Hamilton Leaving Tour

Copyright 2000 News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

Scott Hamilton says he's not retiring. He's just gliding onto a different rink.

When the international skating star performs at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex on Dec. 28, it will be the first stop on his farewell tour with Target Stars on Ice.

''I think it is important to say thank you to the people who come to see you,'' Hamilton said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. ''The show doesn't belong to (the skaters). It belongs to the audience.''

In addition to Hamilton, this year's cast includes Olympic champions Tara Lipinski and Kristi Yamaguchi.

After a stint with Ice Capades, another skating tour, Hamilton founded Stars on Ice in 1986 and has headlined and co-produced the national touring show ever since.

''This is something I have done since I was 9 years old,'' Hamilton, 42, says of skating. ''It's not a midlife crisis. ... It's just time to do the next thing.''

So what is ''the next thing'' for one of the world's most acclaimed and admired skaters?

Hamilton isn't certain. But Broadway is a possibility. He says he's always wanted to do a skating show in New York.

''It's the last thing on my wish list,'' Hamilton says of a Broadway show. ''(But) it's not going to be, like, next season.''

He also would like to do a number of what he calls limited performances. ''I like to think of them as concerts rather than tours,'' he says.

The performances, which would include other skaters, would help raise money for cancer research, one of Hamilton's humanitarian causes.

Hamilton overcame testicular cancer in 1997 but says his decision to leave the tour has nothing to do with his health.

Rather, age is a factor. And the grind of a four-month-long national tour.

''That's why I am stepping away,'' he says. ''I will never go back out on an extended tour.''

Hamilton's experience with cancer wasn't his first physical setback.

When he was about 2, the Bowling Green, Ohio, youngster stopped growing. For the next six years, doctors prescribed a series of unsuccessful treatments. At one point, he was incorrectly diagnosed as having cystic fibrosis and was given six months to live. At that time, Hamilton's parents took him to Boston's Children's Hospital.

While there, he went to a local ice rink with his sister and discovered skating.

Within a year, Hamilton began to grow again.

Doctors aren't sure what ailed Hamilton, but they say his recovery may have been linked to his intense physical activity in the cold air of the rink.

''I think it might have been one of those things that I outgrew,'' says Hamilton, who stands 5-foot-2 and weighs 120 pounds. ''It remains a mystery.''

But there was no mystery about Hamilton's love of skating.

''He took to it like a fish to water, so to speak,'' says Michael Stirling, Hamilton's publicist. ''He started playing hockey, as well.''

Given his small stature, Hamilton made a wise choice when he began to focus on figure skating.

At 13, his training intensified when he began to work with former Olympic Gold medalist Pierre Brunet.

In 1980, Hamilton won a spot on the U.S. Olympic team and finished fifth at Lake Placid. A year later, he won his first World Championship. Boosted by that win, plus a series of other championships that followed, Hamilton went on to win the gold medal in the '84 Olympics in Sarajevo.

After winning another World Championship, Hamilton turned professional.

His career has included touring shows, television specials and competitive championships. He's also served as a skating analyst for television, a role he will continue for NBC during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

But he is best known for his role in the development of Stars on Ice, which is sponsored for the second year by Target, a chain of 978 stores in 46 states.

Between the end of December and early April, the tour will visit 65 cities in 33 states.

No wonder Hamilton is ready to do something different.

But who will take his place in the show?

''I don't think anyone can replace Scott,'' says Tara Lipinski, the 18-year-old Olympic champion. ''I am going to try to do the best I can to make the tour look great.''

Lipinski says Hamilton has taught her a lot during her two years on tour.

''You can learn from him - the way he goes out there every night no matter how he feels,'' Lipinski says. ''I really understand that it's for the audience. You say, 'This is for them.' No matter what, they want to see you out there and having fun.''

In addition to Hamilton, Lipinski and Yamaguchi, others in the cast include Olympic champion Ilia Kulik; four-time World Champion Kurt Browning; three-time U.S. National Pair Champions Jenni Meno and Todd Sand; World Champion Yuka Sato; Olympic silver medalist Denis Petrov; three-time U.S. National Pairs Champions and two-time U.S. National Dance Champions Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur; and eight-time British National Champion Steven Cousins.