'I've been so lucky'
Chicago’s Phil Hersh: Three decades of figure skating journalism
by AMY ROSEWATER Always in the middle of the media throng, Phil Hersh interviews Gracie Gold at the 2016 World Championships. T e headline on his fi nal Chicago Tribune
column seemed to say it all: “Five continents, 15 Olympics, 31 years and 6,200 stories later, it’s time to say goodbye.” For many longtime skating fans, the news
that Philip Hersh, a staple at the Tribune since 1984, was retiring from the newspaper in 2015 was bittersweet. “Phil,” as he is known in skat- ing circles, has been among the few deans of the sport’s press boxes around the globe. Love him, or hate him — his opinionated reporting could be glowing or downright critical — many in the skating world hung on his every word. What fans may not know is that Hersh
considers fi gure skating among his favorite sports. “I’ve been so lucky,” Hersh told SKATING
magazine. “I’ve been able to cover Kim Yu-Na, Evan [Lysacek], Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Scott Ham- ilton and now skaters like Jason Brown.” Although he has retired from the grind of
daily newspaper reporting, he is not hanging up his sports writing credentials. Hersh continues
40 NOVEMBER 2016
to cover Olympic sports on his website, Glo- betrotting by Philip Hersh, and reports skating competitions for icenetwork and other news outlets. T is summer, he was in Rio de Janeiro working as a journalist. From the beginning, when he covered school
fi gures at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid for the Chicago Sun Times, Hersh became enamored with the sport. He has cov- ered 30 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, 13 World Figure Skating Championships and 10 Olympic Winter Games. Remarkably, however, his fi rst opportunity
to cover a major fi gure skating competition near his home came in 2014, when Hilton HHonors Skate America was competed in the Chicago suburb Hoff man Estates. T e event returned to Hoff man Estates last month, but Hersh was in New Zealand on a long-planned and well-de- served vacation for his 70th birthday. Hersh said he is looking into covering the
2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas City, which would be his 31st. Over the decades, Hersh has seen the very
best and, at times, the most unusual moments in fi gure skating history. From investigating the mysterious with-
drawal of Russian Vladamir Kovalev at the 1980 Lake Placid Games, to the infamous 1994 U.S. Championships attack on Nancy Kerrigan that led to a lifetime ban of Tonya Harding, to the ladies judging controversy at the 2014 So- chi Games, Hersh’s critiques and reporting have been read with great interest. But the sport is of great interest to him, too. Hersh grew to love fi gure skating and its
many larger-than-life personalities. He became close with the late coach Carlo Fassi, whom Hersh said, “had the courtesy, good humor and willingness to teach me the intricacies of the sport.” He got to know Russian coach Tamara
Moskvina well enough that when he traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, she gave him a guided tour of the city. Hersh said he will never forget her driving across the city at “race-car speeds,” or dining in her home. Over the years, Hersh has witnessed many
JAY ADEFF/U.S. FIGURE SKATING
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