October 4 - John B. Kelly Sr.

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On this day, in 1889, John Brendan Kelly Sr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As one of ten children in an Irish-American family, Jack learned to be competitive at an early age. By the time he graduated from high school, he’d channeled that drive into athletic prowess in football, basketball and rowing. In 1907, he began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer with his brother’s construction company and continued his education at Spring Garden Institute, a nearby technical school. He also continued rowing on his beloved Schuylkill River. Already a gifted athlete, the additional upper body strength gained from his new profession pushed Jack to the top of sport. By 1916, he was the best sculler in the nation. Then World War I pulled Jack, and millions of men like him, out of his routine and into bloody conflict.

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As a private in the United States Army, Jack found another use for his strength. He entered an armed forces boxing tournament, racking up a 12-0 record before being sidelined by a broken ankle. The guy who ended up winning that tournament? Gene Tunney, world heavyweight champion from 1926-28. After Gene won the world title, Jack would joke that it was lucky he had to drop out of that army race but it was kind of unclear whether he meant lucky for Gene or for himself. His broken ankle might have spared him a few beatings but it didn’t keep him from serving his country. Jack rose to the rank of lieutenant and was honorably discharged in April 1919.

Following his stint in the military, Jack created his own bricklaying company, borrowing the start-up funds from two of his brothers. He was a tireless self-promoter, getting his “Kelly for Brickwork” signs onto construction sites all over Philadelphia. He was also a master at getting paid for his work. He would have his men install a pane of glass about halfway up the chimneys they built in new homes. When the home owner eventually complained to the real estate developer about the faulty chimney, Jack simply said he would fix the problem once the developer’s check had cleared. With his money in the bank, he then sent a crew around to drop bricks down the chimneys, breaking the glass and solving the ‘problem.’ Somehow developers never caught on to his scheme and, unlike other contractors, he always got paid.

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While building his business, Jack still somehow found time to have an athletic career as well. He played professional football (before both the NFL and helmets) for the Holmesburg Athletic Club, a local Philly team. He also continued to row. Between 1919 and 1920, he won 126 straight races as a single sculler. 126 straight. He was all set to compete in the Diamond Sculls of the Henley Royal Regatta, held annually on the Thames River in London, England, when he received word at the last minute that his application had been rejected. Why was the six time American champion denied a shot at the Henley? Mostly because of elitist rules that said common laborers, such as bricklayers, couldn’t compete. Pulling such shenanigans against a popular athlete did not work out in the Henley’s favor. The bad publicity (and there was a ton of it) clouded the regatta for years, boosted Jack’s bricklaying business back in Philly and pushed him into competing in the 1920 Olympic Games.

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Jack had publicly declared that if he competed in the Henley he would probably skip the Olympics. When he was snubbed by the Brits, he wholeheartedly threw himself into the Games simply because he “wanted a crack at the guy who won Henley.” The guy who won Henley was Jack Beresford, another incredible rower who would eventually win medals at five different Olympics. The single scull race at the 1920 games quickly turned into a grueling duel between the two Jacks. They were neck and neck right up to the finish line (no one else was anywhere near them) but the American pulled ahead at the last moment to win Gold by a hair. Incredibly, a mere half an hour later, Jack jumped into another boat with his cousin, Paul Costello, and the pair would win Gold in the double scull. No one had ever won double Gold in rowing like that before, and no one has done it since. Jack and Paul would come back in the 1924 Games and win Gold in double sculling again, making Jack the first triple Gold winner in Olympic rowing history.

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Needless to say, his popularity as an athlete helped turn Jack’s bricklaying business into a multimillion dollar player in the Philadelphia construction industry. In 1924, he married Margaret Majer, a former model and, later, the first coach of the Penn State Women’s Basketball team. Together they would have four children, two of whom became famous in their own rights. The first, John Jr., was also an avid rower. He would go on to win the Diamond Sculls at Henley in 1947 and 1949 (the rules banning laborers had long since been removed) and nabbed a bronze medal at the 1956 Olympics. He suffered a fatal heart attack shortly after becoming the President of the United States Olympic Committee in 1985. The second, Grace, became an Academy Award winning actress and then married a crown prince, making Jack the grandfather of the current ruler of Monaco, Albert II.  In an ironic turn of events, Jack was the model for George Kittredge, a character in the play (and later movie) The Philadelphia Story. Grace played Tracy Lord, George’s fiancé, in the musical film version of Story, High Society, in 1956.

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As Jack grew older, he turned his attention to both politics and social causes. He made a run for Mayor of Philadelphia in 1935 losing by only 50,000 votes (as a Democrat in a strongly Republican town, getting even that close was a testament to his popularity). He later became president of the Fairmount Park Commission, overseeing one of the largest municipal parks in the world. President Roosevelt appointed him National Physical Fitness Director during World War II. In the mid Fifties, he was President of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen and became the only rower to ever be inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame. Near the end of the decade, Jack was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. The disease would end his life on June 20, 1960 at the age of 70, still residing in the City of Brotherly Love. Since his death, the NAAO, now called USRowing, bestows the Jack Kelly Award to someone who shows rowing prowess, commitment to amateur athletics and professional success. And if you ever find yourself walking along the river in Philly and you come across a large statue of a young man straining on the oars (even though the blades of the oars and most of the boat are strangely not depicted), know that it honors a man who was unashamed to work with his hands both in competition and business and had bling from both arenas to show for it.

Also on this day, in Disney History: Yale Gracey