Pat McCormick, famed Seal Beach diver who won gold medals in the sport at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympic Games, has died at the age of 92.
Growing up as a street kid in Seal Beach in the 1930s, Pat McCormick loved the beach, loved the water, loved competing and loved taking chances. She had no idea there were such things as Olympic Games, and diving was something kids did for fun.
“I ran out and we got in line,” McCormick said. “We had gotten all dressed up and we marched out and took our hats off. I raised the ‘flag.’ Everybody stopped and thought, ‘Isn’t that sweet!’ — until they looked up. And we got the heck out of there.” “Sometimes, we’d wait until boats were coming into the harbor and do cannonballs, splashing them,” she recalled often. “They called me Patsy Pest.”
“I said, ‘Sir, is there anything structurally wrong with my head?’ “ McCormick recalled. “He said, ‘No,’ and had this little smile and said, ‘I’ve never seen such a hard head.’ “
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