Apolo Ohno captures imaginations of young and old

Published 10:29 pm Thursday, February 11, 2010

Helping with homework isn’t my favorite task, but once in a while I’ll learn something worth knowing — and worth sharing.

With the Winter Olympics just up the road, here’s a gem from a book my son read last year for a fourth-grade report:

“My entire skating career started for fun. When I was 7 years old, my father would take me to the roller-skating rink every Thursday after school. … My first quad race was in Lynnwood, Washington, and I got second place.”

The book is “A Journey: The Autobiography of Apolo Anton Ohno,” written by the Olympic short-track speedskating champion along with Nancy Ann Richardson.

Commentators on NBC’s Olympics coverage won’t likely mention that the 27-year-old from Federal Way got his competitive start in Snohomish County. I came across it only because my 11-year-old is wild about Ohno.

The story of the boy lovingly raised by his single father, Yuki Ohno, clicked with my child.

“A Journey” tells of Yuki Ohno, with limited English skills, emigrating from Japan at 18. Apolo’s mother left the family when the child was a year old. Yuki Ohno opened a hair salon and worked long hours. “There were difficult times,” Apolo Ohno wrote in the book published by Simon &Schuster in 2002.

With a cool that transcends sports, Ohno is a fitting hero for our time. In 2007, he became a champion on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.” His likeness decorates an Alaska Airlines jet, and his signature facial hair recently inspired the airline to hand out stick-on soul patches.

John Gustafson, owner of the Auburn Skate Connection, was Ohno’s coach when he started racing — on four-wheeled roller skates called quads. Gustafson was there in the 1980s for Apolo’s first race at the rink that’s now Lynnwood Bowl &Skate on 200th Street SW.

“He used to do relays with my daughter,” Gustafson said Thursday.

After three years on quads in the 1980s, Gustafson said Ohno switched to inline skates and joined a club at Pattison’s West Skating Center in Federal Way. Ohno later moved on to ice. Gustafson, 65, said he’s still in touch with Ohno and his father.

“I never did meet his mom. Yuki was the mom and dad,” Gustafson said. “Even when Apolo skated for me, at 9 or 10 years old, his dad would say, ‘I want him to be in the Olympics.’ ”

Steve Metzner, 60, skates for Team Lightning Inline Speed Skating Club at Lynnwood Bowl &Skate. He doesn’t know Ohno, but knows the family of J.R. Celski, one of Ohno’s U.S. speed-skating teammates.

“Most of the kids on ice came from wheels,” said Metzner, of Seattle. “When Apolo was a kid, everybody was on quads, but inlines were making inroads.” A self-described “rink rat,” Metzner said roller skating offers opportunities for kids of modest means. “Kids whose dads aren’t going to take them up to the slopes and get a $50 lift ticket can still do a Friday night public skate for six bucks. If you focus on something, anything is possible,” Metzner said.

“I have always been very impressed by Apolo’s humble and genuine nature, and his ability to train as hard as he does,” said Amber Randall, 32, another Team Lightning skater. “He is an incredible role model for our young athletes.”

My son’s zeal for Ohno dates to the 2006 Winter Games, when his first-grade teacher asked kids to pick an athlete and follow their progress in the Olympics. I still have the construction-paper “Apolo Ohno” book my first-grader made, complete with a medal drawn in Crayola gold.

Gustafson, Ohno’s long-ago coach, still sees room for improvement.

“One thing he has a tendency to do, he likes to play around the pack,” Gustafson said. “What he needs to do is take off and make them catch him. Just take off and go.”

Hear that, Apolo? Just take off and go.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.