This is a place to write down your memories and share them with others who have had the pleasure to be apart of the life of John H. Lee. Write your story as a comment and read what others have to say.
***What to do if an error occurs when you submit your comment...
It happened to me twice and all I did was re-submit the message. I would copy what you wrote before sending just to make sure the blog doesn't delete it so you don't have to write your message again!
Johnny and I go back to my being a junior in high school and him needing a 118 pounder.
ReplyDeleteAt the time he wasn't getting too many two time NY State Champions as recruits...so we synced up right away.
Johnny was great about finding ways to help me improve that we didn't have in the room.
One of them was his hospitality to people like Rod, Jim Peckham, and many others.
I also will never forget how Johnny would get me free unlimited soda for my room since it was provided to some
of the top basketball players and he wanted it for me too...only thing was I didn't drink soda, so I gave it to my roommates...
By the time we were seniors, Johnny let me and Jim Phills take over the
technical and conditioning coaching of the team. We won the ivies and then there was controversy...
but, let that rest in peace as well.
Johnny was also complex in ways we all knew too. Whatta character...
Peace and blessings to him...
Please give my regards to all.
Paul ‘83
John was a wonderful coach and mentor to me during my Harvard wrestling
ReplyDeletecareer- from 62-66 - For the lower weights, he was our coach, even before taking over the job.
Tom Gilmore ‘66
Johnny recruited me and was my coach for my first two years, before he retired and Coach Peckman took over. Johnny was a great guy and, like you say, he was one of a kind.
ReplyDeleteMike Hanrahan ‘88
Coach Lee was a very special person in my life. I was his captain for two years despite being injured most of my last three years in college, lived with him during the summer of 1980, and coached with him during his last two years as head coach 84-86, while I was attending HBS. Coach Lee was one of the funniest and most enjoyable people I knew in my days at Harvard. I was very disappointed two years ago, when I had bought him tickets and air flight to come to the NCAAs to be with us in Detroit, as he had to cancel due to health issues. I loved the man, and am very thankful for his mentorship and friendship over the last 32 years of my life. And I would love to hear what others would write in response, as well.
ReplyDelete"Tony C"
Johnny Lee was one of the most generous people I ever met. He had me to his home for Thanksgiving every one of my four years on the team. I was not a champion, but I was one of his favorites because I was a "walk-on" and tried very hard. He believed in me, no matter how lacking my talents. Isn't that one of the great attributes of an athletic coach? Not that you win all your matches (which the H Administration obviously wants), but that you be a great teacher?
ReplyDeleteWarm regards,
MIKE MORRIS
A John Lee memory -
ReplyDeleteI was pretty much a warm body to fill in at 177, and Johnny moved me down to 167 (wasn't easy), then decided we could beat Yale by moving me up to 190 and Mark Cooley down to 177. Cooley didn't do well in the 177 match, so Johnny comes back to me as I am about to go out at 190 against a NCAA qualifier and says in that voice of his, "OK , now you need to go for the pin." I had been planning how to stay alive for the next 9 minutes - he took my mind off that. He was quite a guy and I enjoyed my time with him.
Buck '81
Johnny would get nervous before matches like all coaches; however, he had a “poker tell” that was always a disaster for whomever was about to step on the mat. If your opponent was a real stud and your chances were slim to none, Johnny would always shake your hand and say “Go out and mill it” (a reference to grinding it out). We all knew at that moment in time that things were about to get ugly. My most memorable moment was when I was about to wrestle Nick Gallo—Hofstra National Champ and MVP—Johnny went to shake my hand and I caught him and said “I know…just mill it”. I only lost 7-3 in a match that was actually real close except for the 4-pointer I gave up early. One of the reasons it was close was because Gallo had a mean inside crotch lift where he would pile drive your head into the mat—duck and bounce your neck or don’t duck and get drilled off the top of your head. He couldn’t use it in college wrestling because he got called for slams. Well, unfortunately, I caught up with Nick in the Olympic trials where this was his favorite move. When we shook hands to start the match I looked at him and said “I’m just gonna mill it”. He had no idea what I was talking about and proceeded to kick my ass. After his patented move resulted in a touch fall I remember looking up at the Ref and he was saying “Son, are you all right?”
ReplyDeleteBill Mulvihill ‘79
Johnny brought people together. As I reviewed the previous posts on this site, I was struck by the number of people who have posted that I know, and by how close I feel to many of you, even though we’ve lost touch. Like all of you, I was deeply saddened when I heard that Johnny had passed. However, as I thought back on my relationship with Johnny, my mood changed and I found myself smiling as I began to remember some of his better known “Johnnyisms”. Here are a few that came to mind…….
ReplyDelete“His tide is out” or “He’s at a low ebb” - Directed primarily at opposing wrestlers who were out of shape….but occasionally directed at one of his own.
“Hit the far-side Damascus. Once the far side Damascus is employed, it leaves no desire for future employment of such.” I never learned how to employ a “far-side Damascus”, but hearing it always made me smile.
“(Insert name of wrestler) – You’re killing us!” This was generally directed at a Harvard wrestler who was favored in a match, but was losing at the time.
“Professor – it’s time for you to die.” This is a quote Johnny attributed to one of his former star wrestling recruits before “throttling” his professor in class. His follow-on quote was generally something like “Admissions killed us on the recruiting front for 10 years after that.” I think this was one of Johnny’s favorite stories.
“It’s always a good day when you put the wood to a sailor.” I think this may have been an original directed at me after beating a Navy wrestler.
“He’s the kind of guy that likes a rainy day.” This Johnnyism was directed to people who were not appropriately upbeat.
“That guy is nothin’ but an *ss.” This one is pretty self-explanatory.
After hearing an opposing coach complain about competing against teams with lower academic standards, Johnny replied “Jeezus, if we didn’t do that, the only team we’d wrestle would be the Techsters (MIT)”
“It’s the kind of place you like to see out of your rear-view mirror.” This one came out of the blue, and broke the tension on the bus departing Wilkes-Barre after losing (badly) to Wilkes in 1984.
Johnny made Harvard, and my World, a better place to be. As I look out the rear-view mirror of my life, I can only hope that I do the same for others.
Stephen Farrell ‘87
The passing away of Johnny Lee is a sad event indeed. Johnny had a tremendous impact on me when I was at Harvard and still does. Very few days go bye where I do not use a Johnny Lee quote to my daughters such as "you're milking this through the Ivies" when they are nursing a cold so as not to go to school (in reference to the crotch maximizer employeed by Jim Bennett of Yale who Johnny said "milked it through the Ivies") or "he's tough, he's damn tough, I talked to him a number of times". I vividly remember the highlight of many days would be a stop into Johnny's office by Jeff Clark and myself where we would sit for hours and laugh over the name stories we had heard countless times. A trip to J Lee's New Hampshire house by Jeff, Peter Holmes, Kelly Flynn and myself also produced non-stop laughter for two days and countless stories. I am fortunate to have remained in contact with Johnny over the years, but now that he's gone I wish I would have spoken with him more frequently. Many times we would be in the middle of a great conversation and out of nowhere he would so "gotta go" and hang up the phone instantly and I would be left holding the receiver and wondering what just happened. I truly will miss Johnny, but his memory will stay with me forever.
ReplyDeleteafter reading Stevie Farrell and Killgallon Becks comments, along with Billy Mulvihills (who neglected to include how he, the chief of all-millers, tirelessly tortured Ed Bordley in our hearts games on the bus rides home from wrestling meets, for forgetting that he had card tricks in his pockets, with no regard at all for Eddies sightlessness), I just had to add a few more choice J.Lee stories....more specifically when Johnny described a fellow of particular annoying habit, he said "he was the kind of guy who brightened the room by leaving!!! In fact, if I never saw him again, it would be too soon!!"
ReplyDeleteJohnny once told me, he "heard that I, Systemsrusti (how he came up with these names, was another story altogher--Killgallon Beck, Milo McGinty, Cyclone Potter, to name a few..) was from West Covina, and W.Covina was a nice place to be from, from that is, as in escaped!! Did you escape Systems?!"
Or how bout the all time classic comment during the Brown Harvard match, to his long time friend and rival coach Dave Amato, after watching two Harvard Brown guys wrestle to a "near standstill, lackluster, if you know what Im saying...Dave, its just too bad they both couldnt lose!!"
And after the K_ _ _ _ _ stories, lamenting how he was "0 for 40, after that, with the admissions office....just hope i can retire and move on (with no forwarding address) before he gets out!!"
And after Jeff Clark "waylayed the middie from navy...that's right, his tide was out, he capsized his ship, and he showed him the sands of time!!"
Milo, youre killing us....put the ol budweiser belly on em (to a particularly stout wrassler)....klondike em....way to go, pour it on em....Saturday's hero--sunday's ham, we'll see how many matches he's wrestling in tomorrow.... (watching some ham jump up and down after he won a match in the first round of the easterns on saturday)... Buck, Mike, Paul,Billy, Stevie and all you other Hahvud guys, thanks for sharing your memories... Im saddened that i will be out of the country when the service occurs, but will be forever thankful for the memories and moments we all shared on and off the mats during our four years with JLee....he will be missed...
TonyC ("Systemsrusti")
Johnny Lee was a character who left an indelible mark on a generation of Harvard wrestlers and I was no different. I was privileged to share the team captaincy for two seasons with several other Class '85 wrestlers; and to this day Coach Lee's unique colloquialisms serve as a inter-generational secret language for all his former athletes. I hope to honor him and bring a brief smile to all who knew him with a brief list of his poetic colloquialisms.
ReplyDelete"Ahh that's right... put the wood to him"
"Capsize him... his seas are showing the sands of time"
"Heh, heh, we were greeted with open arms... and clenched fists!"
"He was the kind of guy who got into a fight on his way to a fight."
"He's a practice room commando!"
"Often, the hurler becomes the hurlee."
"The Far Side Damascus?"
"Oh no, not again...... That's just an elevator to oblivion!"
"Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed...and rarely surprised"
"The Glendenning Wedge?"
"Did you hear the birds tweet when you left your feet?"
"Impaled...Jeez, that must have really hurt!"
"The five E's: Enmeshed, Enmired, Encased, Encompassed and Engulfed"
RIP Johnny Lee, for thy last bout is won.
M. Barry Bausano '85
In addition to the Johnnnyisms quoted above, I particularly liked "His sea is showing the sands of time," an obscure nautical reference shouted out to the ref whenever some opposing wrestler was milking it on the bottom in an effort to avoid a pin.
ReplyDeleteI'll always be grateful to Johnny for taking me on and bringing me along as a walk-on. I was naive enough to believe that just about any decent high school wrestler could walk on to an Ivy League wrestling team, and Johnny was smart enough not to disillusion me until he had a chance to see what I could do. I did "kill us" at least once. When one of my kids gets upset about having a bad soccer game or something like that, I let them know that I singlehandedly cost Johnny Lee his best chance at winning an Ivy League title by giving up an ill-timed reversal against Princeton in '85. Johnny still went on to give me a pat on the back and tell me I was one of the only walk-ons who ever cut it for him. He was good, funny, gracious and generous man. I miss him.
Milo
I sit here reading, laughing, and crying (from sadness and amusement) all at once. It is a priceless list compiled above, many lines I had since forgotten. The 5 E's...just an absolute classic.
ReplyDeleteThe real tribute is how each and every one of us from time to time has undoubtedly blurted out a Johnnyism to a friend or colleague, and then stopped and explained the line and described the man who orginally delivered it.
I will fondly remember Johnny distributing the "rolls."
Michael Meade '87
This may sound strange, but I was really sad to hear of Johnny Lee's passing. Strange because I never met him, don't know what he looked like or the sound of his voice. But here's a man who lives on with my husband (a former Harvard wrestler) and whose repeated antics over the years have forever immortalized this larger than life wrestling coach. My personal favorite: "Coach, I'm quitting. I'm joining the army. I gotta get tough. That's when I knew K---- was a psycho."
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrific tribute to one of the funniest man I ever knew.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget getting off the plane at Logan, on my (first flight east of the Mississippi) recruiting trip in the Spring of 1985. This followed a brief series of Johnny's hand-typed "recruiting letters". Johnny and the inimitable S Beck picked me up at the airport, and immediately begin waxing eloquent on random subjects like rolls, F&M, the IAB, etc. I had NO idea what they were talking about, though I did have a strong suspicion they had stopped for cocktails beforehand. LOL And I still went to Harvard!
My friends have done such a terrific job of rekindling old memories of Johnny. Here are just a few more that come to mind:
"Wait for the high sign"
"Full of apologies"
"Rear door Ramos"
"An elevator to oblivion"
"Ready soon? Ready for what?"
"The ag school"
"ClaREEon?"
"Jeez, that must have hurt"
"Crying poor mouth"
"Dispute! Dispute!"
"Consistently inconsistent"
"Impalement"
"Human demise"
And, who could forget: "You'll know how it feels to have wings on your heels." (When I once said this to Jenny Beck -- Scott's wife -- she retorted without missing a beat, "You'll hear the birds tweat as you leave your feet.")
Still, I think the funniest thing about Johnny was the way he would talk on the phone to you, years after college. Without any inquiry about your life for the past few years, or his, Johnny would proceed right to some piece of wrestling gossip -- or maybe a bizarre recent news story -- that happened to be on his mind. After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Johnny would just hang up. Johnny wasn't so big on social niceties.
Johnny, God bless you. I hope you know what a huge impact you had on so many lives. It has been such a pleasure to see the names and ruminations of so many friends. We all miss you.
I was clearly not one of Johnny's more talented wrestlers, and because my studies required a lot of my time, they kept me away from practice all too much. Always generous and patient, Johnny accepted me for whom I was and gave me both respect and time. He was able to reconcile the rough and tumble, and at times take no prisoner, world of college wrestling with the Ivy League academic mindset, which all by itself is no small accomplishment. In my athletic life he is the only coach who had such a complete perspective.
ReplyDeleteThis past summer I was in Santorini Greece for the first time. One evening while on a sail boat I realized that the wind was coming out of the West. In that moment I finally got to experience a Zephyr, which was a word Johnny like to banter around in my years at Harvard. I still have no idea what a Zehyr has to do with escaping from the down position, but like my time at Harvard 3 decades ago, it doesn't really matter. Johnny's quirkiness remains an enduring, and endearing, characteristic in my memories.
Johnny might pretend to be a bad boy, but in my experience he was forever the gentlemen.
Thank you Johnny...you are missed.
Johnny Lee became my coach from 1965-69 and was a great coach, full of aphorisms and great wrestling tips. He really inspired me to become the freshman "wrestler of the year". Harvard Wrestling will be a highlight of my Harvard experience because of Johnny.
ReplyDeleteHoward Freedman M.D. AB 1969 MD 1973
Does anyone know if the story Johnny loved to tell about the epitaph on the grave of a favorite irish boxer was really true?.....(as Johnny use to quip, "never let the truth get in the way of a good story!")
ReplyDeletethe epitaph, according to Lee, was....
"you can stop counting, Im not getting up!"
In the fall of 1955 I joined John's first wrestling team, the 1955-56 freshman. I was very short on talent but long on desire. It didn't matter to Johnny. Although I'm confident that he would have preferred a team composed entirely of Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Oklahoma high school champions or, in fact, still hungry losers in the finals, he treated every member of the team as if they were potential EIWA winners and tried to devise for each and every one a unique style that might permit them to win. Anyone was welcome in John's room if they wanted to wrestle.
ReplyDeleteJohn grew up in Newton, MA, where the high school didn't even have wrestling. He was introduced to it at Exeter when he failed to make the basketball team and apparently fell in love at first sight. He wrote a letter to the coach at Iowa Teacher's College, which was then dominant in the NCAA tourney and was soon a summer employee at Iowa teacher's for two years. It was there that he learned how to wrestle. In truth, John always insisted that he had wanted to go to a Big Ten School, ideally Michigan. He always said that he did not even apply to Harvard when he was a senior at Exeter and only ended up at Harvard because that was the only place that the Exeter Headmaster had enough clout to find a space for him in April or May when he learned that he had not been admitted to his preferred choices due to the flood of returning WWII vets. I think that this is a part of the reason that he was able to be so irreverent about Harvard.
As we all know, to go anywhere with John Lee was to spend the majority of the time laughing. In December of our Senior year we went, as a team, to The Wilkes College Open, then a very tough tournament. I was having some difficulty making the weight and, as a result, was awake when John returned from the seeding meeting much later, after a very likely stop at a tap. I asked him who was entered in my weight. He started with some very likely entrants from Pitt, Lehigh, and Penn State including ED DeWitt of Pitt, a fourth place winner in the 1960 Olympics, and then told an elaborate story about Dan Hodge's sudden decision to come out of retirement after his Silver Medal in 1956. Then, to his enormous surprise, he had bumped into Bill Smith (Olympic Gold 1952) and finally concluded with an entry list that would have had former National Champs running into each other in the quarter finals or earlier. As the horror of what I had heard grew in me, he suddenly mentioned that Pete Blair (Bronze Medalist at 191 in Helsinki) was also in town but was not sure if he could make 177. Finallt I realized that it had all been a fairy tale.
In 1971 and 1972 I was John's assistant coach. At the time Princeton was the premier Ivy League wrestling program. It's hard to believe now, I know. But in one of those years the match-ups with Harvard were such that if one of our least our least successful wrestlers, but a very hard worker, were to beat Princeton's clearly worst wrwstler we had a very realistic chance to beat them, an outcome that John would have hugely enjoyed. As the critical bout progressed with many blunders by both competitors I suddenly heard John philosophically remarking to himself, just barely audibly to me and definitely not for publication, "It's too bad that they both can't lose."
In spite of endlessly enjoying his fervent expressions of what he would like to happen to the Owls (Temple), or how much he would like to see the Quakers stretched, or the "Aggies" (Cornell) aggravated, the funniest thing I ever heard John say did not concern wrestling. In the academic year 1961-1962 John was sleeping on a couch in my room at the Harvard Cooperative House and overheard a phone conversation between me and my girlfriend which had dealt, at least tangentially, with the subject of marriage. When I had hung up John offered an urgent and pithy piece of advice that was delivered with profound conviction. "Remember, Rick", he said, "on the subject of marriage, Easy in. Tough! Tough! out."
Although he liked to win John stood for what amateur athletics should, but seldom does, place first. Wrestling was something that John did because it was fun. Winning makes it more fun, but it should be enjoyable for its own sake. In John's company it nearly always was. He will be missed.
Some more Johnny stories:
ReplyDeleteWhile at a tournament watching a match where the favored wrestler was gassed and listless and lost at the end of the match, he turned to me and said that was quite an "el foldo" and then he used the acronym HEW to describe the losing wrestler. I looked at him quizzically and he said "Had Enough Wrestling". He also used a number of other acronyms which I have long since forgotten.
At the Wilkes tournament one year, my match was called but for some reason the announcer skipped the first part of my name calling me Inger (pronounced like injure) rather than Blakinger. Johnny thought it was hilarious and began calling me Inger. Years after I graduated, when he called me at home, he would often start by saying "Is that you Inger? Lee here" He would then proceed to tell his usual stories about stupid things people had done.
Johnny was assistant golf coach at Harvard. His only real job was to drive the golfers to and from the golf course. Johnny's way of describing his job was to say "My job ends when the car door opens".
During a close dual meet, Johnny would stand behind the bench, moving back and leaning from side to side with every move. One time at Columbia, he actually backed across the gym and out the open door into the stairwell. He then looked up and realized where he was and came back to the bench. My parents were there and I think my mother, who was never that interested in the actual wrestling anyway, spent most of the meet watching the Johnny show.
I will never forget the bulletin board that he had at his place 'up country' at King's Lake in New Hampshire. On the board were clippings from newspapers of stupid things that people had done. One night, we sat at a table with him reading these clippings and both of us howling for hours. The clippings were funny but it was Johnny's delivery and his infectious laughter that made them even funnier. Several times years later, I received funny clippings in the mail with a terse note from Johnny.
He loved to say things to people that would build them up and then suddenly knock them down. Such as: "You're not as dumb as you look" with a long pause followed by "No one could be!" I doubt he actually said that to anyone but he enjoyed telling it to me like he had.
I have really fond memories of stopping by the IAB when Johnny was in his office and talking with him for hours. When I arrived, he was usually pounding away on his old typewriter with his two index fingers typing a terse note to someone. We spent hours talking and mostly laughing.
Johnny was generous and always willing to help his guys. During my sophomore year, I told him that I wanted to work for a professor at Harvard for the summer and asked him if he had any ideas for housing. He then offered that I could stay at his house in West Medford while he and his family stayed in New Hampshire. I mowed the grass and for that I got, as Johnny described it, a free billet. He told me that the one neighbor, Denehy, was a crotchity old coot and that he would probably not be friendly at all. While mowing the grass, I met Mr. Denehy and he invited me over for a barbecue. I was surprised but Johnny was absolutely stunned when I told him. Mr. Denehy had absolutely no sense of humor so I guess I could understand why he and Johnny did not hit it off.
Enough of the stories.
Johnny was an excellent wrestling coach, but he was much more than that to many of us. He was a friend. He had a great influence on my life and I will miss him.
Jeff Pelletier '88:
ReplyDeleteI wrestled for two years at Harvard, was lucky enough to fill an empty spot in the roster for one of those two years, and luckier still that one of my few wins (against Yale) happened to be the one college match that my dad was able to come see.
Only one of those two years was with Johnny, yet I’m continually amazed at the impression that Johnny – and the legend of Johnny – have made on me. For every “Johnnyism” I encountered firsthand, there had to be at least 30 I heard from others in the form of stories told and retold by fellow wrestlers – a testament to the living legend that he was.
I remember Scott Beck and Jeff Clark, for example, remarking once that Johnny had an uncanny talent for inventing bizarre acronyms, often on the spot and out of thin air.
“He came in to see me last summer, and wanted to get on the list,” Johnny said. “I just took one look at him and thought, ‘WTF’, you know what I mean? ‘Way Too Fat’.”
Or a story told (retold?) by Kelly Flynn about Johnny, in the middle of a match, calling out to a Harvard wrestler in between periods: “I want you to come out there like a ‘CP’! A ‘CP’, you hear me? ‘CP’!!” At which point the wrestler gestures to him quizzically from the mat, having no idea what a ‘CP’ is. “’CP’! ‘CP’!” is all Johnny continues to scream out.
The period starts and someone on the bench can resist no longer. “Johnny, what the heck is a CP, anyway?”
“A Caged Panther,” Johnny replies.
Forgive me everyone, if I’ve gotten some of the details wrong. I’ve just had so much fun remembering Johnny through all the stories presented here that I had to contribute. For any inaccuracies I refer back to another Johnnyism quoted above: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Johnny will be missed.
this match is gonna be np, no picnic...! now hustle it up and get loose...
ReplyDeleteto which an illinformed freshman teammate began laughing hilariously at Johnnys acronymcial admonishment, as we were supposed to be warming up vs coast guard academy....
to which JLee replied...what are you laughing at, your man is CT, commmando tough....
"Nothing is obvious to the uninformed."
ReplyDeleteThe 5 e's - encased, engulfed, enmeshed, enmired, and encompassed
ReplyDeleteThe 7 p's - prior preparation prevents piss poor performance
Johnny was resigned to the generally pedestrian state of Harvard wrestling, “mostly milling,” but, he didn’t let it get him down.
ReplyDeleteJohn’s derogatory comments were always the funniest, such as “they never should have let that clown out of the circus”, and I do recall hearing “too bad they both couldn’t have lost” on several occasions, as well as “HBT” (hopeless, but true), and “PRD”and “PRC” (Practice Room Dreadnaught/Commando), and, appropriately enough, on one occasion “he left it in the steam room” (for an Army wrestler who had pulled too much weight), along with “he’s so thin he doesn’t cast a shadow”, and “he got blown away like a scrap of waste paper.”
In my time Johnny was the “assistant coach”. Bob Pickett (before he got the call to run the Varsity Club) was the “head coach”, although he didn’t know too much wrestling (as he was the first to admit); he mainly worked with the heavyweights. Johnny figured that didn’t make any difference because 98% of the heavyweights couldn’t do much of anything anyways (and, if there was someone with ability, Johnny could always work in some real coaching for him).
After the 177 pound weight class, at a tournament where we didn’t have a “horse in the race” or a “dog in the fight”, it was “time to bail…Cruiser weights coming” For Johnny a heavyweight bout represented “hours of pushing and grunting”.
The epitome of John’s image of such a “tanker” was a long-time friend of Harvard wrestling, Tudor Gardner – Classical philologist by profession, Harvard gentleman scholar from the “Maine Gardners” branch of his family, who wrestled because it allowed him to experience the ideal of “mens sana in corpore sano”, as he put it, “even if Juvenal did originate the term in a satirical context when he said ‘It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body. Ask for a brave soul that lacks the fear of death, etc.…’”
Tudor competed in some rather shoddy local AAU tournaments in heavyweight shoving matches, and sometimes accompanied us on trips to tournaments. Tudor wasn’t a conscientious trainer, and he enjoyed the good life; Johnny liked telling about how he observed Tudor maintaining his relatively poor physical condition, for example, “lying in bed with a Seidel of beer and a side order of Danish” – a recurring image that I heard on many occasions.
Johnny almost killed himself with laughter when telling such tales, but he wasn’t really mean in his criticism. He was very much a live and let live guy who enjoyed and empathized with people’s eccentricities. He was really great at giving people their space to pursue what interested them, and he was always an understanding friend. He never criticized the things that really mattered to people. He just didn’t want to see something stupid hidden or glossed over for appearance’s sake. He would rather point out the absurdities of life, and enjoy the humor that they afforded.
The one thing that he couldn’t really stand, though, was pompous people who really took themselves seriously – like a guy in the Harvard development office who was always “DELIGHTED to meet you”. The worst insult that Johnny could make was, “He doesn’t see the humor.”
But, needless to say, having walked the walk himself, Johnny always had a lot of respect for those who succeeded in wrestling. He greatly admired Jim Peckham because Jim was able to make the Greco-Roman Olympic team in 1952 “off the street”, without having had the advantages of wrestling in college. Jim had had the benefit of being trained by an excellent Greco coach from Armenia at the YMCU in Boston. Johnny always encouraged Jim to work out with us, and sometimes we would go down to “the Union” on Boylston Street to work out.
Johnny realized that most people wouldn’t put in the effort to really succeed in wrestling, and, as he often said, “if you want to dance, you gotta pay the piper.” Dan Grable was probably the wrestler for whom Johnny had the greatest admiration, because his attainments were said to have come 100% from hard work. As Johnny told me from time to time over the years, “when he started out, Grable’s balance was almost as bad as yours, and, according to his coach, he was completely uncoordinated”.
In my case I would always take some ribbing from Johnny and from Jim Peckham because I won the most improved wrestler award twice (“You must have been pretty damn bad to start with” they gleefully pointed out to me).
As well as teasing, Johnny liked practical jokes. His favorite, after a night spent in the vicinity of a tap, was calling a random hotel room to say in a chirpy enthusiastic voice, “Good morning, Sir, it’s four-thirty!”, he would then mimic the sounds of the displeased guest (a sort of angry gargled growling) - actually, I think that Bob Pickett was on the other end of one of those “wake-up” calls.
Johnny fed upon the peculiarities of Boston and various unusual people in the local wrestling community. One of these was Jim Peckham’s father, Al – “Opinionated Al” of the piercing eyes – the antediluvian health obsessive who made most so-called “health nuts” seem very meek by comparison – who used to train by climbing up and down telephone poles for hours, and riding his bike from Boston to Hartford and back on Sundays.
People always liked Johnny even when they didn’t particularly like one another. One summer for periods of several hours twice a day for a week, had the experience of being in Johnny Lee’s shoes, absorbing the Bostonian influences that had helped to shape him. I was seated between Tudor and Al at the Rome Olympics. They only talked to one another through me (since they were not on speaking terms) – they didn’t like one another, and used the excuse of being at opposite ends of the Boston social ladder to exaggerate their estrangement – “Bob, please tell that Boston person that….” “Bob, ask Fatso if ….”
Tudor was telling me about the outer limits reached by the Roman Empire, the treachery of Arminius and the lost legions of Varus in the Teoterburg Forest (what set him off was my mentioning that I had spent the summer working on a Westphalian farm), while Al Peckham tried to make me swear to never again drink fluorinated water or pasteurized milk in view of the considerable peril and lack of nutritional value involved in consuming them (“they foist this stuff on us in order to sell hazardous waste from the fertilizer industry!…It makes your bones brittle!…it actually harms tooth enamel!…they’re poisoning the kids!……When the milk cools, the fat congeals around the calcium molecules and they pass right out the feces without ever being digested!…etc., etc…Hey, Did you see that takedown by Blubaugh?... why didn’t they give it to him?…HEY REF, THEY WEREN’T OUT”). It was interesting that, despite, his off-putting manner, Al appeared to be mostly right on the positions he espoused.
When in New York to wrestle against Columbia, I was, naturally, obliged to accompany Johnny to the Yorkville Section of town – “Paradise”. The area still retained its German character; there was “good beer flowing in the streets”. And, of course, there was the Turn Verein at Lexington Avenue and East 86th Street where good-looking female gymnasts trained. This was of particular interest to John at the time because he was divorced and looking around. I remember asking him, “You can’t just go in there, can you?” “Just watch us,” was the reply, and naturally we presented ourselves as coaches from Boston checking things out – which we did (“Hey, look over there, isn’t she a real package”), and in due course, Johnny did marry a gymnast, of course.
Johnny always appreciated the unexpected and the paradoxical. Hokki (Rocky) Aioki, well before he became a Japanese steakhouse mogul, was a slim graduate student at Springfield College. Once, at the Wilkes Christmas tournament, I remember marveling with Johnny at Aioki’s succeeding at full speed with a takedown from Shozo Sasahara’s book that normally one could only expect to do in a practice drill, or against a fish (involving an arm sweep and chopping out both ankles at once – basically a kind of enhanced cross-body block) – a “masterful impossibility”, a “real mirage”, as Johnny remarked. Johnny was always amazed at how chubby Rocky became in later life.
Johnny had particular things that he liked. Any culture that grew up around beer drinking met with his favor – he liked Irish music and atmosphere even better than the German, because of the humor, I guess. Waterskiing was a longtime passion, both in New Hampshire and in Florida, and I was always surprised that he did it avidly enough to compete, since he never talked about it very much. Handicapping the greyhounds was something that he would always be willing to pursue when he had a chance – at least during the years when I spent time with him – and he used to get a kick out of watching the dogs run gracefully, with surprising speed, chasing the rabbit as though this was the signal objective of their lives.
Johnny’s easy, convivial, ever-fresh enthusiasm was infectious. It was always a pleasure to be around him, and many of us were privileged to have been able to share part of our lives with him.
Enough already, you can stop counting, Im not getting up!!!
ReplyDeleteJohnny Lee, National Champion
Thank you all for the memories you share, I am particularly pleased for all the “ Johnnyisms” you’ve remembered. I had asked him a few years back to begin writing them down for me because I knew I would never be able to remember them all, and as I began going through years of his life which he has fastidiously documented two index fingers at a time on his old typewriter( from the IAB ) I have come across a few, but not nearly the list you have compiled.
ReplyDeleteTo answer a previous question, Jim Watt was his name, the Scots former world lightweight champ who wanted his epitaph to read “ You can stop counting. I’m not getting up.” I found the original newspaper clipping among my father’s collection.
Thank you to the dear friends and extended family who gathered at Doyle’s Tavern in JP after his funeral to toast and eulogize him, it was a wonderful tribute taking turns to share memories first hand, he would have loved that, it’s where he did his best work. Though I am personally deeply saddened at the loss of my father, I am comforted by his legacy which will live on in all of you. He genuinely cared about all of his wrestlers and friends, and followed many of your careers long after your Harvard years as evidenced by the hundreds of index cards he kept with your names and contact information, dates you talked and topics of conversation. I laughed out loud as I read the comments about how he would jump into phone conversations full swing with disregard for any time that had passed and ramble on about current events or a funny article that he had read, and as quickly as it began he would end the call. Now I know it wasn’t just me. I remember how he would just pick up the phone and call out of the blue, and if he got a wrong number, the game was on! He could spin the most elaborate pranks, it was an art form. He hated the invention of caller ID.
I am happy that he was able to hold his grandchildren, Brendan and Brody, and will always remember the grin on his face as he quipped, “That Brody, he’s a rugged little duck.” They gave him so much joy.
Rest in Peace dad, a fighter to the end, your tide may be out, but don’t let up they strike quickly. We will fondly remember you always.
The little blonde kid, fortunate to be your son.
David “the Deacon”Lee
J. Clark '88
ReplyDeleteFrom the archives of J. Lee...
(typed on a 4 x 6 inch piece of paper)
PRIEST KO'd AT SAINT JOE'S
Woodbridge, N.J.
It won't be a merry Christmas for father Patrick Ryan, who was rendered senseless by a punch thrown thru the screen of a confessional box yesterday at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church.
Father Ryan was hearing a confession in the box at about 3PM when the confessor, a man with a Gaelic accent, suddenly threw the punch catching Father Ryan flush and breaking his jaw. Some 4 minutes later Father Ryans body weight disengaged box latch and his inert form rolled out. He was revived by astonished parishoners. No description of assailant available. Investigation ongoing.
Johnny was always a good coach and a great friend. For getting through wrestling in the late sixties this was a successful and meaningful way to develop the coach athlete relationship.
ReplyDeleteFor those of us who had the privilage of witnessing the immortal taproom exchanges between Lee and Lockley or the poetic quips exchanged between Lee and (the big white haired gentleman who followed our team??), those merely physical matche-ups such as Gable-Owings seemed somehow mundane.
I don't always think of Johnny when I go to the practice room (although he did teach me the stand-up that I teach to this day) but when I go out for a pint, I always miss you Johnny Lee.
As a prep school wrestler at Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge in the 1960s, my coach (and English teacher), the great Frank J. Smith, would take me to Harvard in the pre-season to practice with the college students with Mr. Lee's kind permission. I remember him in his red plastic sweat suit (in a room that was already well-heated). Tommy Gilmore taught me many tricks on the mat, including how to counter his leg elevations. It was a great experience. I went to Brown, Coach Smith's alma mater, and later wrestled against the Harvard team.
ReplyDeleteFred Berk, Brown '69
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