THE SPORT OF ROWING practicing in New Haven that fall instead of starting medical school in Cleveland. “He thought for a minute and replied, ‘Well, that seems just a little farfetched, don’t you think? Let’s worry about that when . . . and if . . . it happens.’ “When it all came true, I had to call the dean back. He very kindly suggested putting off my entrance for a year, and that is what I initially decided to do until I learned that I was about to be drafted. “So I went over to the Yale Medical School, and they were happy to admit me immediately. “So starting in September 1956, I spent my mornings in class and my afternoons at Derby on the water with the crew. “On November 1, I left my med school classes entirely to go to Australia, and when I got back six weeks later, there was all this wining and dining . . . “The whole spring I was behind in my classes, and still the celebrations continued, and I finally decided this was not the way I wanted to dedicate myself to my new career. “Eventually, I decided to start over the following September back at Western Reserve, so I am one of the few doctors who had two first-years in medical school.” “Just last April [2005], in a ceremony in Washington, DC, Mary Morgan, the widow of Dr. Benjamin Spock, 1924 Yale Olympic Crew, presented me with the first Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine for my career-long work on arrest and reversal treatment of coronary artery disease.”2707 Es Esselstyn did not mention his also being awarded a Bronze Star as an army surgeon in Vietnam. In Memoriam The crew has now celebrated fifty years since their rows on Ballarat, and the coach 2707 Esselstyn, personal correspondence, 2005 Gilder Boathouse, Yale University Jim Rathschmidt and four of the oarsmen have passed on. Fortunately, their memory remains clear and bright in the minds of their teammates and their noble adversaries in the U.S. and in the Olympics. Jim Rathschmidt (1913-1992) The New York Times, August 28, 1992: “James S. (Jim) Rathschmidt, a man from Princeton who coached a Yale crew to an Olympic Gold Medal in 1956, died on Tuesday at his home in Boynton Beach, Fla. He was 79 years old, and the cause of death was a heart attack, said Kay Rathschmidt, his wife. “Genial Jim, as he was known to his oarsmen, was born and brought up in Princeton, N.J., and though he never attended Princeton University, he became Lightweight Coach there in 1935. He was appointed Head Coach at Yale in 1951, and in nineteen years there his crews won three Eastern Sprint Championships. He returned 742
