Name Fred Tootell Role Olympic athlete | Education Bowdoin College | |
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Died September 29, 1964, Kingston, Rhode Island, United States Olympic medals Athletics at the 1924 Summer Olympics – Men's hammer throw | ||
Frederick Delmont "Fred" Tootell (September 9, 1902 – September 29, 1964) was an American athlete who competed mainly in the hammer throw. He competed for the United States in the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris in the hammer throw where he won the gold medal.
Career and legacy
Though he attended medical school at Tufts University for a brief period of time, he enrolled at Bowdoin College before the 1924 Olympics. After Irish-born athletes had won the gold in the hammer throw for the United States for five straight Olympics, Tootell became the first American-born athlete to do so. Beginning in 1925, he began a 30-year-long coaching career at the University of Rhode Island. Today, the school's aquatic sports complex bears his name, and his home, the Tootell House, in Kingston, Rhode Island is on the National Register of Historic Places.