Frank Cuhel
Personal information | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Born | (1904-09-18)September 18, 1904 Cedar Rapids, Iowa | ||||||||||||||
Died | February 22, 1943(1943-02-22) (aged 38) Lisbon, Portugal | ||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||
Country | United States | ||||||||||||||
College team | Iowa | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Frank Josef Cuhel (September 28, 1904 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa – February 22, 1943 in Lisbon, Portugal) was an American athlete who competed mainly in the 400 metre hurdles.
At his alma mater University of Iowa, Cuhel was a three-year letterman, playing football in addition to track. In 1928 he won the 220 yd hurdles at the NCAA championships, breaking the meeting record.[1] He was elected to the U of I Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993.[2]
He competed for the United States in the 1928 Summer Olympics held in Amsterdam, Netherlands in the 400 metre hurdles where he won the silver medal.
His success in the Olympics was such that upon graduation he took up work as a business envoy for a number of Dutch firms doing business in America. Eventually this business sent him to Java in Indonesia, which is where he found himself at the start of World War II.
As the islands became a more important strategic theater for World War II operations, Cuhel was hired by Mutual Broadcasting Systems to serve as a war correspondent, issuing radio reports of any action or newsworthy items. When Java fell to the Japanese, Cuhel and other correspondents made a daring last minute escape.
Cuhel was killed in the crash of the ill-fated Boeing 314 called Yankee Clipper into the Tagus River on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1943[3] (the same flight which badly injured Jane Froman and served as the climax to her biopic With A Song In My Heart). That December, a freighter was christened the Frank J. Cuhel in his honor.
References
- ^ Hill, E. Garry. "A History of the NCAA Championships" (PDF). Track & Field News. Retrieved October 27, 2015.[permanent dead link]
- ^ National Iowa Varsity Club – Letterwinner Archived 2016-05-05 at the Wayback Machine at www.iowavarsityclub.com
- ^ "Olympians Who Were Killed or Missing in Action or Died as a Result of War". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved July 24, 2018.
Sources
- Bliss, Edward (1991). Now The News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-04402-8. OCLC 22731482.
- v
- t
- e
- 1928 United States Olympic trials (track and field)
and road athletes
- David Abbott
- Bill Agee
- Fred Alderman (r)
- Steve Anderson
- George Baird (r)
- Ray Barbuti
- Charley Borah
- Claude Bracey
- Nick Carter
- John Collier
- Ray Conger
- Frank Cuhel
- Henry Cumming
- Melvin Dalton
- Clarence DeMar
- Leighton Dye
- Harvey Frick
- Earl Fuller
- Walter Gegan
- Johnny Gibson
- Lloyd Hahn
- Charles Haworth
- James Henigan
- Leo Lermond
- Robert Maxwell
- Bob McAllister
- Albert Michelsen
- Jesse Montgomery
- Charley Paddock
- Hermon Phillips
- Jimmy Quinn (r)
- Joie Ray
- Carl Ring
- Sid Robinson
- John Romig
- Henry Russell
- Jackson Scholz
- John Sittig
- Macauley Smith
- Euil Snider
- Emerson Spencer (r)
- William Spencer
- Morgan Taylor
- Joe Tierney
- Ray Watson
- Frank Wykoff
- John Anderson
- Lee Barnes
- Lee Bartlett
- Al Bates
- Barney Berlinger
- Edmund Black
- Lloyd Bourgeois
- Sidney Bowman
- Herman Brix
- Sabin Carr
- Levi Casey
- Kenneth Caskey
- Tom Churchill
- Frank Conner
- James Corson
- Ken Doherty
- William Droegemueller
- Ed Gordon
- Donald Gwinn
- Ed Hamm
- Charles Harlow
- Ben Hedges
- Creth Hines
- Bud Houser
- DeHart Hubbard
- Bob Kelley
- Bob King
- Eric Krenz
- John Kuck
- Charles McGinnis
- Harold Osborn
- Harlow Rothert
- Arthur Sager
- James Stewart
- Fred Weicker
- Lawson Robertson (men's head coach)
- Johnny Behr (men's assistant coach)
- Dean Cromwell (men's assistant coach)
- Eddie Farrell (men's assistant coach)
- Harry Hillman (men's assistant coach)
- Wilbur Hutsell (men's assistant coach)
- Tom Keane (men's assistant coach)
- Jack Magee (men's assistant coach)
- Jack Ryder (men's assistant coach)
- Henry Schulte (men's assistant coach)
- Dink Templeton (men's assistant coach)
- Mel Sheppard (women's coach)