On a sunny fall morning, the kind that Rusty Wailes lived for, the 66-year-old retiree did what he did best. He got into a boat with friends all around, and rowed. He pulled the oars through deep water as if it were almost a half century ago, as if he were back at the Olympics and another gold medal was on the line.
Then Wailes did something uncharacteristic: He stopped rowing. Sensing something was wrong, a fellow rower turned to look at him. Wailes let out a big grin, then fell backward.
That day, Oct. 11, 2002, would be the last time Wailes would ever pick up an oar, as he went into cardiac arrest in the middle of a typical morning row with friends. By the time his boat made it back to the dock, he was dead.
“He was ready to go,” said Lynne Wailes, Rusty’s widow. “He had fulfilled his goals and dreams, and he was a man of faith, so he knew where he was headed.”
But the two-time gold medalist has a few more rides in him. This month, almost two years after his death, Rusty Wailes’ name will adorn two U.S. crew boats scheduled to compete in Athens.
Wailes might not be on those boats, but his spirit carries on.
Consider it the first free ride for Wailes, whose desire to be the best rower he could be brought him two gold medals — and may well have eventually cost him his life.
When the final four boats of the 1956 Olympic crew trials were set to hit the water in Syracuse, N.Y., Ron Wailes Sr. stood up and dared all comers.
A 6-foot-4 mountain of a man, Wailes confidently boasted that his son would be on the winning boat and would represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games. He was so sure of it that Wailes was willing to wager with anyone brave enough to part with his or her money.
Ron Wailes was that positive that the 1956 Olympic Games would include his son. He just wasn’t sure which one.
Ron Jr. was rowing in the University of Washington boat, while “little” Richard — he was two years younger and three inches shorter than the 6-8 Ron Jr. — was a part of the Yale crew team.
In the end, the younger brother won the race, and so began the impressive Olympic career of Richard “Rusty” Wailes.
A 1954 graduate of Edmonds High School, Rusty Wailes didn’t even begin rowing until he got to Yale in the fall of that year. Although his father and older brother had rowed at the UW, Rusty opted to attend the Ivy League school after receiving a full academic scholarship.
“When he got that scholarship to Yale,” Ron Wailes Jr. said of the school with a powerhouse rowing program, “I knew the die was cast. He’d be a rower, just like my father and I.”
Within two years, Rusty Wailes had earned a spot on the 1956 Olympic team with his Yale teammates. (In those days, the collegiate teams squared off to see who would represent the U.S. in the eight-man Olympic event.)
Wailes and his crewmates set a world record in 5 minutes, 52 seconds at the Olympic trials just before heading to Melbourne for the Games.
Yet Wailes and the U.S. team got off to a disappointing start at the Olympics, finishing third behind Australia and Canada in the opening round to find themselves in danger of missing out on the semifinals. No American eight boat had come back from losing its opening race of the Olympics, so it looked as if the U.S. team would see its 44-year reign in that event come to an end.
Because of the third-place finish, the 1956 U.S. team had to compete in what is known as a repechage, or a consolation race for the three best non-qualifiers, just to get into the semifinals. After winning that race, Wailes and his teammates avenged a loss to Australia in the semifinals, then came back two days later to face the Aussies, Canada and Sweden in the 2,000-meter final.
While Sweden fell out of the running early on, the other three teams put on quite a show.
“The lead changed hands 20 or 30 times,” said John Cooke, a member of the U.S. team that year. “The leader depended on whose oars were in the water at that exact second. It was bow-to-bow-to-bow until the last 350 meters, when we finally moved out in front.”
The U.S. team held on for gold, putting in so much effort that no one had anything left at the end.
“Everybody was totally exhausted,” said Cooke, who blacked out and had to be taken to a hospital for treatment of exhaustion following the gold-medal race. “The story is that we didn’t even have enough power to stop the boat. No one had any strength left, so we literally ran aground.”
The U.S. eight boat saw its winning streak end in the 1960 Rome Games, but Rusty Wailes brought home gold again while rowing with the four-man, cox-less crew. He had returned to his home state, where he met up with three rowers from other colleges at the Lake Washington Rowing Club. That foursome won the Pan American Games in 1959 and then went off to the Olympics in Rome.
Once again, Wailes’ crew had to overcome adversity to win the gold. The four boat qualified for the finals but got off to a slow start in the race for a medal.
“After 500 meters, we were dead last of the six boats,” recalls John Sayre, an Anacortes resident and former UW rower who competed with Wailes that year. “After 1,000, we had moved into second place behind the Russians.”
According to Sayre, the U.S. team had resigned itself to second place when Wailes barked: “Winning a silver medal is like taking an aspirin! I came here to win gold!”
The passion carried over to Wailes’ teammates, who overtook the Russians in the final 100 meters.
The victory marked the first time since 1912 that the U.S. team had won a gold in that event, while Wailes finished his Olympic career with a perfect record.
Following his appearances in the 1956 and ‘60 Games, Wailes continued to row right up until the end of his life, competing in masters programs in the Puget Sound.
He was rowing with friends during the fall of 2002 when Wailes’ never-give-up attitude finally got the better of him. During a routine row on Lake Washington, Wailes suffered a massive heart attack and died before medics could get to him. He was 66 years old.
“When you get someone like him, with a Type-A personality, he didn’t know how to take it easy,” Ron Wailes Jr. said of his younger brother. “Here’s a 66-year-old man out rowing like he was 23. He never wanted to be second best. That’s how he lived.”
“He was the perfect oarsman,” said Cooke, the 1956 teammate.
For most, the memory of Rusty Wailes has been washed away by time. The city of Edmonds, which named a street after 1984 silver medal figure skater Rosalynn Sumners, has nothing to commemorate its only two-time gold medalist.
The rowing community, however, has not forgotten. Cooke and some of his old Yale teammates raised more than $31,000 to purchase an eight-man boat for the upcoming Olympics. A group of friends on the West Coast put together enough money for a four-oared, coxless shell to also appear in the Olympics.
The boats will be dedicated to Rusty Wailes, with his name and two gold medals painted along the sides.
It’s a fitting tribute to a man who never wanted to settle for anything less than gold.
“He would be embarrassed if he saw his name on the shell,” Lynne Wailes said. “Yet deep down, he would be honored. That was a really important part of his life.”
Scott M. Johnson writes for The Herald in Everett.
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