The Forgotten Olympic Gold Medalist Who Graduated Enfield High School
ENFIELD, CT — The 2024 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, has drawn more than 10,000 athletes from 200 countries to Paris, France. The “City of Light” has tied London, England by hosting the Summer Games on three occasions, but it is the first time in 100 years the competition has taken place in the romantic locale best known as home to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.
The Games have more than tripled in size since Paris last hosted a century ago. In 1924, 44 nations were represented by 3,089 athletes, and 126 gold medals were awarded. 45 of those were won by competitors from the United States, including one by a northern Connecticut resident who has been all but forgotten.
Trivia: which two men have won both an Olympic gold medal and a National Football League championship? One answer is easy: Bob Hayes, who earned two golds at the 1964 Games in Tokyo before joining the Dallas Cowboys, who emerged victorious in Super Bowl VI in early 1972.
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Not so easy – in fact, virtually impossible to guess prior to advent of the internet – is naming the first person to achieve that dual feat. That man was John Spellman, who claimed a gold medal in wrestling in Paris in 1924, then won the NFL title with the Providence Steam Roller four years later.
A native of Middletown, Spellman grew up on his family’s farm on Hall Hill Road in Somersville. Like his five siblings, he attended the Hall Hill one-room schoolhouse, then took a trolley to Thompsonville every weekday to attend Enfield High School, from where he graduated in 1918.
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He followed in the footsteps of his brother Bob, enrolling at Brown University. His brother was captain of the wrestling team in 1923, and John followed suit the next year (a third brother, Frank, captained the squad in 1928).
A two-time AAU champion, Spellman sought permission to take three days off from school to attend the 1924 Olympic Trials. His request was denied by Dean of Students Otis Randall, but Spellman went to the trials anyway, earning a spot on the Olympic freestyle wrestling team. Randall punished Spellman for his defiance, denying him permission to graduate with his class, although he had fulfilled all the requirements.
Once the freestyle wrestling competition began in the French capital city, Spellman breezed through the first two rounds in the light-heavyweight division, pinning Walter Wilson of Great Britain and George Rumpel of Canada. In the semifinals, he won a decision over Carl Westergren of Sweden, a three-time gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling, to earn a trip to the finals.
In the gold medal match, Spellman took on another Swede, future two-time Greco-Roman gold medalist Rudolf Svensson. Spellman won by decision to earn the gold medal, one of four won by American grapplers.
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Having excelled in both football and wrestling in college, Spellman entered the pro ranks in both sports. He signed as a lineman with the Providence Steam Roller in 1925, and was a key member of the 1928 championship squad. He was named second team All-NFL in 1929, and stayed with Providence through 1931, then played a final season with the Boston Braves in 1932.
Concurrent with his football career, the 5-foot-10, 201-pound Spellman became a professional wrestler. He traveled the country numerous times, and eventually trained his former Steam Roller teammate, Gus Sonnenberg, who went on to become world heavyweight champion.
Spellman became a full-time wrestler upon his retirement from pro football, and continued to travel extensively. In 1936, he embarked on a lengthy world tour with his wrestling troupe, arriving in Africa in 1938.
The onset of World War II left Spellman unable to return to the United States. He became a mining engineer in Zimbabwe, and remained there until his death at age 67 in 1966.
Two years after his passing, Spellman was inducted posthumously into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, and he was elected to the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001. His Enfield award was accepted by his sole living sibling, Ruth Terwilliger, who was 96 at the time; she passed away in 2006, a month shy of her 100th birthday.
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