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| Photo courtesy of BU Photo Services |
Before they were gold. In April 1896, during his second year at BU’s School of Law, Thomas Edmund Burke (LAW’1897) took a six-week leave of absence from his studies to compete in the first Olympic Games of the modern era, in Athens. In a letter to LAW Dean Edmund H. Bennett requesting leave, Burke wrote: “I shall wear the colors of BU in these games, and hope to uphold the reputation of the University.” He did so, winning first place in both the 100- and 400-meter track events at the ancient Panathenaicon stadium. He won no gold, however: Olympic champions that year received instead a silver medal, an olive branch, and sometimes special donated items, such as a silver cup, which Burke appears to be holding, in addition to two scrolls, in this photo. He’s pictured beside a chargé d’affaires of King George I of Greece, before 150,000 spectators in Athens. Burke would go on to practice law in Massachusetts for six years, coach track briefly, and work as a sportswriter for the Boston Journal and the Boston Post, according to Margo Hagopian, an assistant to the dean at LAW, who is writing an as-yet-untitled history of the school. Burke enlisted in the U.S. Army at the outbreak of World War I, at age 43, and died in Boston in 1929.
3 September 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations