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Our Olympic Stories

Turning Maize to Gold

The history of U-M and the Olympics is partly a story of defiance — not only of monarchs but also of odds. More…

Our Olympic Stories

Turning Maize to Gold

The history of U-M and the Olympics is partly a story of defiance — not only of monarchs but also of odds. More…

Did You Know? U-M Olympic Facts

  • More than 200 U-M student-athletes and coaches have participated in the Olympics, representing 24 different countries.
  • Since 1900, U-M student-athletes and coaches have won 138 medals: 65 gold, 35 silver and 38 bronze.
  • Michigan has had medal winners in every Summer Olympics except 1896 and gold medalists in all but four.
  • Michigan student-athletes have won 65 gold medals, 35 silver medals and 38 bronze medals.  
  • If the University of Michigan were a country, it would qualify as the 19th most successful in Olympics medal history.
  • Six of the 24 swimmers on the U.S. 2012 team have U-M ties.
  • U-M student-athletes and coaches will represent nine different countries at the London games.
  • Twenty-seven U-M coaches, former athletes and administrators have served as coaches or managers of national teams.
  • Michigan is the only university whose athletic director, Bill Martin, served simultaneously as president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
  • Michigan student-athletes have won 121 Summer Olympic medals since 1900. 
  • U-M student-athlete Ralph Rose was named the nation's first Olympic flag bearer in 1908.
  • Alumnus Douglas Roby (’23) spent 34 years on the International Olympic Committee.  He played U-M football and baseball.
  • London 2012 Olympic track couple Jeffrey Porter and Tiffany (Ofili) Porter met at U-M.
  • William DeHart Hubbard ('27) was the first black American to win an individual gold medal – at the 1924 Games in Paris.
  • Garnet Ault was the first Michigan student-athlete to medal for a foreign country – bronze for Canada in 1928.
  • Michigan men's track and field athletes have won 14 Olympic gold medals.
  • Runner Jerome Singleton won the first Paralympic medals by a U-M athlete, capturing silver and gold in 2008.
  • Michigan's first female Olympian—and gold medalist—was swimmer Joan Spillane in the 1960 Games.
  • Swimming superstar Michael Phelps trained and coached at Michigan.
  • Michigan’s most Olympic appearances? Seven, by legendary swim Coach Jon Urbanchek.
  • In 1932, James Cristy and Rich Degener became U-M’s first varsity athletes to win individual medals in swimming and diving.
  • U-M volunteer coach and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps earned eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
  • Michael Phelps is also just three medals away from earning the most in Olympic history.
  • Student-athlete Peter Vanderkaay won swimming gold (and set a world record) in the 4x200m freestyle relay in 2004.
  • Student-athlete Alon Mandel set a new Israeli record in the 200m butterfly at the 2008 Games just days after his father's death.
  • Michigan swim coach Matt Mann coached the 1952 U.S. Olympic team that earned gold in Helsinki.
  • Alumna Micki King, (’65), won Olympic gold for diving in 1972 and is a member of the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
  • Brian Diemer's bronze in the 3000 meter steeplechase (1984) was U-M’s first medal in track and field for the U.S. since Eddie Tolan in ’32.
  • Canadian Andrew Hurd was the only Michigan swimmer to qualify for a non-U.S. Olympic team in 2004.
  • Michigan swimmer Tom Dolan appeared on a Wheaties box after taking gold in the 1996 Olympics.
  • 2012 Olympian Tyler Clary trained alongside Michael Phelps while attending the University of Michigan.
  • Marcia Jones Smoke (’60–’62) was U-M’s first medalist in kayaking, winning bronze in the 500 meter singles in 1964.
  • U-M alum Greg Barton (’83) became the first U.S. gold medal winner in kayaking in 1988.
  • Wolverine Steve Fraser won America’s first-ever gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1984.
  • Michigan wrestling coach Cliff Keen managed the U.S. wrestling team in 1948.
  • Coach Keen also served on the U.S. Olympic committee from 1928–52.
  • Student-athlete Sam Mikulak is competing in the London Games as U-M’s first U.S. Olympian in men’s gymnastics. 
  • Wolverine Syque Caesar represents Bangladesh at the 2012 Olympics, and is the country’s first gymnast at the games.
  • U-M assistant softball coach Jennifer Brundage won a gold medal in 2000 playing third base and left field for the U.S.
  • Ski jumper Walter Bietila was the first U-M student-athlete to participate in the Winter Olympics – in 1936.
  • Incoming Michigan law student Sada Jacobson won a bronze medal in the first Olympic competition in women's saber in 2008.
  • MaliVai Washington (’88-’89) became the first U-M tennis player to be selected for the U.S. Olympic team (1996).
  • Wolverine Jim Abbott pitched a complete game to lead the U.S. baseball team to a gold medal in 1988.
  • Alumnus Ralph Craig became U-M’s first Olympian in yachting in 1948 – 36 years after winning gold as a sprinter.
  • Hall of Fame baseball player Barry Larkin won silver with the 1984 U.S. Olympic team as a U-M student-athlete.
  • Eight of the nine U-M student-athletes who competed for the U.S. in the 1984 Summer Games came home with medals.
  • Hockey alums Willard Ikola and John Matchefts became U-M’s first Winter Games medalists, earning silver in 1956. 
  • Alum Betsey Armstrong (’05) won silver with the U.S. women’s water polo team in 2008. She competes again in London.
  • U-M freshman Tom Malchow was the youngest member of the U.S. men’s swimming team when he competed in 1996.
  • U-M student Diane Ratnik (’81) played for Canada’s Olympic volleyball teams in 1984 and 12 years later in 1996.
  • Wolverines Meryl Davis and Charlie Davis earned silver medals in ice dancing at the 2010 Winter Games.
  • Michigan basketball great Rudy Tomjanovich coached the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal in the 2000 Summer Games.
  • Sixteen of U-M Coach Dick Kimball’s divers became Olympians, winning four gold, four silver and one bronze medals.
  • Former U-M President Harold Shapiro was appointed to the USOC Board of Directors in Athens.
  • After helping U-M win an NCAA hockey title in 1964, Michigan alum Mel Wakabayaski coached Japan’s Olympic hockey team in 1980.
  • Alumnus Derya Büyükuncu, swimming for Turkey, is U-M's only six-time Olympic athlete.

Our Olympic Stories

Turning Maize to Gold

U-M has left its mark on the Olympics

By Kevin Brown

In 1908, King Edward VII of Great Britain, eldest son of Queen Victoria, was the most powerful man in the world, for he ruled a great empire.

And as the king surveyed the athletes parading past his reviewing stand to open the Olympic Games that year, it was expected that each country’s standard-bearer would dip his nation’s flag to honor the monarchy.

But U-M gold medal shot-putter Ralph Rose, who was the first Olympian to carry the flag on behalf of the United States team, was having none of that.

“ ‘This flag dips for no earthly king’ is the quote that was attributed to him,” says Greg Kinney, associate archivist at the U-M Bentley Historical Library. “For many years that became an American tradition,” one that continues today.

Since 1900, 211 Michigan student-athletes and coaches have participated in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, representing the U.S. and 23 other countries. As the Olympics return to London this summer, 26 current or former U-M student-athletes and their coaches will be on hand for the competition.

The history of U-M and the Olympics is partly a story of defiance — not only of monarchs but also of odds. It’s also a story of singular success and redemption. Michigan student-athletes have won 65 gold medals, 35 silver medals and 38 bronze medals. Based on overall performance, the university would qualify as the 19th most successful country in the history of the Olympics.

Former U-M volunteer assistant coach Michael Phelps trained at U-M for the 2008 Beijing Games and won a record-setting eight gold medals in swimming to set an Olympic record for individual accomplishment. Other U-M Olympians have achieved multiple gold medal Olympic victories as well.

“We have three sprinters — Archie Hahn in 1904, Ralph Craig in 1912 and Eddie Tolan in 1932 — who in one year won both the 100- and 200-meter races,” Kinney says. “Few other people have done it. We’re the only university with three.”

Another U-M standout Olympic athlete is William DeHart Hubbard, the first black American to win a gold medal in an individual Olympic event. Hubbard, by his junior year, had won Big Ten crowns in the 100-yard dash and the long jump, and made the U.S. Olympic team for the 1924 Paris Olympics.

After the long jump finals, DeHart trailed as he started down the runway for his final jump. In stride and gaining speed, he hit the takeoff board well and landed at 24 feet, 5-and-a-half inches, well beyond the field of challengers, and into the international limelight.

Michigan's first female Olympian — and gold medalist — was swimmer Joan Spillane in the 1960 Games. She won a gold medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. Former U-M swim coach Gus Stager, who was head of the U.S. swim team that year, saw Spillane become the first U-M woman gold medal winner as leadoff swimmer. Stager coached 21 U-M Olympians who won six gold and seven bronze medals. 

Former U-M Athletic Director Bill Martin, who served as president of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2002–04, points out that President Gerald Ford, a U-M alumnus, had a significant impact on our nation’s role in the modern Olympics Games.

After the U.S. performed below expectations at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Ford formed the President’s Commission on Olympic Sports. It recommended that a central organization could better coordinate amateur sport in the United States. Congress subsequently passed legislation that designated the U. S. Olympic Committee as head of amateur sports development.

Martin says the main thrust of his service on the USOC was reorganizing and streamlining the organization.

“It wasn’t that hard to run the Olympic Committee out of a cell phone from State and Hoover [streets in Ann Arbor]; I’d fly to Colorado Springs one day every two weeks,” he says, in the months leading to the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

“We did everything from financial to organizational reviews to personnel to dealing with performance drug challenges to fielding the team that represented the U.S. in Athens that won over 100 medals. It’s always an honor to serve your country in that capacity,” he says.

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Our Olympic Stories

William DeHart Hubbard

Leaping into History

Launching himself over the broad jump pit at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, U-M junior DeHart Hubbard landed firmly in the history books.

With his winning jump, Hubbard became the first black American to win an individual gold medal.  His historic leap came 20 years after the first African-American competed in the modern Olympics, which began in 1896.

Hubbard was one of four African-Americans on the 299-member U.S. Olympic team.

Hubbard was widely considered the greatest jumper prior to Jesse Owens’ arrival on the sports scene.  One expert described him as “a regular pinch of dynamite.”

Beginning in 1922, Hubbard won six consecutive AAU titles in the long jump.  He also earned NCAA titles for U-M in 1923 and ’25.

Hubbard returned to the Olympics in 1928, but finished a disappointing 11th in the long jump.

Hubbard came to U-M from his hometown of Cincinnati where, today, a bronze relief of the track great graces the city’s Riverfront Transit Center.

As a U-M student, Hubbard was active in the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.  He graduated from LSA in 1925.  He was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1979.

More about Hubbard:
Biography
Celebrating Black History Month: William DeHart Hubbard

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Our Olympic Stories

Jerome Singleton

‘World’s Fastest Amputee’

Alumnus Jerome Singleton isn’t one to hold back.

“I am the fastest amputee in the world.”

The College of Engineering graduate will appear in his second Paralympic Games following the Summer Olympics in London. And, as he did in Beijing in 2008, Singleton will face his nemesis: Oscar Pistorius, the South African double amputee known as the“Blade Runner.”

Singleton took home silver after Pistorius edged him by 0.03 seconds in the 100-meter dash.  But where Pistorius had Paralympic gold, Singleton earned a world title by beating his rival in the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships.  It was the first major loss for Pistorius in seven years.

Now, the showdown is set for London.

“It’s a big rivalry. Muhammad Ali had Joe Frazier. Larry Bird had Magic Johnson,” he told an interviewer. “Oscar Pistorius has Jerome Singleton.”

Singleton is a single amputee; he was born without a fibula in his right leg, which was amputated below the knee. He runs on a carbon blade prosthesis.

He transferred to U-M from Morehouse College as part of a dual degree program; he holds a bachelor’s degree in math and applied physics from Morehouse and a bachelor’s in industrial and operations engineering from U-M.

More about Singleton:
A Day in the Life: Jerome Singleton Jr. (Video)
Face to Face with Jerome Singleton (Video, CBS News)

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Our Olympic Stories

Micki King

Diving Olympian Micki King’s redemption

By Kevin Brown

The story of Micki King, who won a gold medal in diving in 1972 in Munich after breaking her arm at the 1968 Olympics, captivated many sports fans. Johnny Carson invited her to appear on his late-night television show. In front of cameras Carson took a diving lesson from King’s coach Dick Kimball, the longtime U-M diving coach.

Her story opens in the 1950s on Oakland County’s Cass Lake in Michigan. King and her family loved to spend summers there, and she loved to swim. Back in Pontiac, her parents signed her up to swim at the local YMCA — women were allowed to swim on two days each week — and King couldn’t wait.

“When I walked in there was this total consuming odor of chlorine, the place was antiseptic, I could see to the bottom of the pool. My first emotion is it’s boring – it’s square and clean and smells funny. That’s what really drove me to diving board on the end of the pool, I thought that was fun.”

King and her friends made up dives. “It wasn’t until I was 15 that one of the lifeguards introduced us to some of the formalities of diving,” she says.

In high school, King began competing and winning amateur competitions. Her mother encouraged her to attend U-M because of diving coach Kimball. The university didn’t have a women’s diving team, but Kimball worked with women students in the Ann Arbor Swim Club, who competed in AAU matches. “My folks realized this was the key to me getting better,” she recalls.

“From that first day he started telling me things I never heard before, like where to put your hands when you swing for your somersault. He was an expert,” she says.

King graduated from U-M in 1966. She pursued a career in the U.S. Air Force, which allowed her to train in Ann Arbor with Kimball for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

At those Olympics, she was leading the women’s diving competition when she prepared for her next to last dive.

“I just was tentative on it, I knew the minute I started walking on the board I was too cautious,” King says. “I realized that I was leaning back on my takeoff. That was going to put me close to the board. My dive was going to be subpar.

“To make it be a judgeable dive I had to put my arms up to slow my rotation down and extend,” she says. “I hit the board with my left arm.”

King says the irony is that this dive looked successful, and that only two of the seven judges spotted that she had hit the board. As she climbed from the pool, she was in pain and felt faint. Trainers iced the forearm and gave her smelling salts.

She wasn’t discouraged. “I said, ‘Let’s just hit this (final) dive and we’ll deal with the arm later. It was my signature dive so I was ready for it and eager for it, I knew this would win it for me,” she recalls.

But when she went to wrap her arms into a twist action, she wasn’t prepared for the pain and lost her concentration. “I landed the dive badly and I knew it, I have to climb out of the pool knowing I blew it,” King says. “Within 10 minutes they’re awarding the gold medal to someone else.” She learned the next day that her arm was broken.

The following summer, King was an Air Force lieutenant stationed in Los Angeles. She went to Long Beach to watch a national swimming-diving competition, and watched competitors she had defeated in past meets.

“Living with that mistake that cost me that medal was hard,” she says.

Kimball said he’d coach her again if she wanted to make a comeback. She did, training on her off-duty time, and returning to Ann Arbor to train with Kimball in the months leading up to the 1972 Olympics. She performed well and made it to the finals, but wasn’t in the lead as she was four years before.

“Coach Kimball said something I never heard him say before. He said, ‘If you’re behind a couple two-three points going into the last three dives, that’s OK.’ He had never given me permission to be behind.”

She says Kimball then pointed over her shoulder to the two teenagers from Sweden who were leading the competition, being interviewed on television. As they faced the questions, King chose to take a break and get something to eat.

Her first dive went well. For her second dive — in contrast to 1968 — King chose an easier reverse one-and-a-half tuck dive, which offered fewer points but was more likely to be successful. “I could have done it blindfolded,” she says.

Breaking the water after her final dive, King knew she had won the gold.

“I touched my arm on the bottom of the pool and said, ‘Yes! Yes!,’ then I popped up out of the water and looked over at Coach Kimball with his arms up in the air. My emotion was, ‘Wow, my dream has come true.’”

Now a retired Air Force captain in Lexington, Ky., King says she couldn’t have achieved her Olympic dream without U-M — which didn’t have a women’s program when she was a student — and Kimball.

“Michigan today is one of the few schools that fully complies with federal law (Title IX). Michigan has come full circle and I’m proud of that,” she says.

The cast in which King’s broken arm was set now is enshrined in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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Our Olympic Stories

Syque Caesar and Sam Mikulak

Roommates, gymnasts among U-M student-athletes competing in 2012 Olympics

By Kevin Brown

Typically on a Saturday, student roommates Sam Mikulak and Syque Caesar might hang out with friends, watch a movie on TV or play video games.

But come Saturday, the U-M Men’s Gymnastics Team teammates will be in London, competing in qualification rounds in hopes of advancing to the Olympic finals.

Mikulak will be competing for the United States team, while Caesar will compete as the first-ever Olympic gymnast representing Bangladesh. They are among 26 student-athletes and coaches on the U-M roster (compiled by the Athletic Department) for the 2012 London Olympics.

“Sam is a very calm competitor. The greater the pressure, the more relaxed he becomes,” says Kurt Golden, the head U-M gymnastics coach who also will be attending the London games as a U.S. team assistant. “Syque … it’s unique how much he studies gymnastics. He can tell you about every opponent. They’re both real good team guys,” Golden says.

Caesar, a fifth-year senior from Port St. Lucie, FL, already has competed twice for Bangladesh, winning that country’s first gold medal in an international gymnastics competition last December.

“I think for both of us it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Caesar says shortly before leaving Ann Arbor for London.

“I’m just glad he’s going to be there,” says Mikulak, a junior from Corona del Mar, CA “I’ll get to cheer him on. Having a little bit of Michigan there, having that support will be a comfort.”

Both of Mikulak’s parents were gymnasts. “They met at Cal Berkeley. My father went to the Olympic trials, my mother was on the national team,” he says. While he also played team sports growing up, Mikulak says he preferred gymnastics. “I was really competitive, I hated losing, when I had to rely on someone else to win the game. I found I thrived on having that solo motivation.”

Mikulak says training, about 20 hours per week in preparation for the games, has been going great. “I’m just ready for it to happen,” he says. “I’m excited. This is a whole new thing in my life, I want to meet as many athletes and hear the stories they tell. Maybe they can teach me things.”

For a recent training session on campus, Caesar wears a predominantly green Bangladesh team training uniform. “It was very difficult for me to get up this morning and wear these colors on campus,” he says, smiling. “But I’m really excited to represent the country, I couldn’t be happier.” He was encouraged to seek a spot on the team by his father. Both his parents are from Bangladesh.

Caesar says the prospect he and Mikulak will compete against each other really hasn’t come up. “It hasn’t changed much in terms of our relationship. We do talk about the collegiate season next year. Our goal is to win the national championship.”

While Sam and Syque list a handful of events they each feel they're particularly good at, both student-athletes say they excel at the parallel bars—which suggests the possibility of an exciting matchup in that event in the finals.

“I will be ecstatic if that happens,” Caesar says.

More about:
Syque Caesar
Sam Mikulak

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The U-M Roster for the 2012 London Olympics

Women's Basketball:

Krista Phillips, Canada, U-M letter winner 2007-10

Men's Gymnastics:

Syque Caesar, Bangladesh, U-M letter winner 2009, '11-12
Sam Mikulak, USA, U-M letter winner 2011-12

Women's Rowing:

Sarah Trowbridge, USA, U-M letter winner 2003-05
Janine Hanson, Canada, U-M letter winner 2003-06

Men's Rowing:

Tom Peszek, USA, men's club team alumnus 2007

Men's Swimming:

Derya Büyükuncu, Turkey, U-M letter winner, 1995-98
Tyler Clary, USA, U-M letter winner 2008-10
Charlie Houchin, USA, U-M letter winner 2007-10
Connor Jaeger, USA, U-M letter winner 2011-12
Michael Phelps, USA, U-M volunteer coach 2005-08
Davis Tarwater, USA, U-M letter winner 2003-06
Peter Vanderkaay, USA, U-M letter winner 2003-06
Mike Bottom, Serbia, men’s head coach, U-M coach 2008-current
Dr. Josh White, Barbados, coach, U-M assistant coach 2009-current
Mark Hill, Ireland, coach, U-M volunteer coach 2010-current
Bob Bowman, USA, men’s assistant coach, U-M coach 2004-08
Jon Urbanchek, USA, special assistant coach, U-M coach 1982-2004

Men's Track and Field:

Nate Brannen, Canada, U-M letter winner 2002-05
Jeff Porter, USA, U-M letter winner 2004-07
Nick Willis, New Zealand, U-M letter winner 2003-05
Jerome Singleton, USA, Paralympics, U-M alumnus (2011)

Women's Track and Field:

Geena Gall, USA, U-M letter winner 2006-09
Tiffany (Ofili) Porter, Great Britain, U-M letter winner 2006-09
Nicole (Edwards) Sifuentes, Canada, U-M letter winner 2005-08

Water Polo:

Betsey Armstrong, USA, U-M letter winner 2002-05

Wrestling (Greco-Roman):

Steve Fraser, USA, head coach, U-M letter winner 1978-80