Conn Findlay

Conn Findlay graduated from Cal/Berkeley in 1956 and spent many years at sport’s highest levels. He started as a rower for Cal and was partnered by Stanford’s Dan Ayrault and coxswain, Kurt Seiffert, at the 1956 Olympics. After a losing effort in Rome in 1960, partnered by stroke-oar Dick Draeger, he reached the highest step of the victory platform with Ed Ferry and coxswain, Kent Mitchell, at the 1964 Olympics. Findlay and Ferry also won two national titles in the pairs with, as well as the 1963 Pan-Am gold medal in that event (with the non-Olympian cox Charles Blitzer). In 1974 Findlay was a crew member with Dennis Conner on the boat, Mariner, at the America’s Cup trials. Though Mariner was not chosen to defend the Cup, Conner picked Findlay to join him in 1976 and together they won a bronze medal in Tempest class yachting. Conn Findlay achieved yachting’s ultimate in 1977, however, when he served as the mast man on Ted Turner’s Courageous, which defended the America’s Cup. In 1983 he again served as a crew member on Courageous in the Cup Trials, this time for skipper John Kolius.