UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Take a look back at the earliest Penn Staters to participate in the Olympic Games, courtesy of the late John Lucas, professor emeritus of exercise and sport science in Penn State’s Department of Kinesiology, who also was head track and field coach at Penn State from 1962 to 1968. A noted Olympic historian and author, Lucas documented and researched a substantial body of work on the modern Olympics, which he donated to the University Archives in 2010. He died in 2012. The following is condensed from his work, “Penn State at the Olympic Games, 1904-1976.”
As far as we know, no one at the first two Olympic Games — in Athens, 1896, and Paris in 1900 — was then or later associated with Penn State. However, in the summer of 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, Nathanial John “Nate” Cartmell won silver medals in the 100- and 200-meter dashes (11.0 and 21.9 seconds). At the time, Cartmell was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, but years later, from 1923 to 1933, he served as Penn State’s track and cross-county coach, and was the first to gain an identity for Penn State as a national track and field powerhouse.
In the summer of 1908, Cartmell sailed with the American Olympic team for London, and this time won a fourth-place in the 100-meter final, a bronze medal in the 200 meters, and a gold in the medley mile relay (3:29.4) with his teammates. He went pro before beginning a long career as a winning coach at various colleges, including Penn State.
On the 1908 Olympic team was another remarkable athlete — Leander “Lee” James Talbot, of Penn State’s class of 1913. Hailing from Kansas City, Talbott broke the world interscholastic hammer-throwing record while in high school, and at the 1908 games he performed well but came away with fifth place in the discus (157 feet, 9 ¼ inches). At the time he was a student at Cornell University, but in the fall of 1909 he enrolled in Penn State’s College of Agriculture and went on to glory as a heavyweight wrestling champ, weight-throwing champion, and new American record-holder in the hammer with a throw of 173 feet, 6 inches.
The 1920 Olympic games, held in Antwerp, Belgium, showed two superb sprinter/middle-distance men representing Penn State and the U.S. — Harold Earl Barron and Marion Lawrence “Larry” Shields, both of the class of 1922. Barron was a fine high hurdler and placed silver in the 110-meter hurdles. Shields was a star miler and captain of the Penn State team. He took the bronze in the metric mile, and then with his team the gold in the 3,000-meter team race. Shields was also well known for his sense of true sportsmanship.
Paris’ summer Olympic games of 1924 included eight Penn Staters, more than any other American university and some of the Nittany Lions finest athletes: John “Blondy” Romig, class of 1921; Schuyler “Sky” Enck, class of 1924; Katsutoshi Naito, class of 1924; Charlie Moore, class of 1924; Alan B. Helffrich, class of 1925; Carl “Rags” Madera, class of 1926; William J. Cox, class of 1928, and Arthur Addison Studenroth, who had been a student from 1919 to 1921. All but Naito (a wrestler) and Madera (a boxer), were track stars.
Helffrich took home a gold medal for the Americans in the 4 × 400-meter relay team event, which placed a new world record; Studenroth took a silver with the cross-country team; and Cox, Enck and Naito received bronze medals.
In 1948, the games were held in London, and nine Penn Staters took part: Walter Bahr, soccer, who coached at Penn State in the 1970s; Bill Bonsall, gymnastics, class of 1949; Lou Bordo, gymnastics, class of 1943; Barney Ewell, track, class of 1947; Herm Goffberg, track, class of 1942; Bill Koll, wrestling, who coached at Penn State 1964-78; Ray Sorensen, gymnastics, class of 1948; Curt Stone, track, class of 1947; and the legendary Eugene "Gene" Wettstone, who was a gymnastics coach, manager and judge at the games and at the University (1938-1976), and went on to represent Penn State in four more Olympic contests.
Ewell won three medals that year — gold in the 4x100-meter relay and silvers in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes — the most medals collected by a Penn Stater in a single Olympics.
Since 1948, Penn State has sent athletes to each event except for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, where 65 countries did not participate. A school record 25 Penn Staters are currently representing their school and four countries at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, held Aug. 5-21.
The University Archives in the Penn State University Libraries currently is presenting an exhibit, “Expanding Horizons: Penn Staters in the Olympics,” through Dec. 16, which includes artifacts from the Olympic Games and celebrates the Penn Staters who have competed in both the summer and winter quadrennial contests since 1904.