A Tribute in Ice
by Suzanne Strempek Shea
FEBRUARY 17, 2011 TAGS:
They smile proudly on the stairs of the Boeing 707, the men in ties, corsages decorating the women’s winter coats. A hand-lettered sign reading U.S.FIGURE SKATING ASSOCIATION is held by a beaming bob-haired 16-year-old, Laurence Owen, second from the left in the front row. America’s skating superstar back then had made the cover of Sports Illustrated two days earlier and was being spoken of as a heavy favorite at the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, the destination for the flight about to leave from New York’s Idlewild Airport on this Feb. 14 of 1961.
That destination, and a future of unimaginable glory for the young athletes who could have been dubbed a dream team long before the expression was minted, were never reached. On Feb. 15, after circling an airport in Brussels three or four times, Sabena Flight 548 plummeted to the ground and exploded. All 72 people on board perished, including all 18 members of the skating team, and 16 of their coaches, family members and friends. A farmer working in the field where the plane crashed also was killed. A dog in the cargo hold survived
The championships were cancelled for mourning. The shaken included President John F. Kennedy, in office less than a month. Victim Dudley Richards, a 29-year-old pairs champion, had roomed with Ted Kennedy at Harvard and was a family friend. The president instructed his brother Bobby to give a statement, but those who’d long followed skating didn’t need to be reminded of the great loss. They could recite the casualty list, which along with Laurence Owen, included her 20-year-old sister, Maribel Y. Owen, a pairs champion, and their mother and coach, Maribel Vinson-Owen, 49, a nine-time U.S. pairs champ (a record that took 68 years to be matched by Michelle Kwan) teamed with Richards; men’s champion Bradley Lord, 21; and ice dancing champs Diane Sherbloom, 18, and Larry Pierce, 24.
The lives that were lost took with them a skating program that had begun with the creation of the U.S. Figure Skating Association in 1921 and that had been gaining speed – and earning titles and medals - since 1948. That’s when Dick Button became the first American to win both a world title and an Olympic gold medal.
After Belgium, those coming up in the ranks scrambled.
“The crash had a subtle and profound effect – to create resolve on the part of the skaters to get back on the ice and work a little harder,” Paul George, winner of the 1962 junior pairs title with his sister, Elizabeth, recently told The Boston Globe.
“It instantly took away our youthful and carefree ways,” added the man who as a youth had skated with Winchester, Mass., native Laurence Owen in Boston and named his daughter in her honor.
The 50th anniversary of the tragedy is being marked Feb. 17 by the live broadcast of the documentary tribute film Rise from Times Square to 500 movie theaters across the nation, at least one in each state. A new book, Indelible Tracings, is Patricia Shelley Bushman’s profile of those who perished. At the 2011 US Figure Skating Championships in Greensboro, N.C., last month, the 1961 team was inducted into the Skating Hall of Fame, and Rise was previewed.
The crash is being marked at a significant time for American skating. The lost team was not unlike the one competing on the ice in Greensboro - a transitional group. The winter Olympics (1960, opposed to 2010) had taken place a year earlier. At the ’60 games, in Squaw Valley, David Jenkins and Carole Heiss were decorated with gold medals, then entered retirement. The remaining team members were accomplished, but still finding their footing. But in 1961, a grieving and young (the ages of the two men who’d go on to the Worlds in 1962 totaled 29) next tier of American skating hopefuls had to mobilize quickly.
The burgeoning U.S. Figure Skating Memorial Fund acknowledged the lost team and helped create brighter futures for many teams to follow. Recipients of the purse that since has given out $10 million and annually distributes $300,000 in grants and scholarships have included ice legends Kristi Yamaguchi and Scott Hamilton, and 2010 Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek.
A notable early recipient was Peggy Fleming, who was not raised in a wealthy home, and to whom a gift of skates from the fund was enormous. She traces the supremacy she reached in her sport back to the passengers of Flight 548. Bill Kipp, a 31-year-old coach killed in the crash, had coached Fleming for several months. Fleming feels she also was taught by the examples of Laurence Owen and Owen’s 17-year-old teammates, Stephanie Westerfeld and Rhode Lee Michelson: Her style, she says, was a combination of Owen’s freedom, Westerfeld’s femininity and Michelson’s athleticism.
Fleming, who fast-tracked to accomplishment after accomplishment, finally winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble when she was 19, has said of the loss of the 1961 team, “I achieved things faster than if it didn’t happen. Who knows how great, for how long, they might have been?”
Nineteen-year-old Christopher Ryan Nolan is another beneficiary of the memorial fund, and another skater who can trace a connection to the crash. His grandfather was Danny Ryan, coach of Sherbloom and Pierce. Watching Rise, he sees footage his family never before viewed.
“I can’t believe I was seeing my father move,” Terri Ryan Sullivan, 52, told the Chicago Tribune. Sullivan is one of Danny Ryan’s five children and a skating coach himself in upstate New York. “He had been just a memory.” Yet, Ryan is still a factor in skating half a century after his death.
To fully appreciate the 1961 team, and the loss of it, watch Rise this week (visit www.rise1961.com to find your nearest theater; proceeds will benefit the Memorial Fund). Read the book. Or simply watch today’s skaters. Every Alissa Czisny, Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu, Ryan Bradley, Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin pays homage to those who came before, to those who never got to arrive where they should have landed.
Suzanne Strempek Shea, the author of eight books, contributes regularly to Obit.
First Photo Courtesy of the U.S. Figure Skating Association
Second Photo from Wikipedia Commons
Third Photo from www.rise1961.com
That destination, and a future of unimaginable glory for the young athletes who could have been dubbed a dream team long before the expression was minted, were never reached. On Feb. 15, after circling an airport in Brussels three or four times, Sabena Flight 548 plummeted to the ground and exploded. All 72 people on board perished, including all 18 members of the skating team, and 16 of their coaches, family members and friends. A farmer working in the field where the plane crashed also was killed. A dog in the cargo hold survivedThe championships were cancelled for mourning. The shaken included President John F. Kennedy, in office less than a month. Victim Dudley Richards, a 29-year-old pairs champion, had roomed with Ted Kennedy at Harvard and was a family friend. The president instructed his brother Bobby to give a statement, but those who’d long followed skating didn’t need to be reminded of the great loss. They could recite the casualty list, which along with Laurence Owen, included her 20-year-old sister, Maribel Y. Owen, a pairs champion, and their mother and coach, Maribel Vinson-Owen, 49, a nine-time U.S. pairs champ (a record that took 68 years to be matched by Michelle Kwan) teamed with Richards; men’s champion Bradley Lord, 21; and ice dancing champs Diane Sherbloom, 18, and Larry Pierce, 24.
The lives that were lost took with them a skating program that had begun with the creation of the U.S. Figure Skating Association in 1921 and that had been gaining speed – and earning titles and medals - since 1948. That’s when Dick Button became the first American to win both a world title and an Olympic gold medal.
After Belgium, those coming up in the ranks scrambled.
“The crash had a subtle and profound effect – to create resolve on the part of the skaters to get back on the ice and work a little harder,” Paul George, winner of the 1962 junior pairs title with his sister, Elizabeth, recently told The Boston Globe.
“It instantly took away our youthful and carefree ways,” added the man who as a youth had skated with Winchester, Mass., native Laurence Owen in Boston and named his daughter in her honor.
The 50th anniversary of the tragedy is being marked Feb. 17 by the live broadcast of the documentary tribute film Rise from Times Square to 500 movie theaters across the nation, at least one in each state. A new book, Indelible Tracings, is Patricia Shelley Bushman’s profile of those who perished. At the 2011 US Figure Skating Championships in Greensboro, N.C., last month, the 1961 team was inducted into the Skating Hall of Fame, and Rise was previewed. The crash is being marked at a significant time for American skating. The lost team was not unlike the one competing on the ice in Greensboro - a transitional group. The winter Olympics (1960, opposed to 2010) had taken place a year earlier. At the ’60 games, in Squaw Valley, David Jenkins and Carole Heiss were decorated with gold medals, then entered retirement. The remaining team members were accomplished, but still finding their footing. But in 1961, a grieving and young (the ages of the two men who’d go on to the Worlds in 1962 totaled 29) next tier of American skating hopefuls had to mobilize quickly.
The burgeoning U.S. Figure Skating Memorial Fund acknowledged the lost team and helped create brighter futures for many teams to follow. Recipients of the purse that since has given out $10 million and annually distributes $300,000 in grants and scholarships have included ice legends Kristi Yamaguchi and Scott Hamilton, and 2010 Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek.
A notable early recipient was Peggy Fleming, who was not raised in a wealthy home, and to whom a gift of skates from the fund was enormous. She traces the supremacy she reached in her sport back to the passengers of Flight 548. Bill Kipp, a 31-year-old coach killed in the crash, had coached Fleming for several months. Fleming feels she also was taught by the examples of Laurence Owen and Owen’s 17-year-old teammates, Stephanie Westerfeld and Rhode Lee Michelson: Her style, she says, was a combination of Owen’s freedom, Westerfeld’s femininity and Michelson’s athleticism.
Fleming, who fast-tracked to accomplishment after accomplishment, finally winning a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble when she was 19, has said of the loss of the 1961 team, “I achieved things faster than if it didn’t happen. Who knows how great, for how long, they might have been?”Nineteen-year-old Christopher Ryan Nolan is another beneficiary of the memorial fund, and another skater who can trace a connection to the crash. His grandfather was Danny Ryan, coach of Sherbloom and Pierce. Watching Rise, he sees footage his family never before viewed.
“I can’t believe I was seeing my father move,” Terri Ryan Sullivan, 52, told the Chicago Tribune. Sullivan is one of Danny Ryan’s five children and a skating coach himself in upstate New York. “He had been just a memory.” Yet, Ryan is still a factor in skating half a century after his death.
To fully appreciate the 1961 team, and the loss of it, watch Rise this week (visit www.rise1961.com to find your nearest theater; proceeds will benefit the Memorial Fund). Read the book. Or simply watch today’s skaters. Every Alissa Czisny, Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu, Ryan Bradley, Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin pays homage to those who came before, to those who never got to arrive where they should have landed.
Suzanne Strempek Shea, the author of eight books, contributes regularly to Obit.
First Photo Courtesy of the U.S. Figure Skating Association
Second Photo from Wikipedia Commons
Third Photo from www.rise1961.com
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