| Frank Merriwell, the fictitious Yale hero-athlete, was Eagan's idol, but Eagan's own life was more like a Horatio Alger story. He came from a poor family, graduated from Yale, went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, became a prominent lawyer, and rose to the rank of colonel during World War II.
He was also the only athlete ever to win gold medals at both the Summer and the Winter Olympics. Eagan's primary sport was boxing. He won the national amateur heavyweight championship in 1919 and won his first Olympic gold medal in 1920 as a light heavyweight. He also won the British amateur heavyweight while attending Oxford, and he competed in the 1924 Olympics as a heavyweight boxer without winning a medal.
In 1932, Eagan was a member of Billy Fiske's four-man bobsled team that won the gold medal. |
USA