The Little Giant

Vernon Pizer An Excerpt from Glorious Triumphs: Athletes Who Conquered Adversity

Sammy Lee learned early in life that he had two strikes against him. He was only four when he found out about the first one. The place was Los Angeles and the time was 1924. A half-dozen years earlier Soonkee Lee, his father, had arrived from his native Korea to study engineering, trying diligently to stretch his limited resources to pay his tuition and still provide the basic necessities for his wife and two daughters. It was, at best, a tight squeeze, but after Sammy was born in 1920, it was clear to the elder Lee that he must forsake his studies to devote full time to caring for his growing family. Reluctantly abandoning his dream of becoming an engineer, he began hawking vegetables on the street. Long hours and frugal living enabled Soonkee Lee in time to save enough to open a small shop. He took Sammy with him as he walked about Los Angeles searching for a suitable vacant store. He found many, but he also found something else the unreasoning, blind prejudice against Orientals that was common there half a century ago. Time after time landlords turned him away rudely with no attempt to conceal the bigotry that motivated them to refuse renting to him. For Soonkee Lee it was not a new story, but it was Sammys first cruel lesson in what it means to be discriminated against because of ones ancestry. Clinging to his faith in his adopted land despite the rebuffs, Soonkee Lee eventually found his shop and established his business, but the lesson Sammy learned at his fathers side would stay with him forever. It was not the last time Sammy would encounter prejudice, but it was his most important exposure to that sickness, because out of it there developed in him a competitive spirit, a determination never to become an easy, vulnerable target for the bigots of the world. He took to heart his fathers admonition that the best defense against intolerance was to obtain the education that would lift him out of reach of those mired in their own stupid biases. So he applied himself in school, becoming an excellent student. It was several years before Sammy recognized the second strike against him. From his earliest days in grammar school, his drive to succeed had not been confined to the classroom alone it had also extended to the playing fields. He did well in all games and sports, but especially football, his favorite. By the time he reached junior high, he had

become an outstanding linebacker quick, smart, and aggressive. But when he moved up to high school and went out for the freshman team, he discovered something odd that happened during the summer since graduation from junior high all the others had gained inches and pounds while he alone had remained the same size. He stood among the other tryouts like a young sapling half-hidden in a grove of tall trees. At only five feet one and three-fourths inches a height he was never to exceed he was simply no match for the others. The coach had no choice, but to drop him from the squad, despite his demonstrated ability on the gridiron. In the past, the youngster had experienced rejection on racial grounds; now he also experienced it on physical grounds and the twin burden was crushing. Angered and frustrated, he looked for a place where he could shut his problems out of his mind, even if for only a little while. He found what he sought in the neighborhood public swimming pool and more and more he turned to it as his place of refuge. It is curious that Sammy should have chosen that pool as his sanctuary because racial prejudice was one of its operating principles. Though it was a public facility, it was open to nonwhites only on certain days of the week. This was an affront that Sammy put up with only because here, he thought, at least his small size would not be a handicap. It was not until later that he would learn that in this he was mistaken. Ironically, the bias that barred Sammy from the pool on certain days now came to his aid as he tried to teach himself to use the diving board properly. Because everyone at the pool on nonwhite days was a victim of identical intolerance. There was a bond of sympathy and understanding linking them. It was this that prompted a black youth, seeing Sammys awkward attempts on the board, to come over to explain some of the basic techniques. This casual encounter was significant because the other youth was a skilled diver and the meeting flourished into friendship that developed a comfortable coach-pupil pattern. With his instinct for athletics and his willingness to practice diligently, Sammy quickly shed his beginners awkwardness. After several weeks he was performing respectable forward running somersaults and working up to one-and-ahalf and other more demanding maneuvers. After several months, he was diving fully as well as the older boy who had been his teacher. Impelled by the urge to prove himself in competition, Sammy tried out for his high school swimming team and earned a place on the squad. Under the watchful guidance of the experienced coaching staff, his performance improved markedly. He learned how to use the power of his

muscular legs to propel himself from the board in great soaring leaps, and use the quick reflexes in his wiry torso to twist in rapid, crisp rolls and snaps before cutting the water cleanly. By his senior year, he had matured into a strong, graceful performer bringing in his share of victories in scholastic competitions. None of these victories had come cheaply because he had found that the nonwhite syndrome of the neighborhood pool also extended to swimming meets, though perhaps not as openly and blatantly. He had also discovered that his short, squat physique was as much an obstacle on the competitive circuit as earlier it had been on the gridironBecause his race and build were at odds with what tradition-minded judges envisioned, to gain his victories Sammy had to win by a margin overwhelming enough to make the officials accept the unconventional. Winning in spite of odds stacked against him, the little KoreanAmerican attracted growing attention in scholastic diving circles around Los Angeles. He attracted the attention of Jim Ryan, probably the most successful and least likeable professional coach in the business. Relentlessly demanding of the athlete he coached, he squeezed from them the very best they were capable of giving. Ryan must have liked what he saw in Sammy Lee because he told him gruffly he would coach him. Under Ryans stern eye, faithfully following his pithy explicit instructions, Sammy practiced interminably over the whole spectrum of dives, from the standards to show pieces. It was a body-punishing schedule that left him drained, both demanded. But it bore fruit. His performance took on new sparkle, crackled with greater authority and precision.

The grind of the practice was not the only stress he was under. He had entered college and was determined to do well, not alone as a matter of pride, but also because he meant to qualify for admission to medical school. To be both jock and brain simultaneously takes more than just talent for each, it also takes the kind of stamina, concentration and sacrifice that Sammy displayed. He forged ahead steadily, both as athlete and as scholar. In 1940, entering the junior division of the Amateur Athletic Unions national diving championships, Sammy won the title and immediately entered the open

division, coming fourth against the older, more experienced contestants. Clearly, the Yellow Peril the nickname he had acquired in aquatic circles-had emerged as a power on the American diving scene. Sammy Lee was a senior at college and that year, the AAU Championships were held at two different sites: the springboard events at New London Connecticut, and the towed events at Columbus, Ohio. At New London, Sammy was brilliant on the springboard crown. Firmly in his grasp the first nonwhite to do so. A week later, in Columbus, he was again superb daring, confident and letter-perfect on the high tower. The national title fell to him, giving him possession of the two most important US diving championships. The following month, he entered medical school in southern California. All in all, it had been quite a year for the little Korean-American. In June 1944, he was granted the medical degree he had worked so hard to earn. Simultaneously, he was commissioned first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps and was assigned to intern in a Los Angeles hospital. He immersed himself in his hospital work because merely to be a doctor was not enough for him; he insisted on becoming a topnotch doctor, so he devoted himself to absorbing everything that the hospital could teach him. For two years, he remained away from swim meets. Then, in 1948, the lure of the Olympics began to dig at him irresistibly. What was especially tantalizing to him was that no American of Oriental ancestry had ever won the Olympic diving title. Deciding to make the attempt, Sammy plunged into an intensive conditioning program to regain his form. Then, he entered the American team trials and earned a place in the US squad. Sammy Lee turned out to be unbeatable that day. His timing and rhythm were flawless, his dives crisp and soaring, daring, but beautifully controlled. The spectators knew, even before the judges made it official, that he had won the gold medal. At five feet and one and three-fourths inches, he was by far the smallest of the contestants, but on that day, he became the giant among the worlds divers. Then, three years after his triumph in London, by then Major Lee, was persuaded into joining the US swimming team for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinski. There, he put on a virtuoso exhibition, capped by a thrilling three and a half running somersault, his trademark. He succeeded in doing what no diver before him had done he won the Olympic gold medal for the second time.

Once shunned for his Oriental heritage and scoffed at because of his diminutive build, Sammy Lee returned to a heros welcome. The irony of his tumultuous reception was not lost on him, but he responded with characteristic graciousness, dignity and modesty. He had always been his own man in adversity; he remained his own man in success. Despite what the tape measure may have read little Sammy Lee was a giant.