JENKINS, Hayes Alan

(b. 23 March 1933 in Akron, Ohio), figure skater who won four world championship gold medals and a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics.

Jenkins was eight when he and his eleven-year-old sister, Nancy Sue, began skating at the Akron Ice Land Arena. Their mother, Sarah Wilkinson, was a homemaker, and their father, Hayes Ray Jenkins, was a lawyer and tire company executive. The enthusiasm the children showed for skating led the family to look for more advanced coaching and ice time and they began commuting the thirty miles to Cleveland either before or after school and at weekends. Jenkins's younger brother, David, was dragged along and their mother eventually began judging skating events.

Before long Nancy Sue found competing as a single was too nerve-wracking, so she persuaded her brother Hayes to join her in the pairs and ice dance competitions. They achieved some success between 1945 and 1948 before Nancy Sue went off to college. Jenkins believed that the ice dancing improved his later work as a singles skater, by instilling the discipline of paying attention to the music. He also enjoyed the challenge of the "school figures," where skaters traced slow figure eights on the ice and were awarded points for accuracy and smoothness. At that time sixty percent of the marks for skating events were given to the school figures, which have not been part of the sport since 1990, and only forty percent went for the spins and jumps.

In 1948 Jenkins won the U.S. junior championship and was selected to go to Paris, France, for the 1949 world championships. With very little money available, and with corporate sponsorship strictly limited for amateurs, Jenkins went to Paris alone. The U.S. Figure Skating Association provided no financial support to participants, and only the senior champion got a portion of his fare paid to the worlds. Jenkins finished sixth, and was amazed by the sport's popularity in Europe as compared to the United States. The following year, in 1950, while still attending Buchtel High School, he won the world bronze medal.

In June 1951 Jenkins graduated from Buchtel and began studying economics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In 1952 he made the Olympic team. In Oslo, Norway, Dick Button won his second consecutive Olympic gold medal and Jenkins finished fourth. He was the first from that school ever to take part in a Winter Olympics.

Jenkins had expected to stop skating in 1952. The time-consuming commute between his studies at Evanston and his training in downtown Chicago was starting to wear thin. However Jenkins and later his brother were offered scholarships at Colorado College, and they moved with their mother to Colorado Springs in the summer of 1952. By winning the 1953 world championships in Davos, Switzerland, Jenkins proved he had made the right decision. After winning the world title he was never beaten again. As world champion, Jenkins wanted to show that "I wasn't a flash in the pan. I didn't realize how hard it would be. Winning is totally different to defending a title. It's a different mind-set and it's much harder."

Shortly after his world win, Jenkins and the women's champion Tenley Albright were flown to Japan for several weeks, where they gave exhibitions and clinics to help Japanese skaters. In 1954 both Jenkins and his brother made the world championship team; Jenkins retained the title and David finished fourth. After winning his third world title in 1955, Jenkins went into the 1956 Olympic Games held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, as the favorite for gold. He was even featured with Tenley Albright on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Jenkins did not disappoint. He brought home the gold medal after staying in Europe for a few more weeks to win his fourth world championship.

In 1956 Jenkins graduated from Colorado College with a B.A. degree in economics. He appeared briefly in the summer of 1956 with Holiday on Ice to help finance his studies at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then hung up his skates. In 1959 he graduated from Harvard Law and passed the Ohio bar exam. On 30 April 1960 he married the figure skater Carol Heiss, shortly after she won an Olympic gold in Squaw Valley, California. Heiss won five world championships to Jenkins's four, a fact which, her husband claimed, she never let him forget. The couple had three children.

Jenkins began a career as a lawyer, specializing in corporate and private international law. He joined the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in 1963, and retired as the firm's legal counsel on 1 January 1997. Jenkins was only the second U.S. male figure skater (after Dick Button) to win an Olympic gold medal. Together, the Jenkins brothers won eight consecutive annual U.S. championships, seven world titles, and two Olympic gold medals to dominate their sport completely between 1953 and 1960. They also won gold medals at the North American championships, a dual-country event between Canada and the United States that no longer exists.

Jenkins is referred to as "the complete skater." Figure skating and free skating demand very different skills, but Jenkins was equally admired for his solid technical mastery while slowly tracing geometrically perfect figure eights and for his artistry and musicality in free skating.

Information about Jenkins's career can be found in Benjamin T. Wright, Reader's Guide to Figure Skating's Hall of Fame, ed. Gregory R. Smith (1978); International Skating Union, Seventy-five Years (1892–1967) of European and World Championships in Figure Skating (1970); and U.S. Figure Skating Association, TheOfficial Book of Figure Skating (1998). Jenkins also features in Dick Button, Dick Button on Skates (1955). Skating magazine, the official publication of the U.S. Figure Skating Association, has featured many articles on Jenkins, especially at the height of his fame. Among the most informative are Theresa Weld Blanchard, Skating (Apr. 1952, Apr. 1953, June 1953, Apr. 1955, and June 1956). See also Theodore G. Patterson, Skating (May 1956).

Sandra Stevenson