1959 Canadian bronze medalist with pair partner Lise Petit
In his book On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed, Jon Jackson wrote of his childhood coach Ian Knight. As a gay foreigner working in conservative Utah in the 1970s, Knight felt the need to be closeted, and fabricated an engagement to a woman, fellow coach Kris Sherard. But the father of one of Knight's students ran him out of town when he hired a private investigator who confirmed that Knight was gay.
Jackson recounts with fond amusement that Knight once gave him a program to music from the soundtrack of Midnight Express, a movie with gay themes that was banned in Utah at the time.
"I didn't learn the origins of the musical score until years later," writes Jackson, p. 28. "When I did, I got a good laugh off the naughty joke Ian had played on my parents and me -- a person he clearly realized was a young gay man[...]"
On Edge is dedicated "In Memory of Ian Knight."