Dick Button was greater than essentially the most achieved males’s determine skater in historical past. He was one among his sport’s biggest innovators and promoters.
Button, winner of two Olympic gold medals and 5 consecutive world championships, died Thursday, stated his son, Edward, who didn’t present a trigger. He was 95.
As an entrepreneur and broadcaster, Button promoted skating and its athletes, remodeling a distinct segment sport into the showpiece of each Winter Olympics.
“Dick was one of the crucial essential figures in our sport,” Scott Hamilton stated. “There wasn’t a skater after Dick who wasn’t helped by him indirectly.”
Button’s influence 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 open air. He carried out the primary double axel in any competitors and have become the primary American to win the boys’s occasion.
“By the best way, that leap had a cheat on it,” Button instructed the U.S. Olympic Committee web site. “However hear, I did it and that was what counted.”
That started his dominance of worldwide skating, and U.S. novice sports activities. He was the primary determine skater to win the celebrated Sullivan Award in 1949 — no different determine skater received it till Michelle Kwan in 2001.
In 1952, whereas a Harvard scholar, he received a second gold on the Oslo Video games, making extra historical past with the primary triple leap (a loop) in competitors. Quickly after, he received a fifth world title, then gave up his eligibility as an novice. All Olympic sports activities have been topic to an novice/skilled division on the time.
“I had achieved every little thing I may have dreamed of doing as a skater,” stated Button, who earned a regulation diploma from Harvard in 1956. “I used to be capable of benefit from the Ice Capades (present) and hold my hand in skating, and that was crucial to me.”
With the Emmy Award-winning Button because the TV analyst, viewers received to study not solely the fundamentals however the nuances of a sport overseas to many as he frankly broke down the performances. He grew to become as a lot a fixture on ABC’s “Large World of Sports activities” as Jim McKay and the hapless ski jumper tumbling down the slope.
“Dick Button is the custodian of the historical past of determine skating and its quintessential voice,” 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano stated in Button’s autobiography. “He made the phrases ‘lutz’ and ‘salchow’ a part of our on a regular basis vocabulary.”
After a 1961 airplane crash killed your entire U.S. determine skating group 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 “Large World.” That’s when he joined the community as a commentator.
Button’s demise coincided with one other tragedy within the skating world, Wednesday evening’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 among the many 14 folks 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 known as in his honor.
He additionally offered 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 packages as “Battle of the Community Stars.” He additionally dabbled in appearing, however the rink was his realm.
“Dick Button created an open and sincere area in determine skating broadcasting the place no subject or second was off-limits,” stated Johnny Weir, the three-time U.S. champion and present NBC Sports activities determine skating analyst. “He instructed it prefer it was, even when his opinion wasn’t a well-liked one. His zingers have been all the time in my thoughts once I would carry out for him, and I wished to make him as completely happy and proud as I’d my coaches.
“I believe that’s one thing very particular about commentating determine skating. As an athlete, we not often have a chance to talk, and we depend on the TV voices to inform our story for us. No one may do it like Mr. Button.”