Sports

Jim Whittaker, first American climber to scale Mount Everest, has died

Published

4 weeks ago

April 9, 2026

Jim Whittaker, first American climber to scale Mount Everest, has died

For 20 minutes of his life, Jim Whittaker was on top of the world.

He was the first American to summit Mt. Everest, reaching the highest point on Earth on May 1, 1963, with Sherpa Nawang Gombu.

“We were standing in the jet stream, on the edge of space,” Whittaker wrote in his 1999 memoir, “A Life on the Edge.”

He returned home a hero, with his picture on the cover of Life magazine, a White House fete and unexpected celebrity. And though life off the mountain didn’t always go smoothly, he disdained regret.

“If you stick your neck out, whether it’s by climbing mountains or speaking up for something you believe in, your odds of winning are at least fifty-fifty,” he wrote. “On the other hand, if you never stick your neck out, your odds of losing are pretty close to 100%.”

An adventurer until the end, Whittaker died Tuesday at his home in Port Townsend, Wash., his son Leif confirmed to the New York Times. Whittaker was 97. .

On March 24, 1965, Robert F. Kennedy, left, stands atop Mt. Kennedy in Canada after placing a black flag in memorial to his late brother, President John F. Kennedy. With him were Jim Whittaker; William Allard, a National Geographic Society photographer; and George Senner, a ranger.

(Doug Wilson / Associated Press)

He was 34 when he scaled Everest, a feat that shaped much of the rest of his life. His Washington state license plate read 29028, the generally accepted height of Everest when he climbed it. (GPS surveys later put it at about 29,035 feet.)

He was chosen for the expedition by its leader, Swiss mountaineer Norman Dyhrenfurth, because of his experience in climbing under icy conditions, including numerous summits of Mt. Rainier near his Seattle-area home.

But Everest, first scaled in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was a far more formidable and dangerous beast. And even if the Dyhrenfurth expedition was successful, only a chosen few of its 19 team members would reach the top. Still, Whittaker thought his chances were good.

“I’d trained hard, put 60 pounds of bricks in my backpack,” he told National Geographic Adventure magazine in 2003. “I swam in Lake Sammamish in winter to build up to the cold we would encounter.

“I didn’t know anyone who was in better shape.”

On only the second day of the group’s climb from base camp, tragedy struck when a giant section of an icefall — a glacier formation resembling a frozen waterfall — shifted, crushing team member Jake Breitenbach.

“I had told everyone back home that Everest was not a difficult climb technically; the only problem was the lack of oxygen and the weather,” Whittaker wrote in “Life on the Edge.” “Now it had killed one of us, and we’d only just begun.”

Because the only way to get back to base camp was via that icefall, Whittaker chose to stay above it on the mountain for five steady weeks as more camps were established up Everest. He lost 25 pounds and a considerable amount of strength due to the thin air.

Still, he was in better condition than many of the other climbers, and Dyhrenfurth chose him for the final assault. He and Gombu left the last camp in the middle of a windstorm, with a scant supply of oxygen.

How hard was it to breathe? “Put a pillow on your face, run around the block, and try and suck oxygen through that pillow,” he said. It was so cold, one of his eyeballs froze, making it unusable.

Reaching the summit after several hours, they stayed only long enough to take pictures and plant flags as 50-mph winds whipped around them.

“When you are up there, you are not ecstatic, you are not afraid,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2013. “You’re really not anything. But in the back of your mind, you know one thing: You gotta get off. Half of the climb is getting up, the other half is getting down.”

James Whittaker was born on Feb. 10, 1929, in Seattle, about 10 minutes before the birth of Louie, his twin brother. As the boys grew up, they took to roughhousing around the house, much to the chagrin of their mother.

“I believe that command to ‘Go outside and play’ is what started Louie and me on the path we have taken ever since,” Whittaker wrote.

He was active in Boy Scouts and as a teenager joined a mountaineering club that sponsored climbs on the nearby Olympic and Cascade ranges. He tested himself on increasingly higher peaks, relishing moments such as breaking through cloud layers.

“I think nature is a great teacher,” he told the Seattle Times in 2013. “Being in nature that way is a good way to find out who the hell you are.”

After finishing West Seattle High School, Whittaker went on to Seattle University, graduating in 1952. He was promptly drafted into the Army, but his mountaineering experience led him to be assigned to the Mountain and Cold Weather Training Command in Colorado instead of combat duty in Korea.

In 1955, he became the first full-time employee of the Recreational Equipment Cooperative (later called REI) when it was housed in a 20-by-30-foot space above a Seattle restaurant. In his first year, he expanded the co-op’s offerings into ski equipment and introduced new concepts — such as opening on Saturday mornings so customers could pick up equipment for weekend trips — that boosted sales.

Because of his connection to the co-op, he was appointed equipment coordinator of the Everest climb, and REI agreed to keep him on the payroll during the expedition.

In July 1963, he and other members of the Everest team, including Gombu, were presented the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society — which partially sponsored the expedition — by President Kennedy, four months before the president was assassinated.

Two years later, Whittaker led a climb up Mt. Kennedy, a nearly 14,000-foot Canadian peak named for JFK, with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the climbing party. The two men forged a close friendship that extended to the wider Kennedy clan. In subsequent years, Whittaker went on ski vacations with the Kennedys, was a guest at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., and hosted gatherings in Seattle that included mountain climbing.

Whittaker organized Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign efforts in the Pacific Northwest and spoke to him by phone only minutes before the candidate was fatally shot in Los Angeles. Whittaker caught a flight to L.A. and was at the senator’s hospital bedside when he died and then served as a pallbearer at the funeral.

In mountaineering, Whittaker was closely involved in more high-profile ventures. He led a 1975 expedition up the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, that failed to reach the top. His return expedition in 1978 was successful, though he chose not to go to the summit himself.

That same year, he decided to quit REI, partly because of friction with the co-op’s board. He had been president and chief executive since 1971, and when he left, the co-op was a $46-million business with more than 700 employees.

Whittaker throws the ceremonial first pitch

Income from an endorsement agreement helped keep him financially sound, but an investment in a new outdoor gear company proved to be a disaster. The financial irregularities of a partner, who was convicted of felony bank fraud, doomed the venture, and Whittaker was left holding the financial bag.

He was nearly wiped out but got back on his financial footing when a venture capitalist asked him in 1986 to be chairman of the board, with stock options, of a new company called Magellan. It was a pioneer in GPS consumer electronics and holds numerous patents in the field.

Appropriately, Whittaker called one of the chapters midway through his book “Roller Coaster.” But he finished it with “Life Well Lived.”

“If you aren’t living on the edge,” he wrote, “you’re taking up too much space.”

Whittaker is survived by his wife, Dianne Roberts, and children Bobby, Joss and Leif.

Colker is a former Times staff writer.

Sports

Deonna Purrazzo touts Ring of Honor as having ‘great women’s wrestling,’ should be seen as landing spot

Published

10 hours ago

May 8, 2026

Press Room

Deonna Purrazzo touts Ring of Honor as having ‘great women’s wrestling,’ should be seen as landing spot

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Deonna Purrazzo was credited with helping restart the women’s division in Ring of Honor (ROH) when she joined the company in 2015. She was featured in one of the first women’s matches in the company’s history in nearly a decade at the time.

She spent three years with the company before she landed back in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2024. By that time, AEW co-founder Tony Khan had bought Ring of Honor and it became a sister company of AEW. Upon her return to Ring of Honor, she was thrust into a tournament to determine the first ROH women’s pure champion.

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Deonna Purrazzo celebrates after winning her match during AEW Collision on June 15, 2024, at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire)

In December, Purrazzo defeated Billie Starkz to be crowned the champion and has held the title ever since.

As a wave of new wrestlers hit the free-agent market over the last two weeks, Purrazzo touted the opportunities that Ring of Honor has for women’s wrestlers – something that was “really important” to the New Jersey native.

“I think what’s so great about Ring of Honor is that it kinda flies under the radar a little bit,” she told Fox News Digital. “So, you get to really develop and tell stories and show personality and maybe try something different than you would if you were on ‘Dynamite’ every single week. I think that there is really great women’s wrestling within Ring of Honor. Most weeks there’s four, five, six women’s matches and so I think that it doesn’t get enough credit online that it deserves for what it’s doing and the purpose it’s serving for women’s wrestling, which is, again, really important to me, starting in Ring of Honor, starting the women’s division 11 years ago.

“To get to see multiple women every single week grow and develop, I think it’s really important and I think that if more people saw it as a landing spot, we can maybe grow that perception in the public’s eyes.”

Athena sits at the top of the women’s division in ROH. She’s held the ROH Women’s World Championship for more than 1,200 days. Red Velvet is the current ROH Women’s World Television Championship and has held it for more than 150 days.

Deonna Purrazzo attends Shaq’s Fun House at XS nightclub at Encore Las Vegas on Feb. 9, 2024. (Greg Doherty/Getty Images)

Purrazzo also has the opportunity to help veterans and first-responders in need.

She and her husband, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling star Steve Maclin, are putting on the Battle for the Brave on June 6. The charity event will benefit the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

Purrazzo stressed how important giving back to military veterans was to her in an interview with Fox News Digital earlier this week, especially as a military wife. Maclin served in the U.S. Marines.

“Growing up in New Jersey as well, 9/11 was such a big deal. For me, I was in second grade,” she said. “I didn’t understand what was going on but in the days after, I felt a sense of unity in that everyone came together, everyone was proud to be an American, and we were going to fight back and stand together and be one, united country. And I think that, that feeling has always stuck with me but being a veteran’s wife, it’s taken on a completely different role.

“Steve opening up about his service and things he’s seen and experienced with me has given me a new passion to let veterans know that, yes, war will always come home with you but it doesn’t have to define you. Steve was so lucky that he was able to find wrestling right after he got out of the Marine Corps and it saved him, in a way, from falling down the unknown path of ‘What am I? Who am I next?’

Pro wrestling stars Steve Maclin and Deonna Purrazzo stare at each other. (Provided to Fox News Digital)

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“And I think that’s something that our veterans deal with unbeknownst to the rest of the public. It’s not talked about enough. They say 22 veterans but right now the math is leading toward 44 veterans a day lose their lives to that battle – an identity crisis of who am I after service. So, that’s what it means to be American for me now, is showing that support for our veterans, showing that our country is here for them and we’re here to support them and we’re here to give them the resources that they need to live healthy and successful lives after service.”

Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.

Sports

Kyle Loftis, street racing media pioneer who founded 1320Video, dies at 43

Published

11 hours ago

May 8, 2026

Press Room

Kyle Loftis, street racing media pioneer who founded 1320Video, dies at 43

Kyle Loftis, who started filming street racing with a point-and-shoot camera and went on to become a pioneer in car culture media, has died, his company confirmed Wednesday. He was 43.

“We are extremely saddened to share that Kyle Loftis, the founder of 1320video, passed away last night,” the company wrote in a statement posted on social media. “We are in a state of shock.”

No cause of death has been disclosed.

The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office and Gretna Fire Department in Nebraska responded to Loftis’ home Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said in a statement emailed to The Times.

“Loftis was declared deceased; his death is not suspicious,” the spokesperson wrote. “Out of respect for privacy, we will not be releasing further details.”

According to his LinkedIn page, Loftis attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha from 2000-2005 and earned a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems.

It was there, Loftis said in a 2023 video on his company’s YouTube channel, that his interests in car stereos and photography evolved into a passion for street racing — in particular, capturing races in still photos and on video and making that media available to fans.

“I’m a hardcore ‘car nut’ that’s taken his love for cars and turned it into the most amazing ‘job’ of my life,” Loftis wrote on LinkedIn. “Through my business, 1320Video, I’m able to experience the craziest & best automotive events (fitting my tastes) and share them with millions of people around the world!”

Back in the early days, Loftis posted his work on message boards and sold it on DVDs. For nearly 10 years after college, he worked for PayPal while building his motorsports media business on his own time. He dedicated himself to 1320Video full time starting in January 2015.

Currently, 1320Video has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube, more than 6 million followers on Facebook and nearly 3 million followers on Instagram.

“Kyle’s passion for motorsports inspired millions of people around the world and we will never forget what he has done to grow our beloved sport,” 1320Video wrote. “Kyle was a beam of light at every gathering… his enthusiasm, kindness, and creativeness was contagious.

“Let us pray that Kyle is in a better place.”

Garrett Mitchell — the YouTuber and stock car racer known as Cleetus McFarland — posted a tribute to his longtime friend on Facebook.

“Completely shocked about the loss of Kyle,” Mitchell wrote. “The most influential person on my life. We’re crushed. Please pray for his Mother and close friends, they need it most.”

Sports

Eli Manning hilariously shuts down comeback talk as Giants explore Odell Beckham Jr reunion possibility

Published

22 hours ago

May 7, 2026

Press Room

Eli Manning hilariously shuts down comeback talk as Giants explore Odell Beckham Jr reunion possibility

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The New York Giants have had an active offseason, but fans still want to see a reunion with Odell Beckham Jr.

A video of Beckham scoring a touchdown from his time with the Giants went viral on social media.

“All these Giants signings have been great and all, but there’s still one final piece missing…,” the user posted.

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NFC coach Eli Manning looks on during the NFL Pro Bowl Skills Competition at the UCF Nicholson Fieldhouse in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 1, 2024. (Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports)

Eli Manning, who threw the touchdown to Beckham in the clip, had some fun with it.

“Guys, I’m not coming back to play! Stop asking,” Manning posted on X.

Manning retired after the 2019 season, ending a 16-year run with the team. Toward the end of his career, Manning struggled, as the team went 9-26 in his starts over the last three seasons of his career.

Before Manning’s play declined, Beckham was one of his favorite targets. Manning threw more touchdowns to Beckham (44) than to any other player in his career.

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. warm up before a preseason game against the Miami Dolphins at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Aug. 12, 2016. (Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Beckham was electrifying in New York. In five seasons with the Giants, Beckham played 59 games, catching 390 passes for 5,476 yards and 44 touchdowns.

He was then stunningly traded to the Cleveland Browns and never recaptured that same form, spending just two and a half seasons with them before they released him.

The Giants recently brought Beckham in for a workout. He played under coach John Harbaugh with the Baltimore Ravens in 2023. The 33-year-old was productive as a depth receiver, catching 34 passes for 565 yards and three touchdowns.

Harbaugh called Beckham one of his favorite people in the world in March.

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Odell Beckham Jr. started his career with the New York Giants. (Danielle Parhizkaran/USA TODAY NETWORK)

“He and I do talk. We do text,” Harbaugh said. “We’ve maintained a really great relationship. He’s one of my very favorite people in the world. It’s not like you don’t talk to guys on things like that. And certainly we have.”

“We’ll just have to see where it all goes, what’s best for him, what’s best for the Giants.”

While the Giants have to see where it goes with Beckham, they know for sure Manning is staying in retirement.

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Ryan Canfield is a digital production assistant for Fox News Digital.