After the medal ceremony on the podium, after the playing of the national anthem, after the kiss-and-cry, after the press conferences and appearances on The Tonight Show and all the hoopla that surrounds the Olympics …what comes next?
Once you’ve achieved the pinnacle of athletic achievement—participation in the Olympic Games—what’s the next step in life? After all, you can’t do back handsprings or run the hundred-meter dash forever. Once their athletic careers wind down, some of our favorite American Olympians end up earning a living in surprising ways.
Johnny Weissmüller
After the 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games, in which he won five gold medals for swimming, Weissmüller retired an undefeated champion. In 1932, he signed a contract with MGM studios to star in a new Tarzan film, which made him a heartthrob and overnight sensation; he was far more famous as an actor than he had been as a swimmer. Weissmüller appeared in a dozen Tarzan movies for MGM and RKO, and while he was not the first man to play the character, he was the first to be associated with the ululating call that became Tarzan’s trademark. Weissmüller also played the title character of “Jungle Jim” in another dozen movies about a big-game hunter in Asia. When he died in 1984, he requested that a recording of the famous Tarzan yell be played at his funeral.
Jesse Owens
Only two generations away from slavery, Owens infuriated the Nazis by winning four gold track and field medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was hailed as a national hero, but even at his own congratulatory party at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria, he was forced to take the freight elevator because of his race. He tried to gain endorsements for himself, but few materialized, and he was relegated to performing in shows where he raced against horses in order to make ends meet. He once said, “People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals.” He ran a dry-cleaning business and worked as a gas-station attendant, and, sadly, the U.S. government sued Owens for tax evasion even after he declared bankruptcy. In his fifties, he started earning a comfortable living by doing corporate and motivational speaking engagements, until he died of lung cancer at age sixty-six, in 1980.
Greg Louganis
The man some regard as the best diver in history won gold medals in 1984, as well as in 1988, when he famously hit his head on the diving board. After retiring from diving, Louganis took small roles in several Hollywood movies, performed in off-Broadway plays in New York, and cowrote an autobiography. As an openly gay man with HIV, he has become an outspoken advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness and associated causes. Although he still occasionally makes personal appearances and gives motivational speeches, Louganis now spends most of his time and energy training dogs. In 1999, he coauthored a book on dog ownership called For the Life of Your Dog. He also competes in agility competitions with his two Jack Russell terriers, Nipper and Dobby, his Border collie, Gryff, and his Hungarian Pumi, Hedwig.
Debi Thomas
Thomas was the first (and only) African American to win a medal for figure skating. She earned the bronze in 1988, competing in the “Battle of the Carmens” with gold medalist Katarina Witt. While Thomas was skating competitively, she was also a full-time college student (she graduated from Stanford University in 1991), and not long after the Olympics, she quit skating altogether. She went to medical school at Northwestern University and eventually became an orthopedic surgeon. Today, she has a private practice in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Kerri Strug
Part of the “Magnificent Seven” and the darling of the 1996 Atlanta games, Strug attended Stanford University after retiring from gymnastics. After college, she taught elementary school in California, eventually moving to Washington, D.C. She got a job in the Office of Presidential Student Correspondence, answering letters that schoolchildren had sent to the president. In 2005, President Bush nominated her for a position as a program manager in the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, where she still works today.
