Triumph of an Olympian

Competitors from different countries, the two men showed the world the true meaning of sportsmanship

- Doug Small

Sorting through the mail one morning in the spring of 1987 in his comfortable home outside Austin, Texas, Duncan McNaughton spotted a letter from the wife of his old friend Bob Van Osdel. Pulling the note from the envelope, he began to read, and sadness crept over him. Bob, his friend for half a century, was dead at the age of 77.

With the note was an obituary from the Los Angeles Times. As Duncan, then 76, read the headline—Trojan Olympian Offered Costly Advice—his grief turned to anger. They’ve got it all wrong, he thought. As he sat down to write a note of condolence to Bob’s wife, his mind went back to the day when two young men took each other on in a heart-stopping high-jump competition and cemented a friendship that lasted a lifetime.

IT WAS 31 JULY, a balmy afternoon in Los Angeles and the first full day of competition at the 1932 Summer Olympic Games.

Arriving at the high-jump pit with 18 other keyed-up jumpers from 11 different countries, Duncan and Bob exchanged a quick, amiable greeting and went their separate ways to limber up.

For more than two years, the two men had been members of coach Dean Cromwell’s fabled University of Southern California (USC) Trojan track team. School work commanded most of their time, but the two practised together two or three times a week and often spent weekends together at various meets. Almost inevitably, they had become friends.