Volume 29 · Number 4 · Summer 2012
Sports
From Olympic gold to Aggie blue
UC Davis students have long been high achievers. A few even arrived on campus with Olympic medals on their list of accomplishments.
Cheryl Haworth is STRONG!
A new documentary by
UC Davis filmmaker Julie Wyman tells an elite athlete's story of triumph and defeat.
Her film, STRONG!, airs on PBS July 26, the day before the Olympic opening ceremonies.
With the Summer Olympics opening in London in late July, UC Davis fans can look back over nearly a century to relish Aggie connections in the Olympic Games.
Alumni who have succeeded on that world stage include Emily Azevedo '05, a bobsledder in the 2010 Winter Games; Linda Somers '83, J.D. '86, who competed in the marathon in 1996; and Colby "Babe" Slater '17, a member of the U.S. rugby team that won gold medals in 1920 and 1924. And hoping to continue that alumni legacy, former Aggie swimmer Scott Weltz '10 trained this spring for the June 25–July 2 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha, Neb.
And three Olympic gold medalists enjoyed their glory before attending UC Davis:
- Peter Snell '77 won three track and field gold medals for New Zealand as a middle distance runner in Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964), more than a full decade before enrolling as a 34-year-old freshman at UC Davis.
- Debbie Meyer, who attended UC Davis in 1972–73, captured gold medals in three freestyle swimming events in Mexico City in 1968.
- Cathy (Carr) West '77 won swimming gold medals in the 100 breaststroke and as part of the 400 medley relay in Munich in 1972. She transferred to UC Davis from the University of New Mexico in 1974 and — unlike Meyer and Snell — even competed for the Aggies as a member of the school's new varsity women's swim team.
Though their Olympic medals are colored the same, their experiences of representing their countries in the games varied greatly.
Peter Snell '77
In representing his native New Zealand at two Olympiads, Snell experienced the Summer Games as both an underdog and favorite. In 1960, some New Zealanders complained that it was a "waste of money" to send the world's 25th-ranked runner to Rome.
But Snell proved his doubters wrong, winning his preliminary heat in the 800-meter run. In the quarterfinals, he finished second to the heavily favored Roger Moens of Belgium. He then bested Moens in the semifinals and again in the finals, setting an Olympic record in the process.
Four years later in Tokyo, Snell returned as the favorite to win the 800, having set the world record in the event the previous year. Snell won the gold in that event and in the 1,500-meter.
Snell literally and figuratively took a long route to UC Davis. He had worked in public relations for a tobacco company during the 1960s. When his employer sent him to England, he audited a few university courses and discovered a fondness for exercise science that led him to UC Davis, where acclaimed exercise physiologist Jack Wilmore was an associate professor. Despite not having the equivalent of a high school diploma, Snell graduated from the university in three years, earning a degree in a customized "human performance" major.
He subsequently earned his doctorate from Washington State University, then accepted a fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he remains today as an associate professor in the internal medicine department.
Cathy (Carr) West '77
Originally from New Mexico, West was an admitted long shot to make the U.S. swim team. However, she had performed well at the American Short-Course Championships in spring 1972, attracting attention from the na-tional aquatics community.
Oddly, it was a missed cut at that summer's Olympic Trials in Chicago that made the Munich games a reality in West's mind. In the 200-meter breaststroke, she finished fourth at 2:44.72 — just two-hundredths of a second behind Barbara Mitchell.
"People asked me if I was so bummed out that it was hard to collect myself," said West. "But really, it was a huge confidence-booster to me." She went on to qualify for the 100 breaststroke.
While the missed cut in Chicago gave West a morale boost, a missed bus in Munich nearly cost her a chance at glory. On the day of the final race, she slept through a teammate's knock on her door at the Olympic Village dormitory. West took a cab to the Swimming Hall only to discover that she had no Deutschmarks with which to pay the fare. The generosity of British tourists passing by allowed her to arrive in time for the race, where she upset the Soviet Union's Galina Prozumenshchikova for the gold medal.
West says her fondest memories of her Olympic experience were the opening ceremonies, being greeted by more than 80,000 fans; and walking around the Olympic Village, where she enjoyed meeting athletes from other countries.
However, the friendly atmosphere in the Village was altered by the infamous "Black September" terrorist killings of 11 Israeli athletes and officials. "People were not walking around the Village after that. It brought the outside world into the Games, which hadn't happened like that before."
That fall, she started at the University of New Mexico, then moved to California to attend UC Davis on the advice of her sister, a UC San Francisco student.
West was coaxed back to the pool while at UC Davis, mostly because she found the aquatics community a great place to make friends. In fact, West was the student representative on the interview committee that hired current swimming coach Barbara Jahn. Today, West is a teacher at Pioneer Elementary School in Davis. This past spring, she was a Picnic Day Parade marshall.
Debbie Meyer
Meyer was one of the most established names in swimming by the time she arrived at Mexico City in 1968. Just 16, she held more than a dozen world records, including those she set at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg the year before.
Nonetheless, Meyer's past success did not guarantee Olympic gold. On the day she left for Mexico, she tripped on some construction work in a hotel parking lot and sprained her ankle. "I hobbled through the opening ceremonies, let's put it that way," Meyer recalls.
Fortunately for Meyer, the swimming competition took place near the end of the 16-day Olympic schedule. She won gold in all three of her events — the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle races — becoming the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals in one Olympics. Meyer claims she was never worried about whether the ankle would prevent her from winning. "I was 16; I wasn't thinking," she recalled. "I knew I could work through pain because you work through pain every day when you practice."
After the Olympics, Meyer enrolled at UCLA but did not enjoy the Southern California culture. She moved back to the Sacramento area and attended UC Davis in 1972–73. She left before her senior year, mostly due to her extensive travel commitments.
Meyer later coached at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and Sacramento State. When the Hornets dropped their swimming program in 1992, Meyer opened a swim school in Carmichael the following year. Although she now lives and coaches in Truckee, the Debbie Meyer Swim School still operates under her son Colin's watch.
What about their medals?
Snell has one of his medals on display at the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. The other two were stuffed in a box until his wife insisted on displaying them in a cabinet. Meyer keeps her three medals handy, in case she needs to show them at speaking engagements. West prefers to keep her medals in a safe deposit box, bringing them out when she presents them to her students or to a community group.
Snell said he is at least as proud of his academic record as he is of his Olympic success, since he was arguably less likely to earn a university degree than to win the gold medal in the 800: "We achieve excellence in sports because we have a high-achiever personality. That doesn't go away when your sport is over."