Forgotten athlete honored by school
longmont » Eddie Eagan’s name is unfamiliar to most Longmont residents, but it shouldn’t be. Eagan is the onlyperson to win gold in both the summer and winter Olympics (for boxing and bobsled, respectively), and he was a graduate of Longmont High School.
Eagan graduated in 1916. On Friday, his great-nephew Robert Eagan presented the school with an Olympic trophy that was given to his dad, Eddie’s nephew, in 1983 by the Olympic Hall of Fame.
There’s no mention of Eagan on the school’s Wall of Fame because all of his accomplishments came after graduation. According to principal Rick Olsen, Eagan went to the University of Denver and then to Yale. There, hew on a national heavyweight boxing title. “In 1920, he was onthe Olympic team for boxing and won a gold at Antwerp,” Olsen said. “In 1932, he got on the U.S. four-man bobsled team, and they won gold.”
Eagan, who was born in 1897, died in 1967 just short of his 70th birthday. Olsen plans to put together a dedication to Eagan at the school featuring the trophy and any other memorabilia that they receive. Eagan served in both World Wars in noncombative roles.
In 1927, hemarried Peggy Colgate, an heiress to the Colgate-Palmolive fortune. When her father died three years later, the pair inherited $140 million. That allowed for a luxurious lifestyle and, partly as a result, his accomplishments didn’t end in his later years. In 1949, he set the record for circumnavigating the globe by commercial aircraft (it took him six days, pre-jet). Times-Call