When AIDS Is Confronted : Figure skating: Deaths and illnesses of former stars bring community together.

By RANDY HARVEY

Nov. 21, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In the year since Magic Johnson revealed that he is HIV positive, there has been considerable discussion about how various sports should cope with AIDS. But one sport that has not been afforded the luxury of reflection, one that already is dealing with the tragic consequences of the deadly disease, is figure skating.

According to the October edition of Skating magazine, the 1972 Olympic men’s gold-medalist, Czechoslovakia’s Ondrej Nepela, died of complications from AIDS. His successor as Olympic champion in 1976, Britain’s John Curry, recently told a London newspaper that he was ill and that his condition had been diagnosed as full-blown AIDS last summer. The disease also claimed the life of a former world junior champion, Canada’s Dennis Coi, in 1987.

“Everyone I know in the sport knows someone who has been touched by this disease,” said Tracy Wilson, a former Canadian ice dancing champion and now a CBS commentator.

“We’ve lost a lot of people--skaters, choreographers, teachers and future teachers--and who knows how many others have the disease and aren’t talking about it? Our sport is going to feel the effects of this for years.”

Last November, less than four years after they won a bronze medal in the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary, Canada, Wilson’s partner, Rob McCall, died of AIDS complications at 33.

McCall’s dream in the months before his death, Wilson said, was to contribute to a cure, and it was with that in mind that she and Brian Orser, former Canadian men’s champion, organized a benefit scheduled for today at Toronto called “Skating the Dream: a Tribute to Rob McCall.” Proceeds will be donated to Toronto General Hospital for AIDS research.

Performing in two shows at the 5,000-seat Varsity Arena might be the greatest collection of figure skating talent ever gathered.

Among them are skaters who, collectively, have won eight gold medals, four silvers and four bronzes in the Olympics and 26 world championships. They include Kristi Yamaguchi, Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Scott Hamilton, Robin Cousins, Debi Thomas, Rosalyn Sumners, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin, and Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini.

“When Rob first became sick, this idea of a show came to him,” Wilson said. “Skaters would come up to him and say, ‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know,’ and he would tell them about it. So when Brian and I later decided to pursue it, every skater we talked to said, ‘Absolutely, count me in.’ ”

But although the benefit’s inspiration, organization and talent have been provided by figure skaters, Orser said it was not intended to call attention to AIDS in the sport.

“We want to avoid that the focus is on figure skating,” said Orser, Olympic silver medalist in 1984 and ’88. “We want the general public to know that AIDS is not just a problem in our sport, but that it’s a problem everywhere.”

Nevertheless, publicity surrounding the benefit, along with Curry’s recent disclosure, have attracted considerable attention to AIDS’ impact on figure skating, and some among the sport’s administrators acknowledge that it has made them angry, nervous and confused about the role they should play.

Not only do they believe that it is unfair to single out figure skating when the disease has affected so many segments of society, they also fear that--despite increasing awareness that AIDS is indiscriminate--stereotypes regarding male homosexuality in the sport will be reinforced.

Curry, 43, told the London newspaper the Mail on Sunday that it was possible that he contracted the disease through a homosexual relationship. Other skaters with AIDS have not publicly speculated about how they were infected.

“There is a perception about our sport that makes those of us within the sport very defensive,” said David Dore, director general of the Canadian Figure Skating Assn.

Although the CFSA recently has become more active, most figure skating organizations, including the U.S. Figure Skating Assn., have maintained a low profile in the fight against AIDS, concentrating on programs for their athletes that emphasize awareness and education.

Several skaters, including Jo Jo Starbuck, Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert, performed at New York’s Armory three years ago in an AIDS benefit, “Skating for Life.” That show, however, was conceived not by an organization affiliated with figure skating but by the Design Industry’s Foundation for AIDS.

In more than three years since, there have been no other prominent AIDS-related functions associated with figure skating, causing some within the sport to wonder whether enough has been done by officials.

“They have to realize the sport is being affected,” said Cousins, the 1980 Olympic men’s champion from Britain who lives at Lake Arrowhead. “I’d like to think they’re not so closed-minded. It has to be acknowledged and addressed.”

Cousins attempted to organize an AIDS benefit two years ago in Southern California after working as a choreographer for the movie, “The Cutting Edge.” The director, Paul Michael Glaser, and his wife, Elizabeth, have been AIDS activists since she learned 11 years ago that she was HIV positive. One of their children died of AIDS and another is infected with the virus.

“Everyone I talked to thought it was a great idea,” Cousins said. “So I contacted every skating club from San Diego to Santa Barbara, trying to get their kids together to put on a show. I got one response, from the Pasadena Skating Club. It was a little disconcerting.”

Orser said that initial efforts to enlist support from the CFSA for the tribute to McCall were discouraged.

“It happened so quickly with Canadian figure skaters--two or three contracted the disease within four or five months--that the CFSA didn’t know what to do or say,” he said.

The CFSA since has become a sponsor of today’s benefit and also is distributing posters to 1,400 Canadian skating clubs to promote it.

“We had to do some thinking,” Dore said. “There is a very serious problem, and we eventually decided that we couldn’t find ourselves in a defensive position any longer. So we’ve turned it around.”

In the process, Dore said, CFSA officials discussed the likelihood that some detractors would use the issue as an opportunity “to try to denigrate people in our sport” by commenting on their sexual orientation, but decided that should not be a deterrent to the association’s efforts.

Claire W. Ferguson, the USFSA president from Jamestown, R.I., said that she shares Dore’s concerns.

“People try to label our sport, and I think that’s too bad,” she said. “I don’t think the sport is heavily weighted toward homosexuals, or at least not any more than any other sport. I don’t know for sure because we don’t ask our skaters their sexual preferences.

“It’s irrelevant. We’re a rather enlightened group. I don’t think we have hang-ups dealing with people and their different persuasions.”

But she said that officials are sensitive about the stereotype. Sometimes finding that the world outside the rink is not as enlightened, they worry that it will affect the sport’s standing with the public, sponsors and even young athletes who might shy away from figure skating as a result.

“I was giving a speech recently in my hometown, and a man in the audience alluded to figure skating as a women’s sport,” she said. “Then he laughed, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. That’s the kind of thing that makes me very angry.”

At the same time, she said, the USFSA recognizes that it cannot allow that issue to obscure the larger one of dealing with AIDS.

“With all this Magic Johnson business, we are more aware than ever that this disease crosses a path through a lot of different areas,” she said.

Ferguson said that the USFSA has provided AIDS awareness seminars to its athletes for the last year and a half. In reaction to Curry’s announcement, Paul George, the association’s representative to the U.S. Olympic Committee, said that he will recommend the USFSA redouble its educational efforts. Through the Canadian Olympic Assn., Dore said the CFSA has been active in educating its athletes about AIDS for the last six years.

“Education is the key,” Ferguson said. “Most of the people in the sport who have been affected by AIDS were from a generation that came before these programs. I’m hopeful that this initial outbreak will be it.”

Meantime, Cousins said, figure skaters will continue to rally behind the cause. He said the sister of another Canadian skater, Brian Pockar, who died in April because of complications from AIDS, is organizing a benefit in Calgary. Cousins added that he is trying to organize one next spring in London. Unlike his earlier effort in Southern California, he said that he will not be dissuaded this time.

“I’ll be damned if it doesn’t happen,” he said.