Two former Eli athletes and one current Yale student will compete in the 1996 Summer Olympics to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, July 19-Aug. 4.
Celita Schutz '90 is captain of the U.S. judo team, Brian Jamieson '91 will compete in the men's quadruple scull competition, and Peter Devine, a member of the Class of 1999, has captured a berth on the U.S. fencing team.
An Olympic veteran, Ms. Schutz gave up her $50,000-a-year job as a corporate art designer to return to judo and train full-time for the 1996 Olympics. She hired a sports nutritionist to help her drop two weight classes and a sports psychologist to work on controlling her emotions. Six months before winning the 1996 Olympic trials, she shattered her leg at a Brazilian tournament.
Overcoming obstacles, however, is nothing new to Ms. Schutz. As a national champion at age 12, she was told by an orthopedic surgeon to quit sports because she had Osgood-Schatter's disease, an inflammation of the cartilage and bone in the knee joint.
At Yale, Ms. Schutz was a three-year letter-winner in soccer, leading the team in scoring as a sophomore and junior. She earned all-Ivy honors as a striker and was the team's Most Valuable Player in 1987. She also played for the women's basketball team for two years. A resident of Hillsdale, New Jersey, she will compete in the 134-pound class at the Olympics.
Mr. Jamieson, who hails from Livingston, New Jersey, graduated from Yale with a degree in physics and works as a fire protection engineer for Gasser Associates. He started rowing at Yale in 1987 and has been a sculler on the last three U.S. National teams racing at the World Championships. At the 1994 U.S. National Championships, he was a part of the first-place team in the quadruple sculls.
Mr. Devine, who finished fourth in the NCAA Championships as a freshman and earned All-America honors, took this past year off from school to concentrate on the Olympics. He is currently second in the U.S. Fencing Association Point Standings in the foil, and he captured the gold medal in the under-20 victors category at the North American Cup on Jan. 15-17. A native of New York City, he is one of nine men who will represent the United States in fencing at the Olympics -- three each for foil, epee and sabre.
In all, 119 Yale athletes have captured 87 medals in the Olympics since 1900.