By Barry Wilner | Related Press
NEW YORK — Dick Button was greater than probably the most completed males’s determine skater in historical past. He was one in all his sport’s best innovators and promoters.
Button, winner of two Olympic gold medals and 5 consecutive world championships, died Thursday, mentioned his son, Edward, who didn’t present a trigger. He was 95.
As an entrepreneur and broadcaster, Button promoted skating and its athletes, reworking a distinct segment sport into the showpiece of each Winter Olympics.
“Dick was one of the most important figures in our sport,” Scott Hamilton mentioned. “There wasn’t a skater after Dick who wasn’t helped by him in some way.”
Button’s impression started after World Conflict II. He was the primary U.S. males’s champion — and his nation’s youngest at age 16 — when that competitors returned in 1946. Two years later, he took the title on the St. Moritz Olympics, competing outdoor. He carried out the primary double axel in any competitors and have become the primary American to win the lads’s occasion.
“By the way, that jump had a cheat on it,” Button instructed the U.S. Olympic Committee web site. “But listen, I did it and that was what counted.”
That started his dominance of worldwide skating, and U.S. newbie sports activities. He was the primary determine skater to win the celebrated Sullivan Award in 1949 — no different determine skater gained it till Michelle Kwan in 2001.
Button executes a soar throughout a observe session at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in preparation for the 1948 Winter Olympics. Button gained the gold that yr, in addition to on the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway. (Related Press Archives)
In 1952, whereas a Harvard scholar, he gained a second gold on the Oslo Video games, making extra historical past with the primary triple soar (a loop) in competitors. Quickly after, he gained a fifth world title, then gave up his eligibility as an newbie. All Olympic sports activities have been topic to an newbie/skilled division on the time.
“I had achieved everything I could have dreamed of doing as a skater,” mentioned Button, who earned a legislation diploma from Harvard in 1956. “I was able to enjoy the Ice Capades (show) and keep my hand in skating, and that was very important to me.”
With the Emmy Award-winning Button because the TV analyst, viewers bought to study not solely the fundamentals however the nuances of a sport international to many as he frankly broke down the performances. He grew to become as a lot a fixture on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” as Jim McKay and the hapless ski jumper tumbling down the slope.
“Dick Button is the custodian of the history of figure skating and its quintessential voice,” 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano mentioned in Button’s autobiography. “He made the words ‘lutz’ and ‘salchow’ part of our everyday vocabulary.”
After a 1961 aircraft crash killed the whole U.S. determine skating staff on the best way to the world championships, which then have been canceled, Button persuaded ABC Sports activities government Roone Arledge to televise the 1962 occasion on “Wide World.” That’s when he joined the community as a commentator.
Button’s dying coincided with one other tragedy within the skating world, Wednesday night time’s crash of an American Airways flight that collided with an Military helicopter and plummeted into the Potomac River exterior Washington, D.C., killing everybody on board. Two teenage determine skaters, their moms, and two former world champions who have been teaching on the Skating Membership of Boston have been amongst the 14 individuals killed from the skating neighborhood.
Button skated for the Boston membership and remained near it for the remainder of his life. The trophy room on the membership is called in his honor.
He additionally supplied alternatives for skaters to make cash after their aggressive careers. He ran skilled occasions he created for TV for years, attracting many high names within the sport — Hamilton, Torvill and Dean, Kristi Yamaguchi, Kurt Browning and Katarina Witt.
Button’s Candid Productions, fashioned 1959, additionally produced such made-for-TV applications as “Battle of the Network Stars.” He additionally dabbled in appearing, however the rink was his realm.
“Dick Button created an open and honest space in figure skating broadcasting where no topic or moment was off-limits,” mentioned Johnny Weir, the three-time U.S. champion and present NBC Sports activities determine skating analyst. “He told it like it was, even when his opinion wasn’t a popular one. His zingers were always in my mind when I would perform for him, and I wanted to make him as happy and proud as I would my coaches.
“I think that is something very special about commentating figure skating. As an athlete, we rarely have an opportunity to speak, and we rely on the TV voices to tell our story for us. Nobody could do it like Mr. Button.”
