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Olympics

Gold medal from 1984 Olympics
Winter 2019

Good as gold

They came from behind—counting their strokes, catching the Belgian boat, and gliding to gold on California’s Lake Casitas.

Theirs was the first Olympic gold medal in men’s double sculls for the U.S. since 1932. To date, it remains the last medal of any kind for America in that event.

While they took first place, neither had been selected by U.S. Olympic coaches.

Rowing partners Paul Enquist (’77 Mech. Eng.) and Brad Lewis earned their spot at the 1984 Summer Olympics by challenging—and besting—the national team.

“We didn’t take no for an answer,” says Enquist, who—along with Lewis—was cut from the Olympic selection camp.

About three … » More …

Talk Back
Winter 2017

Talkback for Winter 2017

 

Olympics and art

The first letter in the [August] “Talkback” on the Olympics struck a special note for me. We live in San Gabriel, and prior to 1984, I’d submitted my name as a volunteer for the Olympics.

Imagine my surprise when I got an acceptance letter and was assigned to Santa Anita track…just 3 miles away! It was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. I was an asker for the jumping and gated activities.

After I retired from the Pasadena city schools, I became a docent for the Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens. I took kindergarten and … » More …

Talk Back
Fall 2017

Talkback for Fall 2017

 

Even more Olympic connections

In “Cougs at the Olympics” in the Talkback section of our Fall ’16 issue, Don Brust asked the question regarding what other Cougs had the opportunity to go to the Olympic Games. Another response:

In 1978 the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) moved its headquarters from New York to Colorado Springs. At that time I was working there for CPAs Haskins & Sells. The USOC’s business manager/controller did not want to relocate, so I decided to apply and was lucky enough to be selected. The end result was that I was able to attend two Pan American Games (San Juan … » More …

Talk Back
Summer 2017

Talkback for Summer 2017

 

Waste not

I enjoyed reading “Waste Not” in the Spring ’17 issue of Washington State Magazine. I learned a lot and was especially intrigued by the part about microwave sterilization and preservation.

I thought I would clarify to readers that, while composting food waste still releases greenhouse gasses, if treated properly with balanced carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, aeration, and moisture, decaying food waste favors carbon dioxide and releases less methane than that same material would in a landfill, where moisture, aeration, and the rot recipe are far from optimal. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Animal husbandry is the missing … » More …

Winter 2016

Surreal Rio

By making it to the Olympics, there comes the realization that you are one of a special few.

 

It was at the Closing Ceremony, among thousands of her fellow athletes and cheering spectators inside Maracanã Stadium, when the realization of her achievement after years of rigorous practice hit Lisa Roman ’12.

“When you’re there with all the athletes, you realize, ‘Wow, I am an Olympian.’”

 

Roman, who rowed for Washington State from 2010 to 2012, was a member of Team Canada’s women’s eight boat that finished fifth at the Olympics in Rio.

Speaking from London, Ontario, the site of the Canadian National Training … » More …

Pioneer 10/11 Mission Patch
Fall 2016

Talkback for Fall 2016

 

Another close encounter with outer space

Fifty years ago, 1966, I graduated from WSU and then went to work for NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. I spent the next 40 years exploring our solar system. WSU gave me the “right stuff” to be a part of sending a “spacecraft where no spacecraft had gone before.” I was in the Pioneer Project and we sent the first spacecraft to the outer planets, Pioneer-10, to fly beyond the orbit of Mars through the asteroid belt and encounter Jupiter in 1973. After the flyby of Jupiter, Pioneer-10, on an escape trajectory from the Sun … » More …

Olympian and WSU Hall of Famer Lee Orr
Summer 2016

Racing into history

The Olympic moment of WSU Hall of Famer Lee Orr

As rain fell in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in 1936, Lee Orr, a Washington State College student not yet 20 years old, didn’t realize the magnitude of the events surrounding him.

“I was pretty young and didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

It had been over seven decades since Orr raced against Jesse Owens at the ’36 Olympic Games when, in 2008, the soft-spoken Orr recalled his Olympic experience in Germany.

A year after the interview, Orr passed away; however, the story he told lives in sports lore.

Owens’s four gold medals and his … » More …

WSC Olympic boxing gold medal winner Pete Rademacher '53 carries the U.S. flag in the closing ceremony of the 1956 Summer Games
Summer 2016

Pete Rademacher

Long before the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team’s Miracle on Ice, there was Pete Rademacher ’53.

The tenacious 6-foot-1 boxing heavyweight stunned the world during the 1956 summer games with his one-round knockout of previously undefeated Soviet champion Lev Moukhine for the gold medal.

The decisive, triple-knockdown bout in Melbourne, Australia transformed Rademacher into a Cold War hero and international inspiration. Hungarian athletes, still reeling from the Soviet invasion of Budapest just a few weeks earlier, joined the U.S. team in hoisting Rademacher onto their shoulders in celebration.

“It was very emotional,” recalls Rademacher, 87, now a retired business executive living in Ohio and the … » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Summer 2016

Briefly noted

 

Immortal of the Cinder Path: the Saga of James “Ted” Meredith

By John Jack Lemon ’78

2015

In this first tribute to early twentieth-century athlete James “Ted” Meredith, Lemon introduces a mostly forgotten, and sometimes heartbreaking, story of a world-record breaking runner, Olympic gold medalist, and all-around sports star.

 

Hope

By Suzanne D. Lonn ’67

WestBow Press: 2014

This third novel from Lonn explores family dynamics through adoption, obsessive compulsive disorders, and salvation. Hope is a sequel to Lonn’s earlier novel The Game of Hearts (2003 Exlibris). She also published Mixed Nuts in 2008, a novel about elder abuse, alcoholism, depression, and dementia.

» More …

WSU Olympians thumb
Summer 2016

WSU Olympic medalists

More than 50 of Washington State University’s top athletes have made it to the Olympics since 1920. Here’s a look at the eight who took home medals:

Paul Enquist ’77, rowing; Los Angeles 1984, gold; USA. Part of the two-man double sculls team that edged out Belgium to become the first U.S. team in two decades to win gold in an Olympic rowing event.

Mike Kinkade ’96, baseball; Sydney 2000, gold; USA. Played third base for Team USA which beat perennial powerhouse Cuba in a three-hit shutout for the gold medal.

Peter Koech ’86, 3,000-meter steeplechase; Seoul 1988, silver; Kenya. Kenya nearly swept this event, taking gold and … » More …