Frank Carroll, figure skating coach of Michelle Kwan and others, dies at the age of 85

The legendary figure skater and coach Frank Carroll has died. He was 85 years old.

The U.S. Figure Skating Association confirmed Carroll’s death to PEOPLE and in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, June 9.

“US Figure Skating mourns the loss of coaching legend Frank Carroll,” the statement began. “A member of the World and US Figure Skating Halls of Fame, Frank was instrumental in the careers of numerous Olympic and World Champions, as well as many future Hall of Famers.”

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1938, Carroll was first introduced to figure skating by his father. He won three medals at the national level before becoming a coach in the sport in the 1960s, according to NBC Sports.

During his career, he coached three world champions in women’s and men’s singles: Linda Fratianne, Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek.

All of these figure skaters later won Olympic medals. 39-year-old Lysacek was his only student to take home a gold medal.

“This is just the icing on the cake for me,” Carroll said after Lysacek became Olympic champion at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. NBC Sports. “It’s not something I’ve been craving for for a while. I thought maybe it would never happen.”

Fratianne won the silver medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, in a competition that Carroll went on record saying was rigged in favor of an East German competitor. NBC Sports.

Carroll’s most famous student, Kwan, won her Olympic silver medal under his tutelage at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. During their time together in the 1990s, Kwan also won four senior world titles and five of her nine national titles in the sport.

Carroll coached other well-known Olympians, including Gracie Gold, Denis Ten and Timothy Goebel. Gold and Ten (who died in 2018 at age 25) won bronze medals in their respective divisions at the 2014 Games; Goebel won his bronze medal in 2002.

Before retiring from the sport in 2018, Carroll had a student who had competed in the last six consecutive Olympic Games, most recently in PyeongChang.

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“I am grateful to God for giving me this talent because there are many talented coaches in the world and some are more talented than me,” Carroll said in 2010, according to a report by NBC Sport. “But I always seem to have found the means to do it, the talent just comes to me.”

Before his death, Carroll was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating, World Figure Skating, Professional Skaters Association and International Skating Institute Halls of Fame.