Jim McMillin sat in the fifth seat for the University of Washington eight at the 1936 Olympics. Off to a poor start in the Olympic final, the Huskies gradually crept up on the leaders, Germany and Italy and won the gold medal in the closest finish ever in the Olympic eights-less than a seat separated the first three boats. He briefly coached rowing at MIT, and worked there as a lab engineer on classified research, but later settled into a career with Boeing as an engineer, and lived for the last 47 years of his life on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
United States