Every month we will unveil the new cover for the upcoming issue of SKATING magazine. Here is the cover for the September/August issue which tells the story of Harry E. Radix and the Radix pin tradition. See the short story below. If you have earned a Radix pin and have a short story or photos to share about your major accomplishment, please send it to socialmedia@usfigureskating.org.
Pairs champ honored to have earned Radix pins
Harry E. Radix
Two-time reigning U.S. pairs champion John Coughlin has earned his share of trophies and gold medals during a stellar skating career, but the Kansas City native admits he holds the Radix pins he has earned in highest regard.
For more than 60 years, the Radix pin has been awarded to medalists at the U.S. Championships, World Championships and Olympic Winter Games.
The late Harry E. Radix began this tradition, which remains alive and well today in the skating world. A cover story about the Radix pins and Mr. Radix appears in the August-September issue of SKATING magazine.
“Before I got one, I had always wanted one,” said Coughlin, who trains in Colorado Springs, Colo., with Caydee Denney. “Growing up, I remember hearing stories about the pins from the coaches at my rink. They talked about them as if they were almost mythical.
Jimmie Santee, executive director of the Professional Skaters Association, wears his three Radix pins to special events.
“I remember seeing a necklace that Carol Heiss Jenkins had made from her Radix pins and thought, ‘Wow, to have won so many of the pins and know that they are given only to a select group of people. It’s like being part of an awesome club.”
Coughlin’s Radix pin that he received for winning the 2011 U.S. Championships is back at home with his dad in Kansas City, while his 2012 pin is on loan to the U.S. Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame.
“We get a big trophy, which we of course we love, and the gold medal is a signature to any sport, but in skating it’s the Radix pin,” Coughlin said. “It’s the one little thing that comes in the tiniest box that everyone clamors for and is excited to have and doesn’t want to part with. It’s a very unique tradition in skating that everyone appreciates a lot.”
Harry Radix, right, served as assistant team manager at the 1952 Olympic Winter Games in Oslo, Norway. This photograph was taken at the Opening Ceremonies. Pictured in the back row (l-r) are team manager Ted Patterson, Dick Button, John Nightingale, Peter Kennedy, Hayes Jenkins and Jimmy Grogan; front row (l-r) Tenley Albright, Janet Gerhauser, Ginny Baxter, Karol Kennedy and Sonja Klopfer.
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