McLeod hangs over Sandhu
Strong relationship keeps coach and athlete together
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
He's a coach's worst nightmare. Or challenge. And yet he's only had one coach.
Figure skating is a twisted sport in many ways in that it is the athlete who hires and fires the coach. Despite that reality, any other coach would have walked away from Emanuel Sandhu years ago. But Joanne McLeod stays, riding a roller coaster few coaches have ever had to ride.
It makes no sense. Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko turfed coaches who took them from little gaffers to multiple world titles. Jamie Sale and David Pelletier switched. Half the top skaters at Canadians have fired their coaches and moved on to new ones in the last year. Yet the most flighty, mercurial, seemingly unstable skater of them all still skates under one - Joanne McLeod.
In many ways McLeod, a former Edmonton Royal Glenora skater who began her coaching career here, may be a better story than Sandhu. And she may hold the key to the future of Canadian skating, because when it comes to upside there's not another skater on the property who has an upside like Sandhu. On the other hand, his downside is subterranean.
ONE FOOT IN THE COFFIN
"There was a period of time after the Salt Lake Olympics when I told him there had to be a new coach and new location. Words were exchanged. Deep conversation was exchanged. I told him we were in a coffin and about to be buried into the ground," McLeod explained yesterday.
"But he said absolutely not. From that moment on, despite the odd rocky performance, our relationship has been completely smooth, very positive and very rewarding.
"The happy ending for me is right now. I know our relationship will be lifelong.
"I should say a happy ending would be the world title. On his good day he's a world champion, no problem. Who knows if we'll get to that day. He has to want it. It can't be me wanting it more than him. I don't know if we'll get to that day, but I'm happy we got to this day."
Sandhu speaks with emotion about McLeod.
"She's been my biggest support system. I've been with her longer than with my parents. They're separated now. My family life was not so easy. My parents were always fighting. There was so much turmoil. There was never a moment of peace at home. The skating rink is where I found my peace. When I came to the rink she was able to make me laugh. Ever since, she has been there for me emotionally."
Battling with his own identity problems as a person, much less in terms of sexuality and skating, Sandhu has been a study.
Like the little girl with the curl, he's either very, very bad (like he was in the qualifying competition on Tuesday) or very, very good (like he was a couple of weeks ago when he was invited to replace an injured skater and ended up winning the Grand Prix Final.)
But to understand the relationship, you have to go back to the beginning. It was McLeod who found him. After she found herself.
"I was a senior skater at the Royal Glenora. My father was a petroleum engineer and we lived all over the place. I started skating in San Francisco. But then we moved to Venezuela. It broke my heart that I couldn't skate. But then we moved to Edmonton. I started skating again. I skated at the Royal Glenora most of my teenage years."
Then one day she fractured an ankle.
"I had such a passion for skating, I came to the rink in a cast and started to help the junior skaters. A board member saw a kid with a talent for coaching and gave me a job working with the kids."
That was before the Glenora decide to hire Jan Ullmark and Michael Jiranek.
"One day a little kid by the name of Kurt Browning came to the club. My dream was to be a high-performance coach and I could see Kurt was going to be a world champion. I could see it seven years before it happened. I'll give myself credit for that. I'm a good scout. With Jan and Michael there, I could see there wouldn't be room for me beyond coaching the young kids."
BEGAN WITH LEIGH
McLeod wanted to be a high-performance coach and began to look for an edge. She won a degree to teach dance at Grant MacEwan and then won a $35,000 federal government scholarship for coaches and went to work, without pay, for Doug Leigh at his club while attending York University.
"He assigned me a little kid by the name of Elvis Stojko. I could project him 10 years down the road," recalled McLeod.
Finally, she ended up hanging her shingle in Richmond Hill, Ont.
"I started off unique. Until children could point toes, straighten their leg and arch their back, I wouldn't let them on the ice.'
"One day I went to a CanSkate program and saw this little kid with dark skin and blue skates on who could hardly stand up, but when he tried a two-foot spin he did it like you see in ballet. He was seven years old. I was blown away with that."
Then it got personal.
"I remember one day when he was maybe nine years old and he didn't have a ride and it was obvious his ride was never coming. I remember when I was a skater and I wanted a coach who was there for me as a person and as an athlete and I didn't have that ..."
Everything keeps going back to that day.
