Keith Carter Carves the Way to Victory
Given the recently-renewed energy on campus related to Western Reserve Academy Athletics, the Archival Corner thought it appropriate to share the story of WRA’s only Olympic medal winner, Keith Carter, WRA class of 1943, silver medalist at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England. Carter would be a no-brainer nominee if a discussion were held in an attempt to determine the greatest athlete to ever wear the Green and White.
Keith Carter attended WRA during the first half of America’s involvement in World War II. After departing the Lawn’s Wide Sweep, he served as a bombardier navigator in the United States Air Force in the second half of the War. He remembered his time at WRA fondly, once sharing with the Advancement Office, “WRA was my adopted home for 3 years and was easily the most academically influential period for me including college” (Purdue University, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering). Carter was not the only member of his family to appreciate and spend their formative years at Western Reserve Academy; he was one of twelve in his family to attend Reserve! Keith’s brother Glenn ’47 swam at Oberlin College, where he was inducted into the athletic Hall of Fame; and brother Jack ’45 captained the Kenyon College swim team. A banner depicting Virginia Carter ‘13, preparing to pass the basketball, currently hangs over the visiting team’s bench in the Varsity Gym of the Murdough Athletic Center.
Surprisingly, Keith Carter did not swim at Reserve until his senior year. He once recalled, “I went out for swimming because I didn’t think the coach was playing me enough in basketball.” He remembered that the swim coach timing his first laps had to tap his stopwatch, thinking it was broken, given how fast Carter swam! In his first year of competitive swimming, Carter unofficially broke the national record in the fifty-yard breaststroke, according to a file in the WRA Archives. He also captained WRA’s undefeated soccer team in the fall of his senior year, and he was a “mainstay” on the Academy’s track team that spring.
Besides the plaque commemorating Keith Carter’s Olympic accolades that adorns the Murdough Athletic Center hallway, the Carter family is celebrated on campus in the form of a plaque in the WRA Alumni Office in Morgan Hall, and a plaque and accompanying garden in front of the Bicknell House dormitory. Carter’s memory continues to live on long after he left the halls of WRA. Oh, long may time these things preserve!
– Richard Hoffman
The Reserve Record 