Eugene Wettstone in staduim stands

1976 Montreal Olympics

  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS COMPETING: 10
  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS IN ALL ROLES: 15
  • NUMBER OF OLYMPIC ALTERNATES: 2

 

The 1976 Olympics in Montreal provided ample space for Penn State’s finest to shine. Ten athletes with ties to Happy Valley competed in six different sports and for five different countries in Canada that summer. In track and field alone, Nittany Lions competed for Sweden, Norway, and the Bahamas in addition to the contingent representing the United States.

Penn State also enjoyed a strong presence in support of athletes. Sue Rojcewicz served as an assistant coach on the U.S. women’s basketball team that took silver in Montreal. Edward Sulkowski supported the U.S. boxing and wrestling teams as a trainer.

It was also a time for swan songs for several Penn Staters with long ties to the Olympics. Joe Scalzo served as a wrestling official for his sixth and final Olympics. Karl Schier served as a gymnastics coach for the United States for the third time in his career. Working alongside Schier as the manager of the U.S. gymnastics team was a legend at Rec Hall, Eugene Wettstone.

 

Profile: Eugene Wettstone

Eugene Wettstone
Eugene Wettstone (Pennsylvania State University, Intercollegiate Athletics, Athlete and Athletics personnel files)

By the time he arrived in State College in 1938 as the first full-time gymnastics coach at Penn State University, Eugene Wettstone was well known in gymnastics. Born on July 15, 1913 in Union City, New Jersey to Swiss immigrants, Wettstone started participating in gymnastics at a Swiss social club in his youth before traveling west to matriculate at the University of Iowa. While in Iowa City, Wettstone won the Big Ten all-around men’s title in his final year of eligibility while studying for a master’s degree. Soon after graduation, Wettstone moved back east with his wife Eleanor after accepting the challenge to launch the gymnastics program at Penn State.

At Penn State, Wettstone built a legendary career and is remembered as the “Dean of College Gymnastics”. Originally promoting the sport to the campus as the “Penn Circus,” Wettstone created a carnival-like atmosphere that enlivened the program. Wettstone was also instrumental in relaunching the Nittany Lion mascot for Penn State athletics, wearing the costume himself in 1939 before students took over the role. But Wettstone was more than flash, as his teams also got results. When he retired in 1976, Wettstone’s Nittany Lions teams had captured nine NCAA team championships—a record that still stands as of 2021. Penn State gymnasts won 25 individual titles under Wettstone’s tutelage, and he coached nine Olympic athletes during his tenure and three Nissen Award winners as the male college gymnast of the year.

The school hosted international events from the 1950s to the 1970s that included teams from Bulgaria, Finland, Great Britain, Hungary, Japan, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Switzerland, and a German team from the University of Cologne. Penn State also held the Olympic gymnastics trials four times and hosted the NCAA championship three times at Rec Hall while Wettstone led the program.

Wettstone first became involved with the Olympics in 1948 when he was named the coach of the U.S. gymnastics team for the London Olympics. Under Wettstone’s guidance, American women won bronze in the all-around team competition. Four years later, Wettstone returned to the Olympics in Helsinki as a gymnastics judge, a position he served in again at the 1968 Mexico City Games. Wettstone again coached the American gymnasts in 1956 at Melbourne, and served as the U.S. team manager for the Montreal Olympics in 1976 on the heels of his retirement from Penn State.

*****

Over four decades of working with Penn State gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic team, Wettstone amassed 23 cubit feet of Olympic resources that are now housed at the university. Read more about the Eugene Wettstone papers at the Special Collections Library.

 

SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL READING