After winning the bronze medal at the 1963 Pan American Games, Ken Sitzberger took the Olympic springboard title in 1964 to give the U.S. their 10th successive victory in this event. Sitzberger came through to take the gold medal after his teammate, Frank Gorman, dropped his ninth dive. After his Olympic victory Ken Sitzberger enrolled at Indiana University where he won five NCAA titles and was three times the AAU indoor champion. He married Jeanne Collier, who won the silver medal in the women’s springboard event at the 1964 Olympics.
Sitzberger died under unusual circumstances, officially dying from a head injury sustained during an altercation at a party. It was later revealed that he was about to be a federal witness in a cocaine-trafficking investigation, but the official determination was that the death was accidental and unrelated to that investigation.
United States