When: Through Saturday.
Where: Portland, Ore.
Schedule: Today -- Original dance, pairs short programs. Tomorrow -- Men's and women's short programs. Friday -- Dance, pairs long programs. Saturday -- Men's and women's long program.
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_____ 2004 Summer Olympics _____
• Look back at the Athens Games, highlighted by Michael Phelps's eight medals and marked by unfounded worries over terrorism.
• Photos
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"With all due respect to Michelle Kwan, she probably started it, and she started it with some success," Nicks said. "Before the moves she made, frequent coaching changes by high level skaters weren't very common.
"A new mind-set came in and this possibility was opened up to people where it wasn't before. Nobody even really thought of it."
Kwan's moves did seem to have a domino effect. She left Carroll in October of 2001. About a month later, Nikodinov joined him. In March of 2002, Kirk joined Richard Callaghan, the former coach of Eldredge and Lipinski. By the fall, Weiss had left Weisiger for Laws and Cohen had left Nicks for Tarasova. Goebel left Carroll this past November. Cohen split with Wagner in December.
As things crumbled with Wagner, Cohen told Nicks she missed friends and family while training on the East coast. She said she had been frustrated by her inconsistency and injury problems -- which forced her to pull out of several events this past fall -- and had lost her competitive confidence.
Though Wagner said she understood Cohen's desire to go home, she expressed disappointment that Cohen did not fulfill what she believed had been a commitment to hard-core training. Rather than traveling to New York to skate daily with Wagner, Cohen did some of her training alone in Connecticut.
"This past summer, I felt training was really inconsistent and, therefore, so were the events," Wagner said in a recent phone interview. "The training just never got moving along. I hope she finds her way to meet all of these challenges."
Cohen said she believed Nicks was the man to help her meet them. In a mere three weeks with Nicks, she said, she had improved by "leaps and bounds" -- something she said she had failed to do by any measure under Wagner.
"She was very forthright and very honest in saying things had not been going well," Nicks said. "She just wanted things to get better, and would I help her?"
Special correspondent Amy Rosewater contributed to this report.
