Korean Students Meet Legendary Diver

Forget champagne. To celebrate the weekend-long visit of the Korean American diving legend Sammy Lee, Harvard’s head diving coach brought out a case of Sammies, the eponymous floppy, plastic towels named after Lee that divers use to dry off between dives.

Student athletes, trainers and coaches lined up after an early Saturday morning practice to get an autograph on their Sammy and a bit of jocular advice from the Olympic gold medalist and medical doctor.

The spunky octogenarian, who was the first Asian American to win a gold medal in the Olympics in 1948, spoke on Friday night in Boylston Hall to kick off the Korean Association’s semester-long series celebrating the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to the U.S. The student organization also arranged Lee’s visit with the diving team.

Lee, whose father immigrated to the United States in 1905, is one of the few remaining direct descendants of the first wave of Korean immigrants who arrived in Hawaii as plantation laborers beginning on January 13, 1903, a century ago today.

Although Lee trained and attended college in Los Angeles, Harvard’s pool brought back memories of a crucial step on his road toward Olympic diving gold.

Representing Occidental College, Lee competed in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s 1942 diving nationals, held at the University pool complex currently known as the Malkin Athletic Center. As several divers upped the ante with an increasing number of perfect scores, others fell apart under the tension.

It was then that Lee realized he had the mental composure necessary to win the gold.

“I knew that if I could withstand the pressure, I could make it to the Olympics,” he said.

Returning to Harvard 60 years later with two Olympic gold medals under his belt—he won the second in 1952—Lee regaled the audience in Fong auditorium Friday with stories and video clips from his legendary career.

The screen showed snatches of Lee as a young, muscular diver, and later as a coach and mentor to greats like Greg Louganis.

In several stories, he described the burden of being an immigrant’s son and an outsider. After announcing his candidacy for student body president in high school in the 1930s, for example, the vice-principal asked Lee to withdraw. In spite of his not having “a Chinaman’s chance,” according to the administrator, he won the presidency.

Lee’s father often told him to show Americans the “strength of his Korean heritage,” and as he repeated the advice to the audience, he choked back tears.

Lee said he has always been “perplexed” by some Koreans and Korean Americans’ obsession with the University. Last year, The Crimson reported on the national media storm that arose in South Korea after Sujean S. Lee ’03, a Korean American, was elected president of the Undergraduate Council.

“Harvard doesn’t make you famous. You make your school famous,” Lee said.

For the most part, however, Lee kept the audience laughing.

He offered an anecdote about how embarrassment turned to love. He met his wife Roz during a diving exhibition.

“My trunks fell off in mid-air, and it was love at first sight,” Lee said.

Upon viewing several rows filled with young Korean-American women, Lee urged them to sign up for one-on-one lessons in “CPR and chest compression.” Lee’s raunchy brand of humor, which he said could make Margaret Cho blush, was one of the highlights of the evening, according to some audience members.

“His humor was part of his fluency and was what made him seem so American,” said So-One K. Hwang ’05. “I’ve never seen that from a person from his generation.”

The Korean Association will sponsor several other events throughout the semester to celebrate the centennial, including a photo exhibit and a speaker series.

—Staff writer Sarah L. Park can be reached at slpark@fas.harvard.edu.