Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/1524796
SUMMER / FALL 2024 25 club life club heritage ative writing at Mount Mercy University in Iowa. James' wife, Penny, grew up a WAC member. Her family lived in the Tri-Cit- ies and enjoyed regular summer stays and holiday visits to the Club. James grew up in Tacoma and attended the former Wilson High School. e couple joined the WAC and maintained a non- resident membership for much of their time in Iowa. "e WAC provided a home away from home for us when we traveled to Seattle," James says. "We have many happy memories from this long-distance membership." e couple moved back to western Washington in 2018 to be closer to their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson and rejoined the WAC in 2023. As for Olive, she spent the mid-1930s in a remarkably different city from the Seattle of today. In one of the city's tallest buildings, she trained almost daily in the WAC's 6th Floor pool under coach Ray Daughters. "He discovered her at Green Lake," James says. "e same place he discovered Helene Madison." Olive joined forces with fellow mem- bers Doris Buckley, Mary Lou Petty, and Betty Lea to create a powerhouse relay team that won national championships from 1935–1937. In Berlin, she joined the likes of Jesse Owens and the Uni- WAC member James McKean has published two memoirs about his life growing up in Washington state. "Homestand" focuses on his time as an athlete, including a hall-of-fame basketball career at Washington State University, notable in part for his playing against a young Kareem Abdul Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor. His second memoir, "Bound," cen- ters on the influential women in his life. Both books include stories about his aunt Olive McKean, former WAC member and bronze medalist in the 1936 Olympics, whose biggest impact would be made through a long career at the Multnomah Athletic Club. Both of James McKean's memoirs are available on Amazon. versity of Washington men's eight-oar rowing team, better known as "e Boys in the Boat," in representing the U.S. Olive McKean was born Aug. 10, 1915, in Chehalis, the middle of three children. Aer the family moved to Seattle, her mother worked as a seam- stress and her father tended a cigar shop downtown. Olive's older brother—James McKean's father—rode the trains to east- ern Washington to harvest wheat with mule-driven combines. In Berlin, four days aer her 21st birthday, Olive's relay team won Olympic bronze. Olive also placed sixth in the individual 100-meter race. "All our years growing up around her, my aunt never paraded her success," James writes in his 2017 book "Bound," published 11 years aer Olive's death at age 90. Following her Olympic spotlight, Olive moved to Portland and spent 22 years coaching at the Multnomah Ath- letic Club. She became the first woman president of the Oregon Amateur Athlet- ic Union, served as assistant manager for the U.S. swim team at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and managed the U.S. swim team at the 1972 Munich Games. Olive McKean was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Swimming Hall of Fame in 2005. Do you have ties to a WAC member from years gone by? We'd love to hear your story. Email magazine@wac.net. Olive McKean dives off the block in a national meet about a month before the 1936 Olympics.