at the 2017 Tammy with Karen Chen ionships mp Cha ting Ska re U.S. Figu
PHO TOS BY VICK I LUY
Tammy with ska Zhou at their Rivers ter Vincent ide, CA, rink
ou know that feeling you get when you use your own skills to help someone achieve a goal? Tammy Gambill knows the feeling, and turned it into a career. As a pre-teen, Gambill, the 2017 Professional Skaters Association and U.S. Figure Skating Coach of the Year, was asked by a friend how to complete a jump spin, something Gambill was capable of. Gambill told her. “I think I knew since I was 12 years old that I wanted to be a coach,” Gambill said. “I was helping a friend of mine, we were out training and she was struggling with something, and I helped her with it. She could do it, she landed it, and I was so excited. “I started helping some other kids and had that feeling that someday I am going to be a coach, I am going to teach other kids how to skate,” she said. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? After skating competitively and achieving an appearance at the U.S.
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Championships, Gambill made it official, turning to coaching as a profession at the age of 19 and working at Icetown in Riverside, Calif., where she is one of the rink’s most valued coaches—even more now that she is the PSA/U.S. Figure Skating Coach of the Year. “I was very excited and very honored to find out I was selected,” Gambill said. “It is something I have been wanting to achieve.” Gambill, who has served on several U.S. Figure Skating committees as well as the Board of Governors for the PSA was rewarded with the Coach of the Year honor for her work with 2017 U.S. champion Karen Chen, and 2017 World Junior champion and 2017 U.S. silver medalist Vincent Zhou. From the start, Gambill approached her chosen path with a determination to be the best coach she could be. Every chance she had to be in the company of great coaches, like former Coaches of the Year Frank Carroll or John Nicks, she watched them interact with their skaters to see if their approach was
something she could apply. “I needed to know what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do,” Gambill said. “I needed to know how I wanted to act. My own coach, Barbara Rolles, I wanted to be just like her growing up. I had some great role models along the way, and I was very lucky to have them to work with, to watch, and to admire.” Gambill, who has won the PSA/U.S. Figure Skating Developmental Coach of the Year award three times, found an outlet for her search for coaching excellence in the PSA seminars and training in conferences. In much the same way she embraced coaching from an early experience, her encounters with the PSA caused her to become more involved with the organization to help it promote the idea of accredited coaches with valuable coaching skills. “I started going to PSA events quite early in my coaching career,” Gambill said. “I was doing every seminar I could and writing down everything. Even today, coming back from PSA conferences or seminars, I learn