Interesting Facts about Sammy Lee, the First Asian American Man to Win an Olympic Gold Medal for the United States

Samuel Lee, a physician, and diver from the United States, was the first Asian American man to win a gold medal at the Olympics for the United States (and the second Asian American man overall) and the first man to win two gold medals at the Olympics for platform diving. Here are some interesting facts about Sammy Lee.

Who was Samuel Lee?

• Full name: Samuel Lee
• Nationality: American
• Birth date: August 1, 1920
• Birthplace: Fresno, California, U.S.
• Died on: December 2, 2016 (aged 96)
• Death place: Newport Beach, California, U.S.
• Resting place: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery
• Alma mater:
  • Occidental College (B.S.)
  • University of Southern California School of Medicine (M.D.)
• Spouse: Rosalind Wong

20 Interesting Facts about Sammy Lee

1. Sammy Lee was born in Fresno, California, to guardians of Korean plunge who possessed what he portrayed as “a little chop suey restaurant”.
2. His father taught himself French, spoke English and Korean well, earned a civil engineering degree from Occidental College, and opened a chop suey restaurant and market.
3. Lee saw and was inspired by the numerous Olympic standards and keepsakes displayed for the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles when he was twelve years old and lived close to Los Angeles.
4. Sammy Lee set out to become an Olympic diving champion when he discovered later that summer that he could do somersaults much better than his friends could.
5. Lee’s parents moved to Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood. In any case, at that point, Asians, African Americans, and Latinos were confined from utilizing the close by Brookside Park Plunge in Pasadena on Wednesdays, which was known as “International Day,” the day preceding the pool was scheduled to be depleted, and topped off with clean water.
6. His coach dug a sand-filled pit in Lee’s backyard because Lee needed a place to practice and could not regularly use the public pool. Lee jumped into the pit to practice.
7. Sammy Lee graduated from Franklin High School and was a student-athlete at Occidental before attending the University of Southern California School of Medicine and earning his medical degree in 1947. To cover the cost of attending medical school, he enlisted in the Army Reserve.
8. In Episode 702 of California’s Gold in 1996, Huell Howser interviewed Lee. During the interview, he made sense of how he worked as a locker boy at the Los Angeles Swimming Arena simultaneously Esther Williams served as a locker girl.
9. Lee became the first person of color to win the United States National Diving Championships in diving in 1942, winning both the 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform events under the guidance of renowned diving coach Jim Ryan.
10. In 1946, Sammy Lee again won at the 10-meter platform event while completing third at the 3-meter springboard contest at the national diving competition in San Diego.
11. At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England, Lee procured a bronze medal in the 3-meter springboard and a gold medal in the 10-meter platform diving events.
12. He became the second Asian American to win a gold medal, trailing only Vicki Draves, who won a gold medal at the Olympics in springboard diving two days earlier.
13. Sammy Lee expected to serve in the Korean War after four years when he was a major in the United States Army Medical Corps. Instead, he was sent to compete in the Olympics (“But you better win”, he was told).
14. At the Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, he took home the gold medal in the 10-meter platform competition.
15. Lee served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in South Korea from 1953 to 1955, where he worked on diseases of the ear.
16. He received the James E. Sullivan Award in 1953, which is given out annually by the Amateur Athletic Union to the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States, while he was serving his tour of duty in Korea.
17. Sammy Lee kept on encountering discrimination in later life. In 1954, he was subjected to housing discrimination in Garden Grove, California. He tried to buy a house, but he was told he couldn’t. In one case, nearby residents collected petition signatures to “disallow” or discourage him from buying in “their” neighborhood. ( In the second instance, a counterpetition attempted to correct this prejudice, but Lee looked elsewhere after the discriminatory effect had been achieved.)
18. Lee rehearsed as an ear, nose, and throat specialist for 35 years before retiring in 1990.
19. Following Lee’s diving career, he worked as a coach for Bob Webster, who won two diving gold medals. After that, he worked as a coach for Greg Louganis, who lived with Lee’s family and won a silver medal in platform diving at the 1976 Olympics when he was 16 years old. Lee additionally coached Olympic medalist Pat McCormick.
20. In 1979, Lee played himself in Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, about stand-in Kitty O’Neil, whom Lee had coached in diving.
21. Sammy Lee was drafted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968 and was accepted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1990.
22. In 2010, he was given the name Sammy Lee Square, which is located in Koreatown in Los Angeles at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Normandie Avenue.
23. He was likewise respected with a spot on the Anaheim/Orange County Walk of Stars in 2009. In 2013, Central Region Elementary School #20 was renamed the Dr. Sammy Lee Medical and Health Sciences Magnet School by the Los Angeles Unified School District as a way of honoring Lee.
24. Rosalind Wong was Lee’s wife; the couple had a daughter and a son. Lee died from complications of pneumonia on December 2, 2016, at his home in Newport Beach, California, aged 96. He likewise experienced dementia and heart disease.
25. On 1st August 2024, Google featured a slideshow Doodle on its homepage to celebrate Sammy Lee.