John Sayre

At the 1959 Pan-American Games, the Lake Washington RC four of John Sayre, Ted Nash, Rusty Wailes, and Jay Hall easily won a gold medal. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Sayre was in almost the same boat, with Dan Ayrault replacing Hall, and the result was the same – they beat an Italian crew by almost three seconds to win the gold.

Sayre was a graduate of the University of Washington, class of 1958. He was a member of the Washington crew that beat the Soviet National Team in Moscow, in 1958, shortly after the Soviets, racing as Leningrad Trud Club, had bested the Huskies at the Henley Royal Regatta, the University of Washington’s first trip to that event.

Sayre later worked in several fields. He became the cast director for “Up with People,” and then was with the Jacques Cousteau Society, Pace Magazine, and the US Department of the Interior. He was also interested in salmon conservancy and help found several organizations which worked with Northwest tribes and federal agencies to help with the preservation of various local species. Sayre was inducted into the University of Washington Hall of Fame in 1984.