The Two Brians and Debi
LANDING IT
by Scott Hamilton

The Olympics also brought new talent to the "Stars" tour. After the Calgary games, we signed Brian Orser and the Canadian dance team of Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall. American champion Debi Thomas, an Olympic bronze medallist, also joined the cast.

New faces always meant new energy, and that was what this group delivered. Dorothy Hamill never did another full tour, but guest starred with us. She was pregnant and she showed a lot of grit trying to skate when she was feeling ill. There were times she came running off the ice after a performance looking for the nearest bathroom. She was also getting sick prior to skating her number. The following year, in 1989, she did a few more guest appearances and brought along her new baby, Alexandra.

In 1989, I finally got my producer's title, and one of the more unpleasant aspects to the job was mediating the occasional disputes. I didn't covet this role; I sort of inherited it, since I was the veteran of the group. Most of the problems were minor, until Debi Thomas's second season with the company. Debi had a good first year with the tour. But her loyalties were divided between college and skating, and the wear and tear of trying to balance both started to show.

She had a successful amateur career, winning two national championships, a world title and an Olympic bronze medal. In Calgary, she was in first after the short program, and her nemesis, Katarina Witt, didn't skate her best in the long, leaving room for Debi to mount one last charge. But Debi missed several jumps and was unable to capitalize.

At that time, Katarina was putting 100 percent of her energy into skating. Debi was trying to juggle attending Stanford University full time and training for the Olympics, not to mention the added responsibility that came with being recognized as the first ladies' world champion in history who was African-American.

On tour, Debi was extremely unhappy. I always felt that the pressure of being the first African-American to win a national and world title was too much of a burden for her to shoulder. The expectations placed on her may have been unreasonable. She was a unique symbol of hope, a role model, and seemed to have the world at her fingertips. Yet deep down, I think all she wanted to do was skate, go to school and live her life in privacy. I don't think she was cut out for the public eye, or at least for what some people had in mind for her.

Defending a national title is stressful enough without the added strain of being a paragon of your race. Debi was a terrific athlete with a wonderful sense of humor, but I sensed a sadness inside. And it all came to a head during her second year on tour.

Since Debi was trying to hold down a full academic load at Stanford, she skated with us only on weekends. So the skaters had to learn all the group numbers with Debi skating and without her skating, doubling our workload. Making matters worse, Debi's heart wasn't in it. Her dream was to become a doctor, and skating became a means to pay the tuition bills. It was essentially a hobby to her, yet for the rest of us the tour was our life.

Debi became alienated from the cast and tempers flared. Brian Orser in particular went at it with her. During one tour stop in Canada, Debi said she didn't feel like rehearsing. These were the early days of the "Stars on Ice" Canadian tour, and Brian was doing everything he could to make it a success. When he found out Debi refused to practice, he stormed off the ice and confronted her in the ladies' dressing room. They had it out and the shouting could be heard back out on the ice. In very blunt language, Brian told her to put on her skates and get on the ice. This was a crucial period in the tour's existence and the dissension was killing us. What was more, when she wasn't around, there was a noticeable increase in morale among the skaters, and this didn't go unnoticed.

The tension that hung in the air wouldn't dissipate. When we met in Aspen for rehearsals for the fourth tour, the cast staged a rebellion. Debi arrived in town with a group of friends, stayed in a separate hotel and ignored the rest of us. When rehearsals began, she was showing up fortyfive minutes late and holding up the production. Everyone ran out of patience with her indifferent attitude. I was now a producer in addition to being a performer, so I was nominated to have a talk with Debi.

Now, I liked Debi and kind of felt sorry for her. She was unhappy, and no one deserved to be that unhappy. I just wanted people to be happy, especially on the tour. It killed me when someone wasn't having a good time.

I also hated confrontations. Rather than deal with unpleasantness, it was easier for me to run in the opposite direction. Not this time. Everybody was urging me to do something.

I met with Debi at rinkside to find out what was going on. The other skaters were a short distance away rehearsing, but I could tell all eyes were on us. "Look," I explained, "this can't go on anymore. This is our livelihood and we depend on you to work and show up on time. You have as much responsibility to us as you do to yourself. People will be coming to watch you skate and they deserve your best."

Debi was silent for a moment; then she seemed to make a decision. "I hate it," she confessed. "I just hate it."

But you committed to this," I said firmly. "You have to try to find some way to love it. Fool yourself. Do whatever it takes. You're in the last year of your skating career, so find a way to apply yourself for one more season.

I suggested she take the rest of the day off. Go out, have a cup of coffee, ten drinks, a good cry, whatever she needed to do to clear her mind. Suddenly Debi burst into tears. And all these feelings started pouring out about the pressure she was under from family, friends, the cast and worrying about her future. It seemed like she never had an opportunity to vent. Most of her friends were outsiders who had no interest in her skating career. My heart was breaking watching her bawl. More than anything else, I wanted Debi to be happy. The rest of the cast would survive. So I said, "Look, as much as we're upset with you now, we all want what's best for you. We want to work with you and we need your help. So if you can find a way to do this, stay on with us. If you can't, for your own sake you should leave."

There, I had said it. Debi composed herself and said she needed some time to think. After she went back to the dressing room, I turned around and joined everyone on the ice. A couple of the cast members skated up to me and said, "So, did you give her the business?"

"Nah, I just talked to her," I told them. I didn't give her a hard time."

"You didn't let her have it?"

Some of the skaters were a little upset that I hadn't read Debi the riot act. We were all feeling unusually stressed and tired from training in altitude and learning a million new steps. I didn't feel like playing the bad cop. But you know what? Debi turned herself around. Later that same day, she returned to the rink and told me she was ready to work. And from that point on, she was the center of the universe on that tour. Debi transformed into a different person, laughing and telling jokes. She started going out with us after shows and the old humor was back. Because she was torn between a career in medicine and show skating, she never had the luxury of savoring her time on the ice like the rest of us.

And boy, did she ever perform. One night in Toledo she injured her ankle and she had to be carried from the ice. Later it ballooned into a black-and-blue lump. I assumed she would be down for at least a week. But she taped it up and two nights later was doing triple toe loops. Her skating was awesome and she was excited about being on the ice again.

We were all seeing a side of her we had never seen before, and it was truly inspiring. That season she was our morale officer-the complete opposite of what she had been before. And when the tour was over and we said our good-byes, there wasn't a dry eye among us. Debi wouldn't return the following year, but I knew that because her last season was successful, she would savor that part of her skating career. That was something she could keep with her for the rest of her life.