Dick Button

In 1959 Button formed Candid Productions, a television production company that later presented many professional skating competitions and other sports programs such as The Battle of the Network Stars. In 1962 Button began appearing on ABC's Wide World of Sports as a commentator on figure skating; the association has lasted more than forty years and led to an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as Outstanding Sports Personality in 1981. After marrying skating coach and choreographer Slavka Kohout in March 1973, the couple had two children, Edward and Emily, before divorcing in 1984.

In his role as a Wide World of Sports analyst, Button remains one of the most familiar figure skaters to the American public decades after his retirement as an athlete. He is also regarded as a leading authority on the sport. When figure skating underwent one of its biggest changes in 1990, dropping the compulsory figures from the men's and women's competitions, Button was a leading critic of the move. "The skating of figures is an art form in itself," he told Sports Illustrated, "it has nothing to do with free skating." When the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan controversy erupted in 1994 over Harding's attempt to force Kerrigan out of the Olympics with an injury, however, Button refrained from commenting. "I found it disgusting, especially the shark-feeding media," he later told Mark Leibovich of the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service in a 1996 interview.