Sasha Cohen paid tribute to John Nicks on Instagram this week after the coach died Monday at 97. Her post made the loss immediate: one of the sport’s most durable trainers was remembered not just for medals, but for the steady voice that carried athletes through pressure.
“Remember, dear, we don’t fall, we bounce,” Cohen wrote beside a photo of the two. She added, “That was something Mr. Nicks always told me during training, and it still makes me smile.” In the same caption, she wrote that he coached her through two Olympic Games, three Olympic Trials, and countless other competitions.
Cohen’s Instagram tribute
“Earlier this week, we lost a great legend,” Cohen wrote. “Thank you for your patience, your humor, and for believing in me, including the times I made it hard.” She also said, “You saw something in a little girl from California and spent years teaching her what to do with it.” The post did more than mark a death; it put a name and a voice to the kind of coaching that lives longest in athletes’ memories.
That legacy is measurable. Nicks coached more than 1,200 skaters even in his nineties, and his pipeline reached Peggy Fleming, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tai Babilonia, and Randy Gardner. Cohen’s tribute fits that record: a coach whose reach ran from one athlete’s daily corrections to a broad lineage of Olympic and world-level results.
U.S. Figure Skating reaction
Ashley Wagner added her own tribute, calling Nicks “a champion maker.” She said she would forever be grateful for her time with him, the lessons learned, and the athlete that he transformed her into. Matt Farrell, the chief executive of U.S. Figure Skating, said, “The skating community has lost a tremendous ambassador.”
Nicks’ own career helps explain why the tributes landed so quickly. In 1953, he was awarded the world championship in pairs alongside his sister Jennifer Nick while representing Great Britain, then moved into coaching in Southern California and nurtured skaters at Iceland Arena in Paramount. He was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993 and the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000.
John Nicks’ coaching record
Cohen’s note also captured the complication inside the praise: she thanked him “for believing in me, including the times I made it hard.” That line gives the tribute its edge. Nicks is being remembered as a mentor who stayed patient through elite-level demands, and Cohen’s wording makes clear that the relationship was demanding in both directions.
For readers tracking the impact, the immediate takeaway is simple: this is not only an obituary beat, but a coaching legacy story with public receipts from Cohen, Wagner, and U.S. Figure Skating leadership. The unanswered point is the cause of death, which has not been stated in the available reporting, and the reaction so far has centered on the athletes who say his work shaped their careers.
