User talk:TaylorBrad

Andrew O'Dea (1868-1936)
Early Life - Born in Australia in Kilmore, Australia on December 4, 1868. Andrew O'Dea was a professional sculler. As a member of the Yarra Yarra Rowing Club of Melbourne, Australia, he was a member of winning boats in the Melbourne, Calea and Geelong and Barrow regattas.

(insert appropriate text from Wiki entry for brother Pat O'Dea)

Early Career - O'Dea came to the U.S. at age 25 in early 1894 as part of the entourage of "Paddy" Slavin, an aspiring Australian boxer seeking to earn a world championship fight against john L. Sullivan. Slavin lost several preliminary matches, leaving O'Dea to find other work while in Minneapolis, MN. In 1894, he took a position coaching the Lurine Boat Club (now known as the Minnesota Rowing Club). On November 18, 1894, O'Dea came to Madison, WIsconsin to attend a University of Minnesota-University of Wisconsin football game (Wisconsin won 6-0). About this time, newly named University President Charles Kendall Adams, who brought an interest in rowing from his prior position as President of Cornell College, discovered O'Dea and persuaded him to come to Wisconsin and coach the Badger's varsity crew. Bringing a full time coach to Madison's rowing program did much to raise the profile of the sport on campus and around the state.

Andrew O'Dea coached the Badger crews from 1894-1898 and again from 1899-1906, having taken a job in 1898-99 to coach the crew in Harvard's second boathouse. Curran C. McConville coached for the one year (1898-99) of O'Dea's absence.

Sometime in early 1896, Andrew O'Dea corresponded with his brother Patrick in Australia inviting him to come to Madison, WI for a visit. Over the summer of 1896, with no advance notice, Pat knocked on Andrew's office door and simply said "Hello." Andrew is rumored to have looked up without emotion and said, "Hi, Pat." In the course of a pick-up game of soccer, probably on the then playing fields on the Library Mall, Pat was overseen by one of the football coaches watching Pat kicking long soccer goals. Pat was signed up to play football that fall and won letters in football for the next four seasons. Pat, known as the "Kangaroo Kicker" was Captain and an All-American for the two seasons of 1898 and 1899. {Note - Patrick's Wiki page should consistently show playing varsity football at Wisconsin for 4 years 1896-1899.}

Coaching Career 3.1 Wisconsin (1894-98) and 1899-1906) - Over this span, O'Dea took his varsity eight out east for a race against the Yale freshmen on Lake Saltonstall on June 18, 1896. This was the year Yale-Harvard athletic contests in all sport were suspended because of the brutality of their 1894 football game  In the UW-Yale varsity-freshman race, the Badgers won by 10 lengths and 34 seconds over a two-mile course.  On the way back to Madison, the Badger crew attended the 1896 Poughkeepsie Regatta as spectators.

In a follow-up race in the spring of 1897, again on Lake Saltonstall, Yale's varsity beat the Wisconsin eight by half a length over two miles; 5,000 fans watched the race.

Wisconsin first attended the famous Poughkeepsie Regatta (later becoming the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA's) in 1898. Traditionally held on the Hudson River off Poughkeepsie, New York, the threat of a Spanish warship entering the Hudson River during this period of the Spanish-American War caused the race stewards to move the race to Lake Saratoga, NT.  Wisconsin's varsity came in 3rd on the three-mile course, behind Penn and Cornell.

3.2 Harvard (1898-1899) - In his one season at Harvard, O'Dea coached the crews rowing out of University Boathouse, one of Harvard's two boathouses.

4. Later Life O'Dea died in 1936.

5. References "Wisconsin Where They Row," by Bradley F. Taylor

6. External Links

(TaylorBrad (talk) 15:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC))