US Olympian’s memories of ‘52 games include paranoid Russian agents, skinny-dipping Finns
A decision is expected Sunday on whether the entire Russian Olympic team will be banned from next month’s games in Rio de Janeiro because of state-sponsored doping. A former member of the U.S. Olympic water polo team who now lives in Las Vegas knows the Russians have long had their own way of doing things.
As 85-year-old John “Jack” Spargo browsed through newspaper clippings that detailed the exploits of the American team at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, he remembered how he and a Russian girl were sitting by the swimming pool laughing and trying to converse.
“We couldn’t speak each other’s language, but we were communicating,” Spargo said as he sat with his wife, Sheila, in the living room of their Sun City Summerlin home. “Then I saw these huge men in brown suits and ties walking toward us.”
The two men growled something at the girl that Spargo couldn’t understand and took her away.
That Olympian, Spargo recalls, was never seen again at the Olympics, where the Russians competed as part of the Soviet Union.
“I always assumed it was the KGB, their secret police, who whisked away the girl,” Spargo said. “It was the height of the Cold War then, and the Soviet team was the only one that didn’t stay inside the Olympic Village with the other teams. They obviously didn’t want their athletes fraternizing with athletes from the West.”
It turned out, the situation with the Russian girl wasn’t the only moment at the games that played havoc with Spargo’s focus.
At a Helsinki lake set up for water polo practice, Spargo, the former captain of the UCLA water polo team, said his team had to overcome problems with concentration.
“We didn’t realize initially that the lake was clothing optional,” he said. “There were many beautiful naked women there, but we managed to keep our focus and our cool.”
The 1952 water polo team, said Spargo, managed to keep its focus and cool so well it made the medal round, finishing fourth out of 16 teams.
“We were supposed to get knocked out right away — we were very young,” he said. “Back then Hungary, who won the gold medal, and Yugoslavia, who took silver, were like the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers of water polo.”
Keeping his focus and cool is something Spargo, who was voted into the U.S. Water Polo Hall of Fame in 1981, has managed to do well throughout his lifetime. An Air Force jet fighter pilot who became a 30-year commercial airline pilot, “Captain Jack” once landed an airliner on flame retardant foam in Idaho after blowing a tire on takeoff in Salt Lake City.
“We couldn’t get an indication that the landing gear was all right,” the father of three said. “We had four National Guard jets accompanying us as we came in. Fortunately, the landing gear and tires we had left held up.”
But it was his quick thinking in the 1951 Pan American Games in Argentina — a tuneup for the 1952 Olympics — that really showed how good he was under pressure. Redbook magazine was so impressed that an August 1951 article described how he kept his presence of mind while being choked and nearly drowned in a swimming pool.
During a water polo match with Mexico, Spargo accidentally elbowed a Mexican player, apparently breaking his nose.
“He wanted revenge and started swimming after me,” Spargo recalled. “At first, I stayed away, but he finally got me and pulled me down. He had me around the neck with both hands and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”
At that point, Redbook noted, an American shot-putter watching the game was about to jump in the pool to save Spargo. But Spargo didn’t need any help.
“I grabbed his family jewels and gave a good twist,” Spargo said, grinning. “You could hear him yell all over. He not only let me go — I didn’t have any trouble with him for the rest of the game.”
Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Thursday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.