Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Gold For Kareem

TigerBlog got an email yesterday with a take on his trivia question from yesterday.

If you recall, TB pointed out that there are two Princetonians who have won NCAA championships and Olympic gold medals - Caroline Lind in rowing and Jed Graef in swimming. TB also mentioned that Graef won his gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Games, the same ones where Bill Bradley won gold in men's basketball.

And then this was the question:
Since you seem to like this kind of stuff, here's one for you. Who was the third Princetonian honored for winning gold at the '64 Olympics besides Jed Graef and Bill Bradley? Hint: It's sort of a trick question.

TB emailed back looking for the answer, but he hasn't found it out yet. It's an outstanding question.

TB used to have a poster from the Tokyo Olympics that was signed by all of the Princetonians who were there. In all, there were five Princeton athletes at those Games: Graef, Bradley, John Allis (three-time Olympian in cycling), Frang Anger (fencing) and Seymore Cromwell (silver medal in double sculls).

The poster that TB had was also autographed by the U.S. team doctor, Harry McPhee, the longtime Princeton doctor whose son happens to be John McPhee. TB gave the poster to John a long time ago.

So what was the answer?

The summer continues to roll along, and it won't be long before Princeton's fall teams return to campus and begin practice and eventually games. It's all just a few weeks away.

In the meantime, this continues to be a big-time summer for Princetonians who continue to compete internationally.

So far this summer, Princeton has had current athletes and alums achieve great success in sports like volleyball, water polo, basketball, field hockey, fencing, rowing and hockey. If TB has missed anyone, he apologizes.

This past weekend Princeton rowers earned five medals at the World U-23 Championships, held in Sarasota, Florida. Interestingly, they represented four different countries - the U.S., Great Britain, Ireland and Norway.

You can read about Princeton's performance in Florida HERE.

Princeton is also well-represented at the current Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru. In fact, the Tigers produced a gold medal already.

Kareem Maddox, a 2011 graduate, helped the U.S. team to the men's basketball 3x3 championship. The Americans went 2-3 in the preliminary rounds but came back to beat two of the teams it lost to as it won the gold.

The U.S. lost to Brazil by one and Argentina and Puerto Rico by two points each. Once in the semifinal, the U.S. bounced back to beat Brazil 21-12 as Maddox scored five. He had four more in the 21-19 win over Puerto Rico in the final. He shot 5 for 6 from the field in those two games.

TB didn't see the games, but he figures you can add in some pretty good defense as well. Maddox was always a great defender and in fact was the 2011 Ivy Defensive Player of the Year.

The sport of 3x3 basketball will be in the Olympics next year.

In addition to Maddox, Princeton is also represented by, among others, Kathleen Sharkey in field hockey. The U.S. team captain did not score in her team's first game Monday, but then again her team didn't need her to, as the Americans defeated Mexico 5-0.

Day 1 was a day of blowouts, as the four winning teams - the U.S., Argentina, Canada and Chile - won by a combined 30-0.

In yesterday's field hockey results, it was the U.S. men 16, Peru 0. Yikes.

For today, the women play their second game, this time against Chile at noon in Peru (1 Eastern time).

The Pan Am Games have a great website for results in all sports. You can see it HERE.

Congratulations to Kareem Maddox on the gold medal.

Will it be Princeton's only one of these games? Stay tuned.

1 comment:

D '82 said...

TB, I have two guesses as to "the third Princetonian honored for winning gold at the '64 Olympics," recognizing that we've already been told that it's "sort of a trick question."

My first guess is Robert Webster, who won the 10-meter platform diving at both the 1960 Rome and 1964 Tokyo Olympics and then became the diving coach at Princeton from 1966 to 1975.

My second guess is Leslie Bush, a native Princeton townie who also won gold in diving at the Tokyo Olympics. She won at the tender age of 17. Two of her coaches in her remarkable development were University coaches Bob Clotworthy and Bob Snyder, who taught her on campus using the high board at Dillon Pool after the men were finished with practice.