Champions
Future wife gave Kain, IMG cold shoulder
Long before they became a couple, figure skater Rosalynn Sumners didn’t buy into Kain’s agent spiel.
Rosalynn Sumners first met Bob Kain in the early 1980s when she was an 18-year-old ice skating phenom. He was trying to sign her as IMG’s first ice skating client.
She turned him down.
“Bob and [IMG Olympic agent] Jay Ogden came out to meet me and my mom and my coach and give us the whole spiel,” Sumners said. “So there was a magazine on the coffee table with Chris Evert on it and he picked up the magazine and said, ‘This is what I will do for your daughter.’”
Sumners didn’t take the bait and ended up signing with Peggy Fleming’s agent, Lee Mimms. Kain instead signed Scott Hamilton as IMG’s first ice skating client.
Rosalynn Sumners won a silver medal at the 1984 Olympics, years before she and Kain became an item.getty images
Fast forward a few years to when Hamilton and Kain created Stars on Ice in 1986. Sumners, a former world champion and silver medalist from the 1984 Olympics, was skating in Disney on Ice at the time and wasn’t happy.
“To go from training for the Olympics to skating with Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and the Smurfs for audiences who didn’t give a hoot about me, they just cared about ‘Bring on the duck or the mouse’ … it was really hard to keep up the quality of your skating because, who cares?” she said. “Why do triples?”
Knowing how unsatisfied she was, Hamilton suggested hiring Sumners for their new tour. Hamilton was a teammate of Sumners at those Sarajevo Games, where he won gold.
“Scott is the one who told Bob, ‘If you are going to do this tour, the first person you are hiring is Rosalynn Sumners,’” she said. “Because he knew I was miserable. And Bob said, ‘Screw Rosalynn Sumners, she didn’t sign with me.’”
Scott replied, “Just shut up and sign Rosalynn Sumners.’”
Kain did just that, signing her to IMG’s new tour.
Years later, an unlikely — albeit long-distance — romance blossomed.
Fifteen years younger than Kain, Sumners was traveling all over the globe with Stars on Ice for more than a decade. Divorced from his first wife, Kain was also on the road a lot as a rising executive at IMG. But this time when he popped the question, she signed on the dotted line. After a nine-year engagement, they tied the knot on April 25, 2004.
The romance may have had an unusual start, but it’s been enduring.
“I have been with Roz for 27 years,” he said.
