Dick Button

Richard "Dick" Button (born July 18, 1929 in Englewood, New Jersey) is an American former figure skater and a well-known long-time skating television analyst.

Biography

Button was a five-time world champion from 1948 to 1952 and won the gold medal at the 1948 and 1952 Winter Olympics. In 1949, he won the Sullivan Award as the outstanding amateur athlete in the United States. Button was the first skater to successfully land the double axel jump in competition (in 1948, although on the video it appears he did not complete the full rotation), as well as the first triple jump of any kind -- a triple loop -- in 1952. He also invented the flying camel spin, which was originally known as the "Button camel".

After his competitive skating career ended, Button toured with Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice, and completed a law degree at Harvard University.

He has been a figure skating analyst for ABC Sports since 1962. During ABC's coverage of Olympics in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Button became the sport's best-known analyst, well known for his frank and oftentimes caustic appraisal of skaters' performances. Although other U.S. television networks aired the Winter Olympics from the 1990s onward, Button still appeared on ABC's broadcasts of the U.S. and World Figure Skating Championships. During the 2006 games (covered by NBC), Button appeared on loan from ABC to once again commentate on the Olympics.

As founder of Candid Productions, he created a variety of made-for-television sports events, including the World Professional Figure Skating Championships as well as other non-skating sports events such as Superstars.

Button was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1976.

In 1975, Button married figure skating coach Slavka Kohout, but they later divorced.

Button suffered a serious head injury in 1978 when he was one of several men randomly assaulted in Central Park by a gang of youths armed with baseball bats and tree branches in a gay bashing incident. According to reports in the New York Times, Button had been jogging in the park near his home and was attacked while he was watching a dusk fireworks display. The assailants were later apprehended.