Swarthmore College Athletics

A decorated athlete and accomplished statesman, Alan Valentine '21 is the only known Swarthmore alumnus to win an Olympic gold medal. At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, he was a player-coach for the U.S. rugby team that upset the heavily favored French hosts by a 17-3 final score. At the College, Valentine earned a varsity letter in lacrosse and three in football from 1918 to 1920 as the team compiled a 15-6-1 record. He was also the first student-athlete in Swarthmore's history to receive a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, where he continued to play rugby and lacrosse. After teaching stints at Swarthmore and Yale, the 34-year-old Valentine became the youngest president in the University of Rochester's history in 1935. He served in this role for 15 years before leading the Marshall Plan, an economic recovery initiative for postwar Western Europe, in the Netherlands.