The Skating Champion: Brian Boitano + Roy F. Baumeister

In a conversation with research psychologistRoy F. Baumeister, three-time Olympic skaterBrian Boitanoexplores the processes of his brain as he addresses the endurance, stamina, and discipline required to stay at the top of his game and overcome injury.

About the Speaker

Few athletes have enjoyed the artistic and popular success that figure skater Brian Boitano has achieved since winning the gold medal for the United States at the 1988 Winter Olympics Games in Calgary, Canada. In total, Brian, a three-time Olympian, has won more than 50 titles, including 23 international gold medals, two World titles, two Pro/AM titles, 16 professional titles, four U.S. National titles, as well as the Olympic Gold Medal. Brian has been inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame and the National Italian-American Hall of Fame. Brian won a prime-time Emmy Award, television’s highest honor, for his starring role in the HBO movie Carmen on Ice. He and fellow Olympic gold medalist Katarina Witt toured North America in three successful ice shows: Skating, Skating II and Skating ’92, which were broadcast on network TV. In 1994, he starred in Nutcracker on Ice with Oksana Baiul and Viktor Petrenko. For 15 years he toured with Champions On Ice around the country, headlining 25 national tours. Brian has provided expert commentary on televised skating shows for ABC, NBC and Turner networks. Brian’s book, Boitano’s Edge: Inside the Real World of Figure Skating (Simon & Schuster, November 1997), is currently in its third printing and is considered one of the finest skating books ever published. With a lifelong passion for food and cooking, Brian premiered a Food Network cooking series, What Would Brian Boitano Make? in August 2009. In the series, Brian takes viewers on a reality cooking adventure as he creates amazing food for a new event in each episode focusing on innovative but accessible dishes.
Roy F. Baumeister is one of the most cited psychologists in the world. The author of the New York Times bestseller Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strengt, he is currently the Eppes Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Princeton in 1978 and did a postdoctoral fellowship in sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. He spent over two decades at Case Western Reserve University. Baumeister’s research spans multiple topics, including self and identity, self-regulation, interpersonal rejection and the need to belong, sexuality and gender, aggression, self-esteem, meaning, and self-presentation. He has over 500 publications, and his 31 books include Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, and The Cultural Animal, Meanings of Life. He has received lifetime achievement awards from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, from the International Society for Self and Identity, and most recently the Association for Psychological Science’s highest honor, the William James Award.