Olympic Penn Staters

Take a look back at the earliest Penn Staters to participate in the Olympic Games. As far as we know, no one at the first two Olympic Games – in Athens, 1896, and Paris in 1900 – was then or later associated with Penn State. However, in the summer of 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, Nathanial John “Nate” Cartmell won silver medals in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. He was a student at the University of Pennsylvania at the time, but later became track and cross-country coach at Penn State, and was the first the gain an identity for Penn State as a national track and field powerhouse.