Joe Angyal, representing the New York Athletic Club, rowed doubles at the 1948 Olympics with Art Gallagher. Angyal was hampered by being very small for a world-class rower. He won the 1942 and 1949 NAAO (National Association of Amateur Oarsmen) titles in single sculls, the 1941 NAAO association singles, and he and Gallagher won the 1948 NAAO double sculls title. Angyal dominated lightweight rowing in the United States, however, winning 22 national titles, most of them in the lightweights. He worked as a fireman for much of his career. Angyal joined the Marines and was a fighter pilot in World War II, flying 95 sorties. He was a reserve in the early 1950s, when he died tragically and quite young when his Navy jet went into a vertical dive at 22,000 feet and crashed into a sandbar on the coast of Long Island.